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Aaron Dembski-Bowden

2022-10-30T10:09:51Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Criticisms */

{{heresy}}

[[File:ADB.jpg|250px|right|thumb|The mag size indicates that he only has about 6 shots. The question is, did he already fire four, or six?]]
'''Aaron Dembski-Bowden''' is not [[Graham McNeill]].

ADB is a writer for the '''[[Black Library]]'''. He also [http://aarondembskibowden.wordpress.com has a blog]. He is known to be fairly responsive to fan inquiries on the Internets. He has actually given his [[Awesome|thanks to /tg/ in print]] as "the elegan/tg/entlemen", in the ''Night Lords'' omnibus acknowledgements page.

He's considered a controversial figure in the black library for style of moralising 40ks villains, his stances on representation, his seeming determination to flesh out beings that would otherwise be beyond the comprehension of regular humans, and his own personal creative commentaries.

Outside the Black Library, Aaron has also worked on ''[[Hunter: The Vigil]]'', wrote a short story for League of Legends ''From the Ashes'' and penned the short pieces of fiction, [[Dude, Where's my Land Speeder?]] and "[[What it's like]]". He's well-liked by Daemonhunter lore masters, due to his effort in at least making the new [[Grey Knights]] lore more palatable (given the rage-inducing material he had to work with). Where there were once just [[Mary Sue]]s after the Glory Days of 3rd Ed., now there is at least a semblance of deeper character to the 5th Ed. Grey Knights, outside the idiocy written by a certain [[Matt Ward|Spiritual Liege]]. He even ties them back into threads left from [[Ravenor]], so that the influence of [[Dan Abnett|Saint Abnett]] can cleanse them. In fact, he's pretty good at making all factions awesome but imperfect. See, for example, his portrayal of Angron: while Angron is indeed a dreaded unstoppable killing machine, he's also a pitiful character who blames others for his problems. ABD also wrote the greatest speech in the entirety of GW published works for Angron in Betrayer making him at once a figure of pity, a sad portrayal of a man whose lost his will to continue and a righteous badass on the search for revenge.

He has also committed himself to rehabilitating the reputation of [[Abaddon the Despoiler]], with all the controversy that implies. He's certainly not above ripping into old Failbaddon either, as evidenced in the ''Night Lords'' trilogy where Talos has nothing but open contempt for him, point blank outlining all the reasons the Despoiler and his Legion suck, [[awesome|''to his face.'']] This is particularly noteworthy when contrasted with Talos' genuine respect for Huron Blackheart's power, authority, and achievements, even while planning on backstabbing the Corsairs.

He also wrote arguably the best speech in the 40k setting in [[Grimaldus]]'s rallying cries to the people of Helsreach. Go check it out, seriously, it’ll give you goosebumps.

==Criticisms==
Lest you think we're going soft, though, we should point out that he has received some pretty harsh criticism, particularly for his portrayal of the [[Emperor]] as a raging torrent of incompetence and jackassery the likes of which Earth had not seen since Mussolini made his last public appearance upside down at a petrol station. Then AGAIN, this view isn't exactly unheard of; while it's been acknowledged that Emps might've been a bit of a dick in some aspects, and the idea of the Emperor as a completely flawless human being can read like something clung to heavily by Imperial propaganda, some of these portrayals Big-E are from the point of view of Traitor Legions, who already have a... [[Heresy|less-than-positive view of the guy]], and this is where the joke that "the D in ADB stands for 'Daddy Issues'" springs from.

Some have even accused him of turning the ''Horus Heresy'' books into a public therapy session for his daddy issues, which, to be fair, is comparable to [[C.S. Goto]] using his books as a public therapy session for his depression and not having the chops to be a Hollywood screenwriter. He also has a major issue with making the characters he likes look perfect while shitting on other groups: see his [[Grey Knights]] book especially, which just becomes a [[Space Wolves]] wank, and ''The First Heretic'', which is often considered utterly fantastic ''outside'' of the two pages his beloved Night Lords show up and snark all over Lorgar and the Word Bearers. Oh, and let's not forget a chapter serf of the Mentors being armed with a shotgun with an underbarrel grenade launcher rocking three [[Warp_Weapons#Vortex_Grenade|Vortex Grenades]]. You know, the kind of of weapon [[Cato Sicarius]] himself was issued only one of during the second battle of Damnos where the honour of the Ultramarines chapter was supposedly at stake?

More and more, he seems to be getting his way at Black Library, especially in the Horus Heresy series, and some well-loved fluff is being rewritten after a very long time going unchanged. Many point at ''Master of Mankind,'' the book specifically about Big-E, which no one at BL was smart enough to realize they shouldn't assign to the guy constantly criticized for how he writes that character. Another small but telling example of man's writing is the inclusion of Arkhan Land. While it was established in canon that Arkhan disappeared before the Land Speeders he had rediscovered were implemented in the Legiones Astartes (decades before HH), ADB either didn't know or didn't care, so old Techno-archaeologist was crammed into ''Master of Mankind''. There is also the matter of the [[Blood Ravens]], whom in older lore were heavily implied to be missing loyalist offshoots of the [[Thousand Sons]]. ADB apparently tried to jettison this theory by having the "missing" Thousand Sons from the Horus Heresy reappear in one of his novels. A later index would retcon them to be Ravens afflicted by flesh-change, but the 'damage' was already done: Some neckbeards [[RAGE|just don't like it when you fuck around with the bread and butter]], and who are we to blame them? As indicated in the sections below, his approach to writing more female and non-white characters into the setting has also caught some [[Skub|inevitable flak]].

He also said in one interview he had wanted to add female Custodians and kill off Lorgar "like a dog", and the only reason he didn't was because of direct intervention from his superiors. In another one, ADB admitted he adds aforementioned female/minorities characters in his works just to trigger the haters. Yeah. That strategy always certainly "[[Not as Planned|does]] [[Fail|wonders]]" for the attached property, just ask ''[[HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhnnnnnnngggggg-|Ghostbusters 2016]]''.

Insofar as one can actually speak for a large, completely anonymous community, [[/tg/]] appears to have mostly turned against old Aaron as of late, and even in a best-case scenario opinions will still be mixed. That said, "as of late" are the keywords; some of the hate is just as likely to be aggravated newer posters as it is some of the older guard changing their mind, or some mixture thereof; ADB still has his fans, of course, but mentioning him is much more likely to generate [[skub]]. Well, let's face it, he writes Big-E like he were a Chaos God of Shakespearean rage.

Another notable fuck-up is in [[Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate - Daemonhunters]]. As writer of the games' script, he apparently saw nothing wrong with having [[Mortarion]] (and hordes of his best men) be defeated by Draigo and a few chosen Grey Knights while in the Garden of Nurgle. This was the first time a [[Primarch]] has ever been directly portrayed and fought in an official 40K game (BFGA2 and its nominal appearances notwithstanding), and ADB made Mortarion look like a complete joke. It's quite likely to be worse than the heart-carving incident too. When Draigo carved the heart, he spoke a true name created by the God Emperor. But in Daemonhunters, no such excuse exists for defeating Morty in the WARP. Making things even worse is that this is a mistake ADB should've known better than to make: Eldar fans will be particularly insulted to see a few Grey Knights successfully storm the Garden when an ENTIRE ARMY of Craftworld Lugganath's most powerful psykers were killed casting their minds into that realm after a few days of battle to try and free Isha.

ADB has once again made himself skub-bait with his ''Siege of Terra'' book, ''Echoes of Eternity''. Reception by chaos fans has been somewhat mixed thus far, with many vociferous complaints leveled against his entry to the series. Some readers (but [[World Eaters]] fans in particular) were beyond livid to see [[Angron]] beg as [[Sanguinius]] banished him by ripping the Butcher's Nails from his skull. Defenders of the novel counter that this is a logical endpoint of a daemon primarch who is by now a demonstrable shell of himself, and/or that Angron was saying no to the nails being ripped out because of how fundamental they are to Angron now. But detractors point out that Angron did in fact beg for his life and that the text explicitly portrayed it as something that was meant to be shameful for Angron. Moreover, this was preceded by Angron feeling cowed in the face of the fury exhibited by Sanguinius, which at the time of the incident, despite the influence of both the Butcher's Nails and the voice of Khorne himself (not to mention the increasingly panicked pestering of Horus), exceeded the rage of Angron, to the point of feeling jealousy towards the Great Angel. Yet others also claim that such a moment and behavior is unbecoming to a character who only sought death over servitude to anyone. An argument could be made that this criticism skirts over the huge elephant in the room of Angron later being enslaved to Khorne, an unimaginably crueler master. However, it's also worth pointing out that this was done by Lorgar against Angron's will. [[FAIL|Not the best way to advertise his newest model, either]].

Another sore spot was the duel between [[Magnus the Red]] and [[Vulkan]], with Vulkan being a walking soap box for the author to cast aspersions at the 'Magnus Did Nothing Wrong' meme. On the one hand, the points Vulkan makes are admittedly hard ones to refute, but what's much less convincing is why they're even being brought up in the first place within the context of the story, and so come off as a wee bit contrived. Which is to say nothing of how the defining sequence of 'Fury of Magnus' was retconned into being an elaborate hallucination by a fragmented Magnus, used to highlight the primarch's martyr complex, arrogance, and continued fall in his subservience to chaos.

Yet another issue raised was about what the book decided to spend its time on. Rather than potential interactions that would build up to the clash between significant characters like Sanguinius and Angron or renowned legionnaires, far too much time was put on people and plotlines who (even the book wanted you to believe) were meaningless. The penultimate book in one of the most high profile series isn't the place for padding the story with flashbacks either, when said content could've been fleshed out elsewhere.

There were other minor-yet-jarring mistakes, such as Arkhan Land referring to [[Rogal Dorn]] as the [[Perturabo|4th]] (this is Arkhan being deliberate) - and Dorn not knowing (or pretending not to know) Vulkan was on Terra.

==Common Themes==
Through his novels you can notice a handful of common themes, listed below:

*He likes Chaotic Neutral(ish) characters.
**He is hence great at writing Robert E. Howard-styled characters (how is it that he hasn't written any Conan pastiche?).
*He enjoys writing in first-point-of-view, although he can work in third-point-of-view.
*He mostly portrays Space Marines in his novels, although he has a few works with non-SM as well.
*If there is a ship at one of his stories, expect him to make the ship be controlled by a young woman. He says he tries to balance the testosterone with female mortal characters, which naturally draws the usual accusations of [[SJW|diversity quotas]], [[waifu]]-shilling and the like.
*He tends to write events through the protagonist's perception, and thus has to spend lots of time telling people not to take the opinions of said protagonist (for example, anything said by or about the Emperor in MoM) at face value.
**Considering the average [[neckbeard]]'s tendency to erect anything written as holy unalterable canon, it is a necessary reminder. Unfortunately ADB seems to have forgotten this himself, as he treats his own writing as holy, unalterably canon that nothing else can ever contradict or oppose.
*He seems to have spearheaded breaking the classic image of the Emperor, turning him from a grimdark, space-fascist [[Sigmar]] into an emotionless Lex Luthor - this is ''still'' [[Grimdark|the approximation of "good"]] in 30k and 40k, mind.
*He considers the 40k franchise [[Heresy|fated to be ultimately won by Chaos.]] Despite all the anti-Chaos stuff in 40k. (It would be funny seeing him getting charged to write some stuff about [[Age of Sigmar]].) Seriously though, with the Eldar, the Tyranids, Orks, but ''especially'' the Necrons, and all that anti-psyker and anti-Warp tech everyone else has, not to mention the non-chaos gods of the warp, as well as the infighting of the Ruinous Powers themselves... Even with the Great Rift cutting the galaxy in two, with all of that arrayed against them, Chaos needs a boost to have a real chance. To say nothing of the C'tan.
*He is quickly approaching [[Dan Abnett]]'s record of number of beloved characters murdered. Seriously. Reading his books, especially the Horus Heresy ones, is like watching him rip your heart out and chew on it while he coos: "Was it good for you too?"

== ADB on the Emperor in Master of Mankind ==
TL;DR: Everyone who has the chance to be in the Emperor's presence perceives something different, based on their own experiences and expectations. Nothing He ever says should be taken at face value, since it is 'warped' by the narrator's interpretation.

In response to criticisms on his portrayal of the Emperor, ADB posted this detailed answer:

''That's true, and I definitely wanted to bring out a better understanding of his vision and what he was up against, but that's also lore I'd wager anyone with a deep knowledge of the setting already had a handle on to some degree, whether explicitly or not. What I wanted to avoid was too much "new" stuff. You have to put in something new, and thankfully what little newness I do introduce in my work is seemingly well-regarded, but I've always said our job (as I see it) is to illustrate the setting and show what it's like to live there, not to set it in stone. As much as the fandom adores "advancing the storyline", it's not something that interests me, by and large. I try my best to show things from the perspectives of characters on the ground level, bring a few perceptions of the setting through the lens of my own imagination and the insight I'm lucky enough to get endlessly talking about the setting with its creators and inheritors, and then get out. Most of my books are, to some extent, not definitive. They're about Some Guy, not the entire faction.

''Grimaldus in Helsreach has no bond to the wider war on Armageddon and hates that he's been left behind by the Black Templars, but he's (hopefully) a good example of what it feels like to be a Black Templar, and to think like one, and - crucially - what it feels like to be a human around them. Talos and the other characters of First Claw spend a trilogy unable to decide what the Night Lords Legion really was, and each of them remembers their glory days differently. I didn't want to speak for the whole Legion. Hyperion in The Emperor's Gift is a largely generic Grey Knight present in dire circumstances. HH-wise, I didn't want to show all of the Word Bearers and base a book around the expectations of Kor Phaeron, Lorgar, and Erebus, so I focused on the Serrated Sun in the middle of the changes taking place across the galaxy. Savage Weapons is largely about Corswain, not about Curze and the Lion. The Master of Mankind is about Ra, Zephon, Jaya, and Land in the heart of the Emperor's plans for the species, not about the Emperor himself. As much as I wrote about Angron and Lorgar, they get significantly less in-their-heads screen time than most other primarchs in most other books.''

''It's harder to do that with the Heresy, but - again - I do my best to present individual experiences and mindsets in characters like Khârn, Argel Tal, and Ra, rather than definitive looks at the entire Chapter/Legion/faction and setting its events in stone. I try to present a feel for how it is to live inside that culture and be part of the experiences they go through; it's about immersion into the Chapter or Legion, presenting them as believable and real, not definitively saying "All of Chapter X are like Y."
''
''So: I'm reluctant to talk about TMoM and the Emperor's perception in that book in any real detail, partly because the book is still new and there's a lot individual readers would do better discovering for themselves without my thoughts in public, and partly because everything I'd say is ultimately in the book. Anything I say will be taken out of context or weaponised one way or another somewhere, and used in a way that makes me sigh, cringe, or a dramatic melange of both that shall hereafter be called the sigh-cringe.
''
''(Plus, most of all, I have faith in readers. They don't need me defining anything, even if it might be interesting for a few peeps.)''

''So, I'll just say this. The Master of Mankind is entirely from the perspectives of people that meet the Emperor in pretty specific circumstances. There are, obviously, other circumstances to come. Nothing in it is definitive, even less so than my usual work. Any definitive statement you can make about how the Emperor sees something or does something is almost always contradicted in the book itself. That's not an escape clause or an excuse. It's the point. Writing him definitively would've been the easiest and most disappointing thing in the world.
''
''(And on that note, remember, everyone views 40K differently. What Person X is absolutely certain is the truth of the Emperor and the best way to present him would be laughed off by Persons A, B, and C. The flip side to that is that not every perspective is founded in fact or understanding. The earliest "I've not read this yet, but..." criticisms and misunderstandings of TMoM in, ah, certain reddit/chan-style locations was regarded by GW IP folks as, I quote: "These angry people seem to be beholden to a version of 40K that has never existed...")
''
''But in all seriousness, I don't want to delve too deeply into explaining the ways the Emperor's contradictions matter or don't matter. They're there, and they're definitely formative - totally agree - if not exactly definitive. With the Emperor, a lot of interaction is about getting out what you put in. You get what you give. Your perceptions and expectations are reflected back on you because that's how the human brain perceives everything (a fact that cannot be overstated; the science behind it is fascinating and all-important), especially when you're talking about someone who exists on that plane of power. At one point the Emperor makes mention of the notion that he's not even speaking, that being near to him allows the conveyance of meaning through psychic osmosis, and communication telepathically. He's not even talking. It's raw understanding filtering through a mind, or just the way the mortal mind comprehends the aura of what the Emperor intends, or, or, or...
''
''That's what I mean. TMoM is littered with that stuff. Does he only address the primarchs by number instead of name? Some characters will swear he does that, and doesn't that just perfectly match their perspectives of the primarchs as either emotionally-compromised "too-human" things that think they're sons (Ra), or genetic masterworks that have become galaxy-damning screw-ups that have literally let the galaxy burn and brought the Imperium to its knees, leading people to be exiled from their homeworlds (Land). Do you think Sanguinius will agree? Or care that's what mortals think? The Emperor's portrayal on that isn't even consistent between Ra and Diocletian, two of his Custodians - and on PAGE ONE, the only time he interacts with a primarch himself, and the one and only thing he says to Magnus the Red is...?
''
"''Magnus''."

''Like... that's a pretty strong indication that the interactions which follow are playing by different rules. Ra sees the Warlord of Humanity, just a man, but a great mean, weary and defiant, burdened by responsibility. Daemons see their annihilation, and go insane in his presence. One of the Knights, as they're marching through the Throne Room, is caught in religious rapture, unable to do anything but stare at the glorious halo of the Emperor of Mankind on the Golden Throne. One of the Sisters of Silence, in the same room, literally just sees a man in a chair. Another character, not Imperial, asks a Custodian if the Emperor even breathes. She believes he's a weapon left out of its box from the Dark Age of Technology. (With thanks to Alan Bligh for that one, he adores that theory.)
''
''So I don't think it's exactly a spoiler to say that if and when I get to write a character like Sanguinius in the Emperor's presence, or Malcador, they'd have entirely different experiences than Ra and Land. I'd loved to have had that in TMoM, but as much as it would've given wider context, these aren't rulebooks and essays; it would've been self-indulgent for the sake of 'hoping people get it', and cheapened the story being told, which was ultimately in a very narrow and confined set of circumstances. Breaking out of that narrative would be offering a sense of scope and freedom I was specifically trying to avoid in a claustrophobic siege story. Because theme and atmosphere is a thing.''
''

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:ADBDoesn'tPlayTheGame.jpg|Just like [[you]], ADB doesn't play 40k or paint minis.
Image:AdbNonsense.png|ADB on your nonsense and why it's "easy to ignore"
Image:Adb_goes_all_defend_abbadon.jpg|ADB, defending Abaddon, and comparing forced [[meme|memery]] to the antics of his small children.
Image:Difference_between_adb_and_abnett.png|[[Skub|A well-thought-out comparison between ADB and Abnett's storytelling styles.]]
Image:How_to_ask_adb_a_question.jpg|How to ask ADB a question
Image:ADB Self Insert.png|Pure [[Edgy|OC DONUT STEEL]], directly from the man's work. Big tiddy goth eldar gf included.
Image:ScourgeWaifu.png|Trying to justify said Deldar online, because he didn't do it in his books.
Image:TGOnADB.png|A fa/tg/uy on Spears of the Emperor
Image:QuotasInYour40k.jpg|Writing different protags is one thing, but "50-50" [[SJW|just screams tokenism]] unless you remember only about one tenth of the population of the real world is white and we're dealing with 40,000 years of megacity melting pots. It should be a hell of a lot less than 50-50 (by that logic there shouldn't be any races at all).
Image:Female Custodes.png|He considered writing [[Female Space Marines|female]] [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodes]] in, but was overruled. Probably for the better, [[Skub|people are pretty attached]] to their fabulous Sacred Band of Thebestodes.[[PROMOTIONS|Not that it'll stop some fans.]] More importantly, while female Custodes would not have the issues of Female Space Marines they could breed with male Custodes and Empy is big time against transhumans breeding.
</gallery>

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]][[Category:Writers]][[category:Black Library]]

Indomitus Crusade

2022-10-29T07:06:21Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Other Imperial issues */

{{Topquote|To the Space Marine Chapters bloodied and besieged in the [[Age of the Dark Imperium|Dark Imperium]], we bring reinforcement. To the Chapters lost in valiant duty or driven to destruction, we offer rebirth. To the enemies of my father's empire, we bring death. With these words I, Roboute Guilliman, Lord Commander of the Imperium, son of the Emperor of Mankind declare the Indomitus Crusade. Traitors, mutants, daemons. Heed to the coming of my armies and the ruin we promise to your miserable kind. This galaxy is ours!|[[Roboute Guilliman]], Lord Commander of the Imperium, son of the [[Emperor]] of Mankind.}}

[[File:AAdNxj2_700b.jpg|500px|thumb|right|Roboute Guilliman, trying to channel as much the Emperor's charisma as possible while the sky goes bananas on him]]
The '''Indomitus Crusade''' is the Imperium's latest major military campaign, in response to Abaddon's 13th Black Crusade, its successful destruction of Cadia and the fracturing of the galaxy in two pieces. After the combined efforts of Archmagos [[Cawl]], Saint [[Celestine]] and the [[Ynnari]] to bring the Primarch Roboute Guilliman back from stasis, he reaches Terra and takes full control of the Imperium to try and [[get shit done]]. To do this, he declares a massive crusade to push back the forces of Chaos, unveiling his brand new and very [[Games Workshop|marketable]] [[Primaris Marines]] to spearhead his attack against Chaos, even if no one really trusts these new guys. The Indomitus Crusade lasted around a century and managed to stabilize the Imperium, but the 13th Black Crusade is technically still going on. Also, this event is the first major step into the 42nd Millennium (or not because calendars are fucked in this grimdark future), [[Ciaphas Cain]]'s novels notwithstanding.

This event is especially remarkable because this is the biggest [[Advancing the Storyline|advance of the 40K storyline]] in decades, making people really afraid of this being another Age of Sigmar. For now, those fears have been pushed aside; the galaxy is still there, although split by the Cicatrix Maledictum.

==Phase 1: Gathering forces and the Second Battle of Terra==
Soon after Guilliman arrived to Terra and took the title of Lord Commander of the Imperium (thus becoming the effective ruler of the Imperium of Mankind at the behest of [[Emperor|Daddy]] and Head of the [[High Lords of Terra]]), he started to gather up all the forces he could to counter the forces of Chaos that were pouring from the Warp in massive amounts: Astartes, Mechanicum, Navy, Guard Regiments, the Sisters of Silence, some Custodes elements (finally entering the galactic fray after millennia of doing fuck all), and the new and now on sale Primaris Marines to spearhead the counterattack. While he was busy gathering his forces Terra was attacked by the Legions of [[Khorne]]. The Blood God was fed up with the other idiots mucking about around the Cicatrix Maledictum believing they'd won, so he went to finish the job on his own and sent in eight of his Legions... who were quickly and swiftly sent running back to the Warp with [[rage|extreme prejudice]] and [[dakka|overwhelming firepower.]]

This small incursion, however, caused massive panic and unrest on Terra proper. The Terran anti-Warp defenses failing to prevent the opening of a rift from where Chaos attacks could pour from was a major concern, and some argued that Guilliman should stay to defend Terra. But the Primarch knew that to prevent the situation from going completely bad he had to bring the fight to the enemy. His forces set out from the centre of the Imperium, course set for the hundreds of planets either under siege or already conquered by the Ruinous Powers. During all of this, the Astronomicon was not working properly, constantly flickering and making Warp jumps a pretty risky move. And considering Guilliman's Crusade used almost half of the Navy Fleet in Segmentum Solar, they had to do very short jumps, slowing the beginning of the Crusade down considerably.

==Phase 2: Guilliman frees a bunch of planets and brings Primarines to the Chapters==
Guilliman soon arrived into the thick of things. He travelled around dozens of planets, liberating those that could be saved and exterminatusing those that could not. Slowly but surely, Imperial forces managed to push back the chaotic tide. Albeit only enough to stabilize some of the war fronts. The arrival to Catachan was a specially interesting point in the Crusade: the planet's local fauna was so deadly it scared away even the daemons, which probably brought a decent amount of morale-uplifting laughter to the Imperial forces involved. As the tides of the Warp calmed, astropathic communications started to improve all around (even if the Imperium Nihilus was still pretty much isolated from the light of the Astronomican). The more planets the Primarch freed, the more reinforcements he added to his campaign and the more momentum it built up. During this phase of the Crusade they went to the other side of the Imperium, the part that would be known as the Imperium Nihilus or Dark Imperium, and saw the horrible things that had been going on there without a consistent shine of the Astronomican. They came across the massive meatgrinder that was the [[Devastation of Baal|Battle for Baal]] between [[Hive Fleet Leviathan]] and all the [[Blood Angels]]' descendant chapters Dante could muster. Even though the battle was pretty much over when Guilliman arrived (stated by himself to [[Dante]] once the fight was over), Guilliman used his enormous fleet to purge and chase away as many splinter fleets of Leviathan as possible before the reconstruction of Baal and before they could restart the crusade against Chaos. Guilliman also appointed Dante as the military leader of the Imperium Nihilus, which means [[awesome|he has the maximum authority over half of the Imperium, only below the Primarch and the Emperor]].

It is also during this phase that the already extant Astartes Chapters started getting their Primaris reinforcements, with all manner of colourful reactions. After much grumbling, the general consensus ended up being "accept them or the [[Adeptus Custodes]] will shove a Guardian Spear up your ass, also fucking hell we need the manpower".

==Phase 3: Nurgle attacks [[Ultramar]] and Guilliman ends the Crusade==
After a century of war and freeing planets beyond count, the front was largely stabilized, Chaos contained into the Cicatrix Maledictum, and tentative contact had been reestablished with Imperium Nihilus. Guilliman's forces were however exhausted and Belisarius Cawl needed to refill the Primarines' ranks. Many of the crusading forces wanted to consolidate their gains rather than continuing the conquests and stretching their forces thinner and thinner throughout the galaxy.

The deciding point was the [[Plague Wars|invasion]] of the Ultramar realm by the forces of [[Nurgle]], taking advantage of the drawing of forces for the Crusade leaving planets relatively undefended. Thus after the Battle of Raukos on 111.M42, Guilliman called it a day and dissolved the Indomitus Crusade, capping off the Ultima Founding by disbanding the final core of [[Unnumbered Sons]] veterans to new Primaris chapters, allowing everyone to go home and deal with the invasion. With that, the Indomitus Crusade reached its end on a globally positive note as the 13th Black Crusade had been mostly contained and the situation was no longer deteriorating quite as badly as it was before, which is probably the closest thing to a change for the better within the setting since, well, ever.

===The Retconning===
So 9th Edition decided for whatever reason to retcon the crusade from concluded to still ongoing, with the Raukos conflict merely wrapping up a phase in the larger crusade. Probably because there was no reason to end the Crusade. You cannot win a war just by defending. To say nothing of how the Imperium, Adeptus Astartes, and countless other major factions would view ending the most important and successful offensive since the freaking ''Great Crusade'' merely because a few planets in Ultramar were invaded. Because of this new corporate direction, the entire Dark Imperium series of novels is being rewritten to better fit the situation in the Dawn of Fire novels and everything else (including the recent [[Psychic Awakening]] series to an extent) being built around this.

==Results of the conflict==
The Indomitus Crusade managed to push the forces of Chaos long enough for the [[13th Black Crusade]] to start losing its momentum (because Chaos doesn't stay organized for long and a lot of its warlords decided to start pillaging nearby systems rather than keep pushing towards Terra), thus preventing more damage from being done. This doesn't mean that the Imperium didn't suffer a massive blow: the [[Great Rift|'''Cicatrix Maledictum''']] and the losing of planets in hundred thousands means this was the biggest blow the Imperium has suffered since the days of the [[Horus Heresy]] or the [[War of the Beast]]. And you can be sure those worlds in there are going to be shitting out Dark Mechanicum, Lost and the Damned, and Daemonic threats soon enough once they fully get their Chaos on. The only saving grace is that the process would devastate the worlds within and their populations and Chaos isn't all that good at building stuff compared to everyone else.

===The Dark Imperium Stabilizes===
Half of the Imperium still gets barely any light from the [[Astronomican]], isolating the Imperium Nihilus from the Emperor's light and also cutting it off from any reinforcements that might come from the other side of the Imperium (except through one available warp route occupied by a traitor Knight House or, y'know, going around or above or under the Great Rift), exposing it to future attacks from heretics and xenos alike and making warp travel an even more hazardous experience. The splitting of the Imperium into two halves (one that is able to keep itself stable enough due to Guilliman and being on the same side as the Astronomican, and one which is basically daemon food) is bound to cause problems on the off chance there's enough of the Imperium left to break away in the Imperium Nihilus, not to mention that most Chaos forces are still running amok throughout the galaxy and now have a ''gigantic'' base of operations to launch their attacks from instead of the much smaller [[Eye of Terror]] and the [[Maelstrom]].

That said, the Primaris reinforcements to the Dark Angels and Blood Angels have alleviated the worst of the 13th Black Crusade's rampage, so it's not entirely hopeless. [[Dante]] is also honored by Gulliman and placed in charge of the Imperium Nihilus when he can't get to it, so they're not without any sort of leadership.

===Other Imperial issues===
The Primaris Marines debate has only gotten worse after the end of the Crusade, with most people seeing Cawl's creations as either necessary abominations or an outright heresy, depending on whom you ask. If Guilliman speaks soon and intelligently, this could be dismissed by his pointing out the Primaris are made from the most pure gene-seed in a device created by the Emperor himself using techniques used in the creation of the Custodes, so calling it heresy is like saying the Primarchs and Astartes in general are heretical. The Custodes know the Emperor approves, and the Custodes ''do '''not''''' like it when people refuse the Emperor's will.

On the administrative side, Guilliman has to manage several warzones at once while ruling the whole Imperium and dealing with the [[Ecclesiarchy|various]] [[Inquisition|groups]] that are opposed to his attempted reforms, which is a difficult task even for the Primarch known for his administrative skills. It'll be fine once he realizes that the current Imperium would be totally chill with him just exterminating all the groups opposing him. Even if he tried to wipe out the Ecclesiarchy the vast majority of people wouldn't see a heretic destroying worship of the Emperor but instead would see their religious institution refusing to roll over and die on the whim of one of the God-Emperor's own sons and are therefore heretical for not dying when their god's son told them to.

The Mechanicus' higher echelons are also highly annoyed that Cawl is calling so many shots, and only Cawl's seniority and knowledge of many long-lost technologies has kept them from declaring him an outright heretek - something rather amusing, considering the Primarines and their armour were created by the Emperor's leave before the Great Crusade. The fact that the Emperor = Omnissiah thing is still a thing (despite the recent political/religious tensions Guilliman's caused in the Imperium since his return) may also be lessening this somewhat, since it would be heresy to claim a Prime Conduit of the Omnissiah - one who can prove he's acting on the Omnissiah's own orders, at that - would be a Very Bad Idea for any tech-priest with half an ounce of sense.

===Xenos===
Meanwhile, the [[Tyranids]] ate some more planets and are pushing further into Segmentum Solar, the [[Tau]] lost a whole expansion sphere when they ran straight into the [[Death Guard]]'s main force, the [[Necrons]] expanded some of their empires, the [[Ork]]s did what Orks do (hint: it involves [[Waaagh]]!, [[choppa]] and [[dakka]]) but they're more organized now, and the [[Craftworld]] Eldar are trying to figure out what to think of the Ynnari while generally attempting to not get wiped out by Chaos. The xenos and the danger they pose haven't gone anywhere, but for the time being the Imperium considers Chaos to be the more immediate threat to its existence.

{{40k-Timeline}}

High Lords of Terra

2022-10-29T07:01:54Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Nine Permanent Members */

[[Image:High_Lords.jpg|600px|thumb|right|The Spring 40,002 leisurewear collection from Maison Rouboute, modelled by (L-R): the Inquisitorial Representative, the Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard, the Master of the Administratum (quill-glove: model’s own) and the Fabricator-General of Mars.]]

{{Topquote|Functionaries are like books in a library: the higher they are, the least they serve.|Georges Clemenceau}}
{{Topquote|The measure of a man is what he does with power.|Plato}}

{{topquote|Behold! I've brought you a man!|Diogenes, handing Plato a plucked chicken (it makes sense in context)}}

The '''High Lords of Terra''' (aka “Asthmatic Assholes”) are the twelve members of the '''Senatorum Imperialis''', the Council of the High Lords of Terra, and the rulers of the [[Imperium of Man]] in the [[Emperor|Emperor's]] absence.

==Overview==
After [[Horus]] [[Horus Heresy|got his heresy on]], the Emperor had to "ascend" the Golden Throne to keep himself alive. Since he wasn't dead, [[Roboute Guilliman]] reasoned that a new leadership was needed to guide the Imperium. He took the job of '''Lord Commander of the Imperium''' from [[Rogal Dorn]] and set up the High Lords from the old Council of [[Terra]], inviting the heads of the [[Administratum]], the [[Officio Assassinorum]] and the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] to the table as well. As time went on, the [[Ecclesiarchy]], the [[Inquisition]], the [[Navigator|Navigators]] and others were also invited. They seem to have an inordinate amount of influence over the [[Minotaurs]].

While it's plainly evident that they are not making the Imperium better, there is some evidence that they may be making the Imperium worse than it actually needs to be (although whether this is due to malice or incompetence is anyone's guess, most people are betting on the latter). Exactly what they decide on isn't clear either. "Making decisions that affect the whole galaxy" sounds like a lofty purpose but really all the different departments seem to do things by themselves. The [[Space Marine]] chapters decide where they fight, the Inquisition governs itself, the Navigators govern themselves, the Administratum is like a machine just left running and doesn't even change gears... so unless they are just the people with the stamps to approve everything, we need some more fluff on what they are doing GW!

Well good news, I guess: as of 6th they are becoming more and more pro-active. AND in the new series The Beast Arises has them as the main characters and thus we can finally see how they run things. TL:DR oh, my God-Emperor, they're worse than the fans believed. During [[the War of The Beast]], about half the High Lords were politicking and trying to use the biggest Ork WAAAGH! in their favour, getting billions killed along with dozens of Space Marine Chapters and even, it seems, a Primarch. The others tried to deny its existence entirely, leaving only the Grand Master of Assassins to deal with reality (go figure why he wanted to kill the jackasses). Funny enough they're also all portrayed as being very good at their jobs (the Imperial Navy High Lord is a skilled admiral, for example), they're just too focused on the interests of their own factions to work together. Of course, then the Grand Master of Assassins did [[The Beheading]].

For the times the present day 41st millennium High Lords are mentioned, they tend to be treated with rather neutral tones. Typically the fluff only brings up their reactionary declarations to military matters and nothing about their politics, leaving their effectiveness and competence open to speculation. Given that Warhammer 40k is often about [[Your Dudes]] ("Your Setting" in this case), this is likely intentional.

==The High Lords at the end of the 41st Millenium and the Rise of the Primarch==

''Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor's Legion'' has actually finally given us details about the High Lords during the Fall of Cadia, giving us a full list of names and going into detail on the actual politicking that the Lords get up to (Mostly concerning the Adeptus Custodes' deploytment, which dominates the first half of the book). Lev Tieron, the Chancellor of the Imperial Council of the time, notes that many of the High Lords he'd known were variously mad, obsessed, verifiably sociopathic, power-hungry, or some mix of the above - yet they were still the best qualified to do their jobs, even if the stresses caused them to burn out quickly. He even obliquely references the long-running fandom perception of them as useless idiots disconnected from the state of the Imperium, and notes that to be a understandable if wrong perception of them. Make of that what you will.

It also revealed that an important part of Terra's political background is the so-called "Static Tendency" - essentially the belief that since the Emperor had decreed the Council of Terra was the best way of running the Imperium, [[Inquisition#Puritans|any proposal to deviate from this was only slightly better than outright heresy.]] In practice however, this was little more than an excuse not to upset the status quo or deviate outside from the comfortable norms. This was made blindingly clear in the lead-up to and '''especially''' in the aftermath of Cadia's fall and the subsequent return of the [[Primarch]] [[Roboute Guilliman]], as the Static Tendency would thoroughly reveal itself as a hollow justification to cling to power by those who didn't deserve it, had failed in their duties, and were now willing to resort to treason and defying the will of the Emperor himself in order to retain their position and status. [[Fail|Needless to say, it didn't work]].

''Vaults of Terra'' reveals another far darker side to the High Lords. At least 3 of them were involved in a massive conspiracy to smuggle / lure (potentially a bit of both) a Dark Eldar [[Haemonculus]] onto Terra and into the Palace so that he could fix the Golden Throne / try to resurrect the Emperor. Insanity of the plan aside, it goes without saying that the High Lords had also given considerable "payment" to the Dark Eldar in exchange (read LOTS OF slaves and torture victims). They even contrived to attack various parts of the Inquisition in order to keep the secret. This worked surprisingly well, right up until the conspirators tried pulling the same trick with the Custodes who promptly carved them to pieces. Even whilst the Great Rift was unfolding, the conspirators still tried to keep covering their bases, ignoring the Astronomicon failing in order to cover up their dirty laundry. Far less doddering incompetence and far more sneaky bastarding evil.

As of ''the Gathering Storm'', Roboute Guilliman came back to [[Terra]] and proceeded to go full [[Rage|'Powerfisting-mode']] at several members of the High Lords following an attempted civil coup d'etat against him, replacing them with people Papa Smurf (seemingly - see below) trusted in the capabilities and competences of. The other High Lords who were not removed were given a mean look by the Blue Wonder and were essentially given a second chance with Robby keeping a close eye on them from afar, and the [[Custodes|Talons of]] [[Sisters of Silence|The Emperor]] keeping a much more immediate (and stabby) eye on them from nearby. Regardless of affiliation, the Council was rocked by the change to thousands of years of them on top, as well as the colossal waves of reforms put in place by Bobby G. Some of them got the message. [[Fail|Some did not]].

[[Corvus Corax]] said in ''Corax: Lord of Shadows'' of the ''Primarch'' series that "Few are as short-sighted as those about to lose power" and by <s>Christ</s> the Emperor is that an apt assessment, and one that applies well to the High Lords. Given that this was an express order issued directly by The Master of Mankind himself to his own son and was confirmed by the Captain-General of the Custodes, who himself was now a High Lord, that really should have been the end of it many times over. Instead it lasted about as long as it took for Guilliman to head off on the [[Indomitus Crusade]], whereupon several High Lords (and two prior incumbent deposed by Guilliman) attempted to stage a coup against him in absentia; this involved sapping away manpower and resources from desperately needed areas (including the entire [[Minotaurs]] Chapter) while allowing chaotic cults to flourish on Terra, to grant themselves the forces and pretext necessary to take over. Unfortunately for them however, [[Adeptus_Custodes|The Custodes]], [[Sisters of Silence]], [[Assassin|Assassins]], and later the [[Imperial Fists]] were having absolutely none of it and promptly intervened.

Immediately after the couple of hours it took for the Custodians to notice, the traitor High Lords were permanently ventilated, the Minotaurs forced to obey by the replacement Mistress of the Administratum, Violeta Roskavler, and replacement Lords were drafted in.

It's later revealed that Guilliman, Trajan Valoris, and Violeta Roskavler predicted that something like this would happen, so at least they're aware of what the council is like. It also adds an interesting possibility that Guilliman deliberately stacked the council with potential liabilities/left them in (he could have flooded the first redraft with reformers, but didn't) so that he could later replace them with the competent loyalists after those tendencies were proven suspect got themselves killed along with the Cults they had let form, purging Terra of traitors of both the Chaotic and power-hungry moron kinds in a matter of hours.

[[Just as Planned|That's legitimately clever.]]

==Members==
The High Lords are theoretically a dynamic body of 12 (or 13-14; see below) members that changes based on the needs of the Imperium. That this was the same number of members as are on the [[Skaven]] Council of Thirteen until the Great Rift is something we're probably not suppose to notice. Or they're both a reference to Jesus and the 12 Apostles. Anyway, there's supposed to be a whole Senatorum Imperialis, but the 12/13 are the guys that actually matter, plus a few more with similarly but not-quite as important roles being given descriptions.

Any names in '''bold''' denote the current holder of the listed seat.

===Nine Permanent Members===
In reality, [[Games Workshop|the same nine old fucks decide everything millennium in and millennium out]] because they/who they represent are just so influential, leaving only 3 seats up for grabs. These nine guys are:

*'''Ecclesiarch:''' The Space Pope, the leader of the Adeptus Ministorum, or [[Ecclesiarchy]]. Was granted a seat in M32 for the first time, seat which became permanent three centuries later. During the [[Age of Apostasy]], the Ecclesiarch briefly usurped the Master of the Administratum as most powerful High Lord. Goge Vandire solved that problem by being head of both, then went nuts with power and had to be killed by the proto-Sisters of Battle after Custodes informing them of the Emperor's will that Vandire must die (incidentally allowing the Sisters to prove their loyalty and to be accepted as the official Ecclesiarchy armed force through the pre-arranged exact wording of "no men under arms" in the reform laws by Vandire's replacement Ecclesiarch [[Sebastian Thor]] and the other High Lords at the time).
** As of M41/M42, the Ecclesiarch is considered tied with the Fabricator-General and the Grand Master of Assassins for third most powerful High Lord. Baldo Slyst was fired by Guilliman from this post, and joined in Irthu Haemotalion's failed Hexarchy coup and was shot by a [[Vindicare Assassin]]. Baldo's replacement '''Eos Ritira''' is the current Ecclesiarch and she is seen as a reformist.
*'''Fabricator-General of Mars:''' The head of the Adeptus Mechanicus will occasionally take time from meditating on the [[Omnissiah]] or running his/her ''own'' nation to help run the Imperium. The only member of the 'High Twelve' that isn't regularly stationed in the Palace itself, mostly due to practical reasons: the most recent one had great difficulty attending meetings in the 'flesh' owing to being augmented to the size of a small building. Luckily, [[Mars]] is close enough to [[Terra]] to allow for old-fashioned vox communication so it is in the end but a minor hassle. He also seems to have an unspoken role of being the one to lead repairs and maintenance of the Golden Throne (though it seems he doesn't actually know how to work the thing). Despite the current holder, '''Oud Oudia Raskian''', being thoroughly opposed to the Custodes being allowed off-world and having collaborated with others to smuggle a goddamn [[Haemonculus]] onto Terra (to technically do his job in fixing the throne), he's still around, probably because Rowboat Girlyman can't get rid of him without pissing the AdMech off or having no one but [[Belisarius Cawl]], who is too radical to hold the post, as his replacement.
*'''Grand Provost Marshal:''' Head of the [[Adeptus Arbites]]. Makes sure the Imperium's myriad jackboots know whose skulls to bust. Often the head of the Arbites on Terra, which is actually a pretty good qualification, as Terra is one mean beat. Aveliza Drachmar was the previous Grand Provost Marshal; upset by the Custodes being sent on missions away from Terra (claiming that [[Lawful Stupid|the Lex Imperialis and its restraints were inviolate despite the fact there were ''literally daemons on Holy Terra, Jesus Christ you brainless bitch'')]], she joined and thus got shot by a [[Vindicare Assassin]] on orders of Fadix.
*'''Inquisitorial Representative:''' A member of the [[Inquisition]], sent to insure that the Emperor's pet psychopaths are up to date on what laws to enforce, which can be difficult given how factionalized the Inquisition has been shown to be in fluff. An Inquisitor's term is 5 years after which he has to step down to make place for another. It is interesting to note that while there is hefty political competition for the other seats, the seat of Inquisitorial Representative carries little merit because it prevents an Inquisitor from carrying out his primary duty: to directly protect the Imperium from its many enemies by working in the field (ie, running their secret pet projects). So more than a few Inquisitors would see the posting more as being assigned to desk duty rather than being in the field, and the decentralized nature of the Inquisition meaning they technically gain no greater authority within the organization (they are a representative, nothing more). They are selected, often unanimously, from Inquisitor Lords from the sectors near Terra, granting the individual the title of Inquisitor Lord Terra even after his service ends. On the plus side however, the Inquisition mostly runs on an "influence" system, and becoming the Inquisitorial Representative gives the Lord Inquisitor in question a substantial boost in influence. Furthermore, one almost never becomes a full-fledged Inquisitor (let alone a Lord Inquisitor) without a lot of hard-earned field experience doing dirty work in the nastier parts of the galaxy, so the Inquisitorial Representative is likely to be one of the more competent and practical members of the bunch (whether the Inquisitor in question is entirely sane and rational is another matter altogether). However, in rare cases the Inquisition is too busy to send a representative because Xenos and Chaos incursions are too numerous. It's been noted by Imperial historians that whenever there wasn't a representative from the Inquisition on the High Lords to keep things in check, [[Age of Apostasy|bad]] [[The Beheading|things]] [[Nova Terra Interregnum|happened]].
** The current representative is '''Kleopatra Arx''', who has held the position since before Guilliman's return, and she remains there still. As far as the Inquisition goes, Arx is refreshingly competent and reasonable (if a bit appropriately cold and pragmatic), and thus was one of the relatively few High Lords that needed neither a booting nor scolding from Guilliman. She was present when the coup attempt took place, but was having none of it, and may well have shut it down herself had others not already been handling it (thus being another prime example how idiotic the coup attempt really was in the grand scheme of things).
*'''Grand Master of Assassins:''' Perhaps equally surprisingly, the other High Lord who often acts as a check and balance for sanity (as [[The War of The Beast]] demonstrated) is the head of the [[Officio Assassinorum]], and an informal watchdog of the Council. The Grand Master is constantly watched by the other High Lords, both because the [[Assassin]]s are fucking scary and out of concern that he might assassinate the others - mostly because one Grand Master did just that, though they really had it coming. [[The Beheading|Funny story]]. It's seen as tradition for the Master of Assassins to send back the corpses or heads of the other High Lord's spies periodically, as a polite reminder that they do not tolerate the other lords messing with their business. His situation in the council is a bit complicated: theoretically, the [[Officio Assassinorum]] is a branch of the [[Administratum]], so this guy has the Master of the Administratum as his boss. Also, he needs the whole council's approval to send out his assassins away from Terra after a target as per Big-E's edict. On the other hand, any attempt by the Master of the Administratum (or any other High Lord) to boss the assassins around is likely to result in death due to be seen as trying to pull a [[Goge Vandire]]; so the Grand Master has a lot of practical independence, politically speaking. Also meaning due to his highly useful organization and inevitable dirt he would have on other high lords makes the Grand Master far more politically powerful than what would be expected of a relatively small organization.
** According to Lev Tieron, the post of Grandmaster is frequently behind the periods of unrest within the High Lords - Drakan Vangorich was merely the best known. That said, the incumbent, '''Fadix''', who despite being sceptical of Guilliman's ability to prevail, is almost single-handedly responsible for saving Terra from the aforementioned coup attempt - he goaded the seditious High Lords into showing their hands by offering them the assurance that the ultimate sanction was on their side, thereby causing the unrest and rebellion so that it could be flushed out once and for all (the Custodes were a mix of busy elsewhere and too busy laughing their asses off at the sheer idiocy of the plot before them). Fadix's personal inclination to the Static Tendency aside, he clearly takes his role seriously, so when the coup came around, [[Awesome|his belief in the law and his allegiance to the Master of Mankind superseded all else]], thus he still holds the post. As of M41/M42, the Grand Master is considered tied with the Fabricator-General and the Ecclesiarch for third most powerful High Lord.
*'''Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica:''' The guy/gal in charge of the selection, training, and use of [[Astropath]]s and other various kinds of sanctioned [[psyker|psykers]] within the Imperium. Making sure the Imperium's giant network of psychic email servers don't go to shit is so damn important to keep it running that they gave them a permanent seat.
*'''Master of the Administratum:''' The head of the Imperial bureaucracy. While the Master of the [[Administratum]] is an equal with the rest of the High Lords on paper, in practice he is considered the "head" of the Senatorum and most powerful of the High Lords due to how integral the Administratum is to the functioning of all the other organizations and the Imperium itself, and they are fucking territorial about that. With the Emperor appointing [[Roboute Guilliman|his son]] Imperial Regent, the Master of the Administratum is now the ''second'' most powerful High Lord, with the Fabricator-General, Ecclesiarch and Grand Master of Assassins now fighting for ''third'' most powerful. Irthu Haemotalion was very upset about this after being fired and actually attempted a coup on Guilliman only to get killed to death by Fadix along with his fellow traitors/conspirators (he was also shot by a Vindicare). He was replaced by '''Violeta Roskavler''', who has a reputation of being a hard working logistical genius. And just like Guilliman's [[Rogal Dorn|brother]], she hails from [[Inwit]]. It's eventually revealed that she, Valoris, and Guilliman knew Haemotalion would try a coup attempt like this and planned to use it as an excuse to cleanse the capital of any further political liabilities (so Haemotalion turned out to be pretty useful in a backhanded way).
*'''Master of the Astronomican:''' While the Adeptus Astronomica isn't nearly as large or influential as the other members' branches, they keep the light of the [[Astronomican]] burning. The Astronomican in turn keeps the Imperium from collapsing, and every other High Lord from being fucked inside out by [[daemon]]s on their way to meetings, so they let this guy have a chair along with his pal/rival from the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Because the Adeptus Astra Telepathica serves as the Astronomican's recruitment arm, having these two members disagree on policy is uncommon, but they ''are'' legally independent bodies (each of equal rank with the Administratum), so it's certainly possible. The previous one died during the Chaos (of both capital C and regular c varieties) of the Long Night and Guilliman used the opportunity to stack the High Lords with competent loyalists further after Fadix's purge of the morons who tried to rebel against a fucking Primarch already emptied several slots (along with some firings that lead to said coup attempt in the first place).
*'''Paternoval Envoy:''' Representing the [[Navis Nobilite]], the third of the guys to get a seat because otherwise the Imperium would collapse without faster than light travel and communications. This guy/gal makes sure that the Navigators have a say in what's going on, so they won't get declared abominations of the holy human form. Unlike the other posts, s/he is not the head of the combined Navigator houses, but a representative from the Paternova, the currently effective head house of the Navis Nobilite. The Paternova cannot attend meetings because s/he stays in the Palace of the Navigators due to...[[Mutant|changes]] they undergo upon assuming the post, which would cause <s>mass rioting among the populace</s> questions among the less-informed. As a result, the Paternoval Envoy is a young, still fully-human looking [[Navigator]] (except for the third eye, of course) and usually chosen from a weak house who couldn't upset the balance of power among the Navigators should the position go to his head. Theoretically, the Paternova's rank equals that of the other two people who run the Imperial Fleet (both of whom sometimes also get seats - see below), but they are just too practically important and significant for anyone to really claim they outrank them.

===Three Dynamic Members===
The remaining three fluid positions are held by people either beholden to one or more permanent members, or by people so powerful they just walk in to take a seat. Needless to say, they keep the seat as long as they, or their allies, are strong enough to hold it. They include:
*Independent
**'''Captain-General of the [[Adeptus Custodes]]:''' He's kind of a special case: by Big-E's ancient but never overturned decree, the Captain-General speaks with His voice at all times, unless Malcador or Himself are present. This would technically make the Captain-General the leader of the Imperium as a whole (with Malcador ultra-dead and Big-E unable to communicate) but since that setup was (even more) horribly impractical, a compromise was found. In normal circumstances, The 12 High Lords and the rest of the Senatorum Imperialis deal with leading the Imperium while the Captain-General and his fellow Custodes ensure the security of the Imperial Palace and the Emperor; both institutions working in tandem without much interaction or interference. However, whenever the Captain-General decides he needs to join the discussions (for instance, to make sure the High Lords keep their shit together or to [[Angry Marines|tear the next Goge Vandire a new asshole]]), a seat is freed for him on the spot until whatever situation made him pop his head in is resolved. While he generally despises playing politics with mere mortals whenever he does attend a meeting, all the other High Lords shut their flapping gums and pay close attention to what he has to say (because, y'know, the guy is considered one step below the Big E Himself, and disrespecting a person who can mulch anything short of a Greater Daemon is a Bad Idea). The current Captain-General is '''[[Trajann Valoris]]''', currently one of four active High Lords (aside from Guilliman, [[Dante]], and [[Morvenn Vahl]]) known to have gotten a model and rules for the tabletop.
*[[Administratum]] Subordinates
**'''Chancellor of the Estate Imperium:''' The Imperium's head paper pusher. Seriously, they're a glorified secretary. The most useless of the High Lords, and only gets on if the Master of the Administratum feels he needs another vote on things and can muscle one of their underlings in. The previous holder of the office was Brach, who died in 999.M41 before the reforms of Guilliman.
**'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUrhqCkYwps Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard]:''' The leader of the [[Imperial Guard|Emprah's hammer]]. Nominally in charge of every man, woman, and child in the Imperium with a flashlight to point, although the bureaucratic distances and sheer, incomprehensibly large numbers of personnel involved means that they mostly dictate uniform and grooming standards, and ''maybe'' operational doctrine if the bigwigs at the Departmento Tactica are feeling indulgent. With the Master of the Administratum in charge of their record keeping and the Chancellor of the Estate Imperium in charge of their bank account, though, The Lord Commander Militant hasn't got as much of independent swing as one might think. Still, someone needs to give career bureaucrats some form of advice in military necessity, therefore allowing them a seat. The previous holder, Mar Av Ashariel, was among the failed Hexarchy plotters and was killed by a [[Callidus Assassin]].
***'''Lord Commander of the Segmentum Solar:''' A direct underling of the Lord-Commander Militant that often only gets a seat whenever the military situation goes from "'''shitty'''" to "'''completely FUBAR'''" and there's a need for some crusade or other to set things a little less wrong in the Imperium. They're the commander of the Imperium's forces (those that listen to the military bureaucracy anyway) in charge of guarding humanity's [[Segmentum|chewy centre, Segmentum Solar]]. One of the more notable examples would be the [[awesome]] '''[[Lord Solar Macharius]]'''.
**'''Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Navy:''' Discards the shiniest of flying space cathedrals in favour of the shiniest of desks. Like their counterpart(s) in the Imperial Guard, they often gets a seat when there is some Ork WAAAGH!/Tyranid Fleet/Black Crusade/Tau Expansion/etc. happening. Unlike their counterpart, though, they aren't dependent on the Chancellor for money, but they ''are'' dependent on the Navigator houses and the Astronomican for navigation and on the Adeptus Astra Telepathica for communications. As a result, they don't have as much wriggling room as one might think either, but the same thing about military necessity also applies here. The previous holder of the post, Merelda Pereth, was among the failed Hexarchy plotters and was killed by a Callidus Assassin. In Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 his successor Drang didn't last long either before getting {{BLAM|'''*BLAM!*'''}}-med after being found working for the [[Alpha Legion]], and Admiral Spire (the guy Drang tried to kill with various suicide missions and one of the few people whose faith rivals the [[Ecclesiarchy]] without becoming a blind zealot) becomes his successor. But it is unknown up to which point the story is canon (early parts of the game are canon, merely depicting the Fall of Cadia, but latter parts are not as they end with Abaddon's death).
**'''Speaker for the Chartist Captains:''' Spokesperson of the Merchant Fleet, this High Lord defends the interests of the various trade captains within the Imperium. They are similar to but less powerful than [[Rogue Traders]], but make up about 90% of the Imperium's spacefaring capability. They might not look like much at first glance, but along with the various [[Psyker]]s above they're the glue keeping the Imperium together by making interplanetary commerce possible at all (which is a matter of survival for many, many planets), so they too get a voice in running things when there's a seat free (read: in those times of relative calm when the military situation is galactically stable, so the decades of this seat being free can probably be counted on one's hands). There are four levels of Merchant Charters, from flying fixed and limited routes to being allowed to travel through all of Imperial space within the Segmenta.
*[[Ecclesiarchy]] Subordinates
**'''Abbess Sanctorum of the Adepta Sororitas:''' The head of the [[Adepta Sororitas]]. The only member of the High Lords who is a woman by default, she is elected from the leaders of every order of the Sororitas. Like the Inquisitorial Representative, there is no real race for this position. It is, in fact, considered a penance to become the Abbess Sanctorum, which, given the other assholes in the Senatorum, is not that far from the truth. Before the Abbess is formally inducted, she is to take a pilgrimage to San Leor, the homeworld of the Daughters of the Emperor. The would-be Abbess, Sister Sabrina of the Order of the Ermine Mantle, disappeared during her pilgrimage. Tradition dictates there cannot be another Abbess elected until the current one's fate has been determined, so the seat of the Abbess remained empty for the longest time. Post-Great Rift, Celestine and her forces were able to find Sabrina trapped fighting off waves of Daemons on San Leor. After fighting them off, she was finally able to take up her seat. Later, Guilliman was able to get the newest Abbess to support his purge of Holy Terra’s more corrupted dredges in society while she also urged the Assassin to send a Vindicare agent on a hunt against an Ork Warboss that had [[looted]] a Shrine-World. The current Abbess Sanctorum is '''[[Morvenn Vahl]]'''. While it's uncertain what befell of Sabrina, Vahl was elevated here by the advisory of Guilliman and the Custodes (and by the Ecclesiarch, who mistakenly expected that her youth would make her easily manipulated). She's currently helping with the ongoing war in the Charadon sector against [[Typhus]].
**'''Cardinal of the Holy Synod of Terra:''' Some old fart from a group of old farts who spend all their time arguing about slight deviations in doctrine. Their only useful function is electing the head of the Ecclesiarchy who gets them their chair on the council. Mentioning that this is a conflict of interest is considered [[heresy]]. The Holy Synod is an organization that primarily concerns itself with running the church on Terra, so in theory, it can provide up to 3 Cardinals to fill all the vacancies, though this would never fly even in peacetime.

===The Thirteenth (and Fourteenth) Lords===
The position of '''Lord Commander''' of the Imperium's armed forces was one that [[Rogal Dorn]] was originally invested with as the coordinator of the loyalist war effort during the Horus Heresy. [[Roboute Guilliman]] took it from him at some point afterwards and used the title '''Lord Commander of the Imperium''' ''(as the first man to command the forces of the Imperium in its entirety)'' where it became synonymous with Lord Guilliman even past his injury and eventual removal by his brother [[Fulgrim]] ''(presumably because no one had the balls to remove the plaque from the door)''.

The position lasted at least until the 32nd Millennium and was the ''de jure'' leader of the Senatorum Imperialis, and on paper was the commander of the entirety of the Imperium's military forces. We say "on paper" because the last dude prior to Chapter Master [[Slaughter Koorland]] was a puppet of the other agents of the senate, and was generally incompetent. Koorland's successor, [[Maximus Thane]], also took the role of Chapter Master of the [[Imperial Fists]], and was presumably the last to hold the title, because after issuing a series of standing orders, he decided to leave Terra and rebuild the broken Imperium following the [[War of The Beast]], only returning to deal with [[The Beheading]]. The post appears to have been abolished at some point after this.

As of the closing years of the 41st millennium, '''Roboute Guilliman''' is back as the Lord Commander again, mostly because nobody else available could be trusted with a job that important, but also significantly due to the fact that nobody dared to say no to him when he announced he was taking his seat back. At least, not to his face. Several of the High Lords did, however, attempt to stage a coup, which was foiled by the Adeptus Custodes and Grand Master Fadix of the Assassinorum who had the four (well, three, he double agented and backstabbed them) serving and two fired High Lords attempting the coup simultaneously killed by his subordinates. He also appointed '''[[Dante]]''' as Lord Regent of the northern half of the Imperium and as mentioned replaced the Master of the Astronomican, who had coincidentally died due to the Long Night in the immediate aftermath of the Great Rift opening.

==The Senatorum==
As mentioned, the High Lords of Terra are a dynamic organisation, that shifts and changes according to the politics of the day. The seventeen Lords listed above in no way represent the entirety of Imperial government, nor do those Lords who '''''don't''''' get a seat on that particular day lose their ability to have their voices heard or impact policy; the Senatorum actually consists of tens of thousands of politicians, all with their own voting rights and agendas. However, the full body virtually never meets in session, and those positions that fall out of eminent favour simply don't occupy seats on the "High Twelve", which also comes with a reduction in privileges, including the right to give orders to Custodians ''(they make the distinction between High Lords and those of the High Twelve + Rotating Greater Lords not currently voting)''. That right to give orders, however, is rendered moot within the Imperial Palace, with the obvious exception of the Captain-General. Known lesser lords and positions are as follows, note how their jobs when described are relatively important to the general situation as well rather than being some nobody on present to raise numbers:

*'''Chancellor of the Imperial Senate''': A rank that exists outside of the High Lords, who acts like the presiding officer of the council. Their job is sometimes more arduous than the actual High Lords, as they have to essentially herd, bully, intimidate, sweet talk, and basically cajole all twelve into regular sessions, as well making sure the process doesn't turn into an eternal game of 'pass the buck'. They are also meant to be as politically neutral as possible, which considering how much cross intent and vested interest floats around the council is either very easy or extremely hard. Lev Tieron was the previous holder and retired during Guilliman's reforms citing old age. His protégé and successor '''Anna-Murza Jek''' was instrumental in the foiling of the Hexarchy plot and is currently in office.
*'''Commandant of the Schola Progenium''': The head of the [[Schola Progenium]], and the joint senior-[[Commissar]] of the Imperium, presumably with the head of the Commissariat. Makes sure the new generations properly worship the Emprah and properly hate anything the government does.
*'''Chirurgeon-General of the Orders Hospitaller''': The head Medicae of the Imperium. Though part of the High Twelve in the days of the Emperor, the Chirurgeon-General lost their status as a rotating member of the High Lords after the Horus Heresy, which goes to show how little a priority healthcare is in the Imperium, though for what its worth the post remained as major lesser High Lord.
*'''High Lord of the Imperial Chancellery''': The head of the Imperial Chancellery. This is the person who runs the offices of the Adeptus Terra and is essentially the superintendent of the Imperial Chancellery (Custodian interference and forbidden areas of the Imperial Palace aside). Originally part of the High Twelve, it lost its status after the Heresy and remained a major lesser High Lord.
*'''Lord Constable of the Synopticon''': The head of the Synopticon. What exactly this does is unknown, but "Synopticon" is a word that means ''"Surveillance of the few by the many"''; as his title is "Constable" that presumably makes him some kind of rule enforcer for the Senatorum itself, making sure proper procedure is followed while being more directly involved than the Chancellor. Other guesses are that he's the leader of the space CIA as opposed to the Inquisition's space FBI, or that he acts as the security chief for the Imperial Chancellery.
*'''Mistress Plenary of the Catacombs''': The person overseeing the Catacombs. What exactly that means is unknown, but given what is usually placed in the catacombs of the Imperial Palace, it probably isn't [[Heresy|pretty]].

These six are generally important to the galactic situation or at least Terra's (or the Chancellery within the Imperial Palace itself) and if any of the lesser lords outside the "can be one of the big thirteen" group are in an important but not-everyone is present level meeting its them. Other posts don't have names in the fluff at this time. Speculatively, the Segmenta and particularly important Sectors might have representatives.

When it is expedient or politically advantageous to do so, the High Lords may choose to take seats in various chambers around the Imperial palace. While some chambers are large enough to seat the whole of the senate and then some, others are barely larger than an office, where lesser lords get excluded (save the above posts who as mentioned previously are the most likely of the lesser lords to be present in big deal government meetings which involve those outside the High Twelve but not the other Senatorum politicians, alongside the rotating greater lords).

Finally, the actual bureaucrat in charge of the Senatorum itself, the Chancellor of the Imperial Council (currently Anna-Murza Jek, protege and successor to the retired Lev Tieron), should be detailed further. This is not a High Lord of Terra, but still wields great political power as being in charge of the top level bureaucracy allows them great influence and power as was seen when Jek became suspicious of the fired Master of the Administratum and Ecclesiarch plotting against Guilliman. She was critical in arranging for the traitors to spring their coup early and getting them killed by Grand Master of the Assassins Fadix backstabbing them.

==Trivia==
* The authors of the ''[[Horus Heresy]]'' series are collectively referred to as the "High Lords of Terra" on [[Black Library]]'s blog. According to [[Dan Abnett]], this is intended as self-deprecation. Yes, even the makers of 40K canon think the High Lords of Terra are useless.
* All tea and biscuits are the property of the High Lords of Terra and no one else. They are needed for the constant meetings the High Lords have (most likely to decide what colour to paint the Imperial Palace's walls this season).{{BLAM|Of course it should be GOLD, the Emprah's favorite!}}
* The High Lords do decide on foundings of Space Marines and assign the title of Warmaster to special individuals undertaking Imperial crusades. However considering how many chapters turn renegade or do their own thing and how many crusades seem to fall into failure, this could be further proof of the High Lords' collective uselessness.
* With Papa Smurf as defacto leader of the entire Imperium again, the usefulness of the High Lords have went up a reasonable notch. Mostly because most of them were sacked and replaced after they were [[Fail|dumb enough to try and stage a coup against Roboute freaking Guilliman]].
**Actually only two were sacked. Four more joined the treason plot. The Grand Master of Assassins backstabbed the plotters and killed the other five and kept his post.
* Their Fantasy equivalent, the [[Skaven#Hierarchy|Council of Thirteen]] manages to be more effective and productive despite being run by megalomaniac backstabbing ratmen drug addicts.

==See Also==
*[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5492330/ Writefaggotry from /tg/ on the High Lords]
{{Imperium}}

High Lords of Terra

2022-10-29T06:58:14Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Members */

[[Image:High_Lords.jpg|600px|thumb|right|The Spring 40,002 leisurewear collection from Maison Rouboute, modelled by (L-R): the Inquisitorial Representative, the Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard, the Master of the Administratum (quill-glove: model’s own) and the Fabricator-General of Mars.]]

{{Topquote|Functionaries are like books in a library: the higher they are, the least they serve.|Georges Clemenceau}}
{{Topquote|The measure of a man is what he does with power.|Plato}}

{{topquote|Behold! I've brought you a man!|Diogenes, handing Plato a plucked chicken (it makes sense in context)}}

The '''High Lords of Terra''' (aka “Asthmatic Assholes”) are the twelve members of the '''Senatorum Imperialis''', the Council of the High Lords of Terra, and the rulers of the [[Imperium of Man]] in the [[Emperor|Emperor's]] absence.

==Overview==
After [[Horus]] [[Horus Heresy|got his heresy on]], the Emperor had to "ascend" the Golden Throne to keep himself alive. Since he wasn't dead, [[Roboute Guilliman]] reasoned that a new leadership was needed to guide the Imperium. He took the job of '''Lord Commander of the Imperium''' from [[Rogal Dorn]] and set up the High Lords from the old Council of [[Terra]], inviting the heads of the [[Administratum]], the [[Officio Assassinorum]] and the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] to the table as well. As time went on, the [[Ecclesiarchy]], the [[Inquisition]], the [[Navigator|Navigators]] and others were also invited. They seem to have an inordinate amount of influence over the [[Minotaurs]].

While it's plainly evident that they are not making the Imperium better, there is some evidence that they may be making the Imperium worse than it actually needs to be (although whether this is due to malice or incompetence is anyone's guess, most people are betting on the latter). Exactly what they decide on isn't clear either. "Making decisions that affect the whole galaxy" sounds like a lofty purpose but really all the different departments seem to do things by themselves. The [[Space Marine]] chapters decide where they fight, the Inquisition governs itself, the Navigators govern themselves, the Administratum is like a machine just left running and doesn't even change gears... so unless they are just the people with the stamps to approve everything, we need some more fluff on what they are doing GW!

Well good news, I guess: as of 6th they are becoming more and more pro-active. AND in the new series The Beast Arises has them as the main characters and thus we can finally see how they run things. TL:DR oh, my God-Emperor, they're worse than the fans believed. During [[the War of The Beast]], about half the High Lords were politicking and trying to use the biggest Ork WAAAGH! in their favour, getting billions killed along with dozens of Space Marine Chapters and even, it seems, a Primarch. The others tried to deny its existence entirely, leaving only the Grand Master of Assassins to deal with reality (go figure why he wanted to kill the jackasses). Funny enough they're also all portrayed as being very good at their jobs (the Imperial Navy High Lord is a skilled admiral, for example), they're just too focused on the interests of their own factions to work together. Of course, then the Grand Master of Assassins did [[The Beheading]].

For the times the present day 41st millennium High Lords are mentioned, they tend to be treated with rather neutral tones. Typically the fluff only brings up their reactionary declarations to military matters and nothing about their politics, leaving their effectiveness and competence open to speculation. Given that Warhammer 40k is often about [[Your Dudes]] ("Your Setting" in this case), this is likely intentional.

==The High Lords at the end of the 41st Millenium and the Rise of the Primarch==

''Watchers of the Throne: The Emperor's Legion'' has actually finally given us details about the High Lords during the Fall of Cadia, giving us a full list of names and going into detail on the actual politicking that the Lords get up to (Mostly concerning the Adeptus Custodes' deploytment, which dominates the first half of the book). Lev Tieron, the Chancellor of the Imperial Council of the time, notes that many of the High Lords he'd known were variously mad, obsessed, verifiably sociopathic, power-hungry, or some mix of the above - yet they were still the best qualified to do their jobs, even if the stresses caused them to burn out quickly. He even obliquely references the long-running fandom perception of them as useless idiots disconnected from the state of the Imperium, and notes that to be a understandable if wrong perception of them. Make of that what you will.

It also revealed that an important part of Terra's political background is the so-called "Static Tendency" - essentially the belief that since the Emperor had decreed the Council of Terra was the best way of running the Imperium, [[Inquisition#Puritans|any proposal to deviate from this was only slightly better than outright heresy.]] In practice however, this was little more than an excuse not to upset the status quo or deviate outside from the comfortable norms. This was made blindingly clear in the lead-up to and '''especially''' in the aftermath of Cadia's fall and the subsequent return of the [[Primarch]] [[Roboute Guilliman]], as the Static Tendency would thoroughly reveal itself as a hollow justification to cling to power by those who didn't deserve it, had failed in their duties, and were now willing to resort to treason and defying the will of the Emperor himself in order to retain their position and status. [[Fail|Needless to say, it didn't work]].

''Vaults of Terra'' reveals another far darker side to the High Lords. At least 3 of them were involved in a massive conspiracy to smuggle / lure (potentially a bit of both) a Dark Eldar [[Haemonculus]] onto Terra and into the Palace so that he could fix the Golden Throne / try to resurrect the Emperor. Insanity of the plan aside, it goes without saying that the High Lords had also given considerable "payment" to the Dark Eldar in exchange (read LOTS OF slaves and torture victims). They even contrived to attack various parts of the Inquisition in order to keep the secret. This worked surprisingly well, right up until the conspirators tried pulling the same trick with the Custodes who promptly carved them to pieces. Even whilst the Great Rift was unfolding, the conspirators still tried to keep covering their bases, ignoring the Astronomicon failing in order to cover up their dirty laundry. Far less doddering incompetence and far more sneaky bastarding evil.

As of ''the Gathering Storm'', Roboute Guilliman came back to [[Terra]] and proceeded to go full [[Rage|'Powerfisting-mode']] at several members of the High Lords following an attempted civil coup d'etat against him, replacing them with people Papa Smurf (seemingly - see below) trusted in the capabilities and competences of. The other High Lords who were not removed were given a mean look by the Blue Wonder and were essentially given a second chance with Robby keeping a close eye on them from afar, and the [[Custodes|Talons of]] [[Sisters of Silence|The Emperor]] keeping a much more immediate (and stabby) eye on them from nearby. Regardless of affiliation, the Council was rocked by the change to thousands of years of them on top, as well as the colossal waves of reforms put in place by Bobby G. Some of them got the message. [[Fail|Some did not]].

[[Corvus Corax]] said in ''Corax: Lord of Shadows'' of the ''Primarch'' series that "Few are as short-sighted as those about to lose power" and by <s>Christ</s> the Emperor is that an apt assessment, and one that applies well to the High Lords. Given that this was an express order issued directly by The Master of Mankind himself to his own son and was confirmed by the Captain-General of the Custodes, who himself was now a High Lord, that really should have been the end of it many times over. Instead it lasted about as long as it took for Guilliman to head off on the [[Indomitus Crusade]], whereupon several High Lords (and two prior incumbent deposed by Guilliman) attempted to stage a coup against him in absentia; this involved sapping away manpower and resources from desperately needed areas (including the entire [[Minotaurs]] Chapter) while allowing chaotic cults to flourish on Terra, to grant themselves the forces and pretext necessary to take over. Unfortunately for them however, [[Adeptus_Custodes|The Custodes]], [[Sisters of Silence]], [[Assassin|Assassins]], and later the [[Imperial Fists]] were having absolutely none of it and promptly intervened.

Immediately after the couple of hours it took for the Custodians to notice, the traitor High Lords were permanently ventilated, the Minotaurs forced to obey by the replacement Mistress of the Administratum, Violeta Roskavler, and replacement Lords were drafted in.

It's later revealed that Guilliman, Trajan Valoris, and Violeta Roskavler predicted that something like this would happen, so at least they're aware of what the council is like. It also adds an interesting possibility that Guilliman deliberately stacked the council with potential liabilities/left them in (he could have flooded the first redraft with reformers, but didn't) so that he could later replace them with the competent loyalists after those tendencies were proven suspect got themselves killed along with the Cults they had let form, purging Terra of traitors of both the Chaotic and power-hungry moron kinds in a matter of hours.

[[Just as Planned|That's legitimately clever.]]

==Members==
The High Lords are theoretically a dynamic body of 12 (or 13-14; see below) members that changes based on the needs of the Imperium. That this was the same number of members as are on the [[Skaven]] Council of Thirteen until the Great Rift is something we're probably not suppose to notice. Or they're both a reference to Jesus and the 12 Apostles. Anyway, there's supposed to be a whole Senatorum Imperialis, but the 12/13 are the guys that actually matter, plus a few more with similarly but not-quite as important roles being given descriptions.

Any names in '''bold''' denote the current holder of the listed seat.

===Nine Permanent Members===
In reality, [[Games Workshop|the same nine old fucks decide everything millennium in and millennium out]] because they/who they represent are just so influential, leaving only 3 seats up for grabs. These nine guys are:

*'''Ecclesiarch:''' The Space Pope, the leader of the Adeptus Ministorum, or [[Ecclesiarchy]]. Was granted a seat in M32 for the first time, seat which became permanent three centuries later. During the [[Age of Apostasy]], the Ecclesiarch briefly usurped the Master of the Administratum as most powerful High Lord. Goge Vandire solved that problem by being head of both, then went nuts with power and had to be killed by the proto-Sisters of Battle after Custodes informing them of the Emperor's will that Vandire must die (incidentally allowing the Sisters to prove their loyalty and to be accepted as the official Ecclesiarchy armed force through the pre-arranged exact wording of "no men under arms" in the reform laws by Vandire's replacement Ecclesiarch [[Sebastian Thor]] and the other High Lords at the time).
** As of M41/M42, the Ecclesiarch is considered tied with the Fabricator-General and the Grand Master of Assassins for third most powerful High Lord. Baldo Slyst was fired by Guilliman from this post, and joined in Irthu Haemotalion's failed Hexarchy coup and was shot by a [[Vindicare Assassin]]. Baldo's replacement '''Eos Ritira''' is the current Ecclesiarch and she is seen as a reformist.
*'''Fabricator-General of Mars:''' The head of the Adeptus Mechanicus will occasionally take time from meditating on the [[Omnissiah]] or running his/her ''own'' nation to help run the Imperium. The only member of the 'High Twelve' that isn't regularly stationed in the Palace itself, mostly due to practical reasons: the most recent one had great difficulty attending meetings in the 'flesh' owing to being augmented to the size of a small building. Luckily, [[Mars]] is close enough to [[Terra]] to allow for old-fashioned vox communication so it is in the end but a minor hassle. He also seems to have an unspoken role of being the one to lead repairs and maintenance of the Golden Throne (though it seems he doesn't actually know how to work the thing). Despite the current holder, '''Oud Oudia Raskian''', being thoroughly opposed to the Custodes being allowed off-world and having collaborated with others to smuggle a goddamn [[Haemonculus]] onto Terra (to technically do his job in fixing the throne), he's still around, probably because Rowboat Girlyman can't get rid of him without pissing the AdMech off or having no one but [[Belisarius Cawl]], who is too radical to hold the post, as his replacement.
*'''Grand Provost Marshal:''' Head of the [[Adeptus Arbites]]. Makes sure the Imperium's myriad jackboots know whose skulls to bust. Often the head of the Arbites on Terra, which is actually a pretty good qualification, as Terra is one mean beat. Aveliza Drachmar was the previous Grand Provost Marshal; upset by the Custodes being sent on missions away from Terra (claiming that [[Lawful Stupid|the Lex Imperialis and its restraints were inviolate despite the fact there were ''literally daemons on Holy Terra, Jesus Christ you brainless bitch'')]], she joined and thus got shot by a [[Vindicare Assassin]] on orders of Fadix.
*'''Inquisitorial Representative:''' A member of the [[Inquisition]], sent to insure that the Emperor's pet psychopaths are up to date on what laws to enforce, which can be difficult given how factionalized the Inquisition has been shown to be in fluff. An Inquisitor's term is 5 years after which he has to step down to make place for another. It is interesting to note that while there is hefty political competition for the other seats, the seat of Inquisitorial Representative carries little merit because it prevents an Inquisitor from carrying out his primary duty: to directly protect the Imperium from its many enemies by working in the field (ie, running their secret pet projects). So more than a few Inquisitors would see the posting more as being assigned to desk duty rather than being in the field, and the decentralized nature of the Inquisition meaning they technically gain no greater authority within the organization (they are a representative, nothing more). They are selected, often unanimously, from Inquisitor Lords from the sectors near Terra, granting the individual the title of Inquisitor Lord Terra even after his service ends. On the plus side however, the Inquisition mostly runs on an "influence" system, and becoming the Inquisitorial Representative gives the Lord Inquisitor in question a substantial boost in influence. Furthermore, one almost never becomes a full-fledged Inquisitor (let alone a Lord Inquisitor) without a lot of hard-earned field experience doing dirty work in the nastier parts of the galaxy, so the Inquisitorial Representative is likely to be one of the more competent and practical members of the bunch (whether the Inquisitor in question is entirely sane and rational is another matter altogether). However, in rare cases the Inquisition is too busy to send a representative because Xenos and Chaos incursions are too numerous. It's been noted by Imperial historians that whenever there wasn't a representative from the Inquisition on the High Lords to keep things in check, [[Age of Apostasy|bad]] [[The Beheading|things]] [[Nova Terra Interregnum|happened]].
** The current representative is '''Kleopatra Arx''', who has held the position since before Guilliman's return, and she remains there still. As far as the Inquisition goes, Arx is refreshingly competent and reasonable (if a bit appropriately cold and pragmatic), and thus was one of the relatively few High Lords that needed neither a booting nor scolding from Guilliman. She was present when the coup attempt took place, but was having none of it, and may well have shut it down herself had others not already been handling it (thus being another prime example how idiotic the coup attempt really was in the grand scheme of things).
*'''Grand Master of Assassins:''' Perhaps equally surprisingly, the other High Lord who often acts as a check and balance for sanity (as [[The War of The Beast]] demonstrated) is the head of the [[Officio Assassinorum]], and an informal watchdog of the Council. The Grand Master is constantly watched by the other High Lords, both because the [[Assassin]]s are fucking scary and out of concern that he might assassinate the others - mostly because one Grand Master did just that, though they really had it coming. [[The Beheading|Funny story]]. It's seen as tradition for the Master of Assassins to send back the corpses or heads of the other High Lord's spies periodically, as a polite reminder that they do not tolerate the other lords messing with their business. His situation in the council is a bit complicated: theoretically, the [[Officio Assassinorum]] is a branch of the [[Administratum]], so this guy has the Master of the Administratum as his boss. Also, he needs the whole council's approval to send out his assassins away from Terra after a target as per Big-E's edict. On the other hand, any attempt by the Master of the Administratum (or any other High Lord) to boss the assassins around is likely to result in death due to be seen as trying to pull a [[Goge Vandire]]; so the Grand Master has a lot of practical independence, politically speaking. Also meaning due to his highly useful organization and inevitable dirt he would have on other high lords makes the Grand Master far more politically powerful than what would be expected of a relatively small organization.
** According to Lev Tieron, the post of Grandmaster is frequently behind the periods of unrest within the High Lords - Drakan Vangorich was merely the best known. That said, the incumbent, '''Fadix''', who despite being sceptical of Guilliman's ability to prevail, is almost single-handedly responsible for saving Terra from the aforementioned coup attempt - he goaded the seditious High Lords into showing their hands by offering them the assurance that the ultimate sanction was on their side, thereby causing the unrest and rebellion so that it could be flushed out once and for all (the Custodes were a mix of busy elsewhere and too busy laughing their asses off at the sheer idiocy of the plot before them). Fadix's personal inclination to the Static Tendency aside, he clearly takes his role seriously, so when the coup came around, [[Awesome|his belief in the law and his allegiance to the Master of Mankind superseded all else]], thus he still holds the post. As of M41/M42, the Grand Master is considered tied with the Fabricator-General and the Ecclesiarch for third most powerful High Lord.
*'''Master of the Adeptus Astra Telepathica:''' The guy/gal in charge of the selection, training, and use of [[Astropath]]s and other various kinds of sanctioned [[psyker|psykers]] within the Imperium. Making sure the Imperium's giant network of psychic email servers don't go to shit is so damn important to keep it running that they gave them a permanent seat.
*'''Master of the Administratum:''' The head of the Imperial bureaucracy. While the Master of the [[Administratum]] is an equal with the rest of the High Lords on paper, in practice he is considered the "head" of the Senatorum and most powerful of the High Lords due to how integral the Administratum is to the functioning of all the other organizations and the Imperium itself, and they are fucking territorial about that. With the Emperor appointing [[Roboute Guilliman|his son]] Imperial Regent, the Master of the Administratum is now the ''second'' most powerful High Lord, with the Fabricator-General, Ecclesiarch and Grand Master of Assassins now fighting for ''third'' most powerful. Irthu Haemotalion was very upset about this after being fired and actually attempted a coup on Guilliman only to get killed to death by Fadix along with his fellow traitors/conspirators (he was also shot by a Vindicare). He was replaced by '''Violeta Roskavler''', who has a reputation of being a hard working logistical genius. And just like Guilliman's [[Rogal Dorn|brother]], she hails from [[Inwit]]. It's shown implied Guilliman knew Haemotalion would try a coup attempt like this and planned to use it as an excuse to cleanse the capital of any further political liabilities (so Haemotalion turned out to be pretty useful in a backhanded way).
*'''Master of the Astronomican:''' While the Adeptus Astronomica isn't nearly as large or influential as the other members' branches, they keep the light of the [[Astronomican]] burning. The Astronomican in turn keeps the Imperium from collapsing, and every other High Lord from being fucked inside out by [[daemon]]s on their way to meetings, so they let this guy have a chair along with his pal/rival from the Adeptus Astra Telepathica. Because the Adeptus Astra Telepathica serves as the Astronomican's recruitment arm, having these two members disagree on policy is uncommon, but they ''are'' legally independent bodies (each of equal rank with the Administratum), so it's certainly possible. The previous one died during the Chaos (of both capital C and regular c varieties) of the Long Night and Guilliman used the opportunity to stack the High Lords with competent loyalists further after Fadix's purge of the morons who tried to rebel against a fucking Primarch already emptied several slots (along with some firings that lead to said coup attempt in the first place).
*'''Paternoval Envoy:''' Representing the [[Navis Nobilite]], the third of the guys to get a seat because otherwise the Imperium would collapse without faster than light travel and communications. This guy/gal makes sure that the Navigators have a say in what's going on, so they won't get declared abominations of the holy human form. Unlike the other posts, s/he is not the head of the combined Navigator houses, but a representative from the Paternova, the currently effective head house of the Navis Nobilite. The Paternova cannot attend meetings because s/he stays in the Palace of the Navigators due to...[[Mutant|changes]] they undergo upon assuming the post, which would cause <s>mass rioting among the populace</s> questions among the less-informed. As a result, the Paternoval Envoy is a young, still fully-human looking [[Navigator]] (except for the third eye, of course) and usually chosen from a weak house who couldn't upset the balance of power among the Navigators should the position go to his head. Theoretically, the Paternova's rank equals that of the other two people who run the Imperial Fleet (both of whom sometimes also get seats - see below), but they are just too practically important and significant for anyone to really claim they outrank them.

===Three Dynamic Members===
The remaining three fluid positions are held by people either beholden to one or more permanent members, or by people so powerful they just walk in to take a seat. Needless to say, they keep the seat as long as they, or their allies, are strong enough to hold it. They include:
*Independent
**'''Captain-General of the [[Adeptus Custodes]]:''' He's kind of a special case: by Big-E's ancient but never overturned decree, the Captain-General speaks with His voice at all times, unless Malcador or Himself are present. This would technically make the Captain-General the leader of the Imperium as a whole (with Malcador ultra-dead and Big-E unable to communicate) but since that setup was (even more) horribly impractical, a compromise was found. In normal circumstances, The 12 High Lords and the rest of the Senatorum Imperialis deal with leading the Imperium while the Captain-General and his fellow Custodes ensure the security of the Imperial Palace and the Emperor; both institutions working in tandem without much interaction or interference. However, whenever the Captain-General decides he needs to join the discussions (for instance, to make sure the High Lords keep their shit together or to [[Angry Marines|tear the next Goge Vandire a new asshole]]), a seat is freed for him on the spot until whatever situation made him pop his head in is resolved. While he generally despises playing politics with mere mortals whenever he does attend a meeting, all the other High Lords shut their flapping gums and pay close attention to what he has to say (because, y'know, the guy is considered one step below the Big E Himself, and disrespecting a person who can mulch anything short of a Greater Daemon is a Bad Idea). The current Captain-General is '''[[Trajann Valoris]]''', currently one of four active High Lords (aside from Guilliman, [[Dante]], and [[Morvenn Vahl]]) known to have gotten a model and rules for the tabletop.
*[[Administratum]] Subordinates
**'''Chancellor of the Estate Imperium:''' The Imperium's head paper pusher. Seriously, they're a glorified secretary. The most useless of the High Lords, and only gets on if the Master of the Administratum feels he needs another vote on things and can muscle one of their underlings in. The previous holder of the office was Brach, who died in 999.M41 before the reforms of Guilliman.
**'''[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUrhqCkYwps Lord Commander Militant of the Imperial Guard]:''' The leader of the [[Imperial Guard|Emprah's hammer]]. Nominally in charge of every man, woman, and child in the Imperium with a flashlight to point, although the bureaucratic distances and sheer, incomprehensibly large numbers of personnel involved means that they mostly dictate uniform and grooming standards, and ''maybe'' operational doctrine if the bigwigs at the Departmento Tactica are feeling indulgent. With the Master of the Administratum in charge of their record keeping and the Chancellor of the Estate Imperium in charge of their bank account, though, The Lord Commander Militant hasn't got as much of independent swing as one might think. Still, someone needs to give career bureaucrats some form of advice in military necessity, therefore allowing them a seat. The previous holder, Mar Av Ashariel, was among the failed Hexarchy plotters and was killed by a [[Callidus Assassin]].
***'''Lord Commander of the Segmentum Solar:''' A direct underling of the Lord-Commander Militant that often only gets a seat whenever the military situation goes from "'''shitty'''" to "'''completely FUBAR'''" and there's a need for some crusade or other to set things a little less wrong in the Imperium. They're the commander of the Imperium's forces (those that listen to the military bureaucracy anyway) in charge of guarding humanity's [[Segmentum|chewy centre, Segmentum Solar]]. One of the more notable examples would be the [[awesome]] '''[[Lord Solar Macharius]]'''.
**'''Lord High Admiral of the Imperial Navy:''' Discards the shiniest of flying space cathedrals in favour of the shiniest of desks. Like their counterpart(s) in the Imperial Guard, they often gets a seat when there is some Ork WAAAGH!/Tyranid Fleet/Black Crusade/Tau Expansion/etc. happening. Unlike their counterpart, though, they aren't dependent on the Chancellor for money, but they ''are'' dependent on the Navigator houses and the Astronomican for navigation and on the Adeptus Astra Telepathica for communications. As a result, they don't have as much wriggling room as one might think either, but the same thing about military necessity also applies here. The previous holder of the post, Merelda Pereth, was among the failed Hexarchy plotters and was killed by a Callidus Assassin. In Battlefleet Gothic Armada 2 his successor Drang didn't last long either before getting {{BLAM|'''*BLAM!*'''}}-med after being found working for the [[Alpha Legion]], and Admiral Spire (the guy Drang tried to kill with various suicide missions and one of the few people whose faith rivals the [[Ecclesiarchy]] without becoming a blind zealot) becomes his successor. But it is unknown up to which point the story is canon (early parts of the game are canon, merely depicting the Fall of Cadia, but latter parts are not as they end with Abaddon's death).
**'''Speaker for the Chartist Captains:''' Spokesperson of the Merchant Fleet, this High Lord defends the interests of the various trade captains within the Imperium. They are similar to but less powerful than [[Rogue Traders]], but make up about 90% of the Imperium's spacefaring capability. They might not look like much at first glance, but along with the various [[Psyker]]s above they're the glue keeping the Imperium together by making interplanetary commerce possible at all (which is a matter of survival for many, many planets), so they too get a voice in running things when there's a seat free (read: in those times of relative calm when the military situation is galactically stable, so the decades of this seat being free can probably be counted on one's hands). There are four levels of Merchant Charters, from flying fixed and limited routes to being allowed to travel through all of Imperial space within the Segmenta.
*[[Ecclesiarchy]] Subordinates
**'''Abbess Sanctorum of the Adepta Sororitas:''' The head of the [[Adepta Sororitas]]. The only member of the High Lords who is a woman by default, she is elected from the leaders of every order of the Sororitas. Like the Inquisitorial Representative, there is no real race for this position. It is, in fact, considered a penance to become the Abbess Sanctorum, which, given the other assholes in the Senatorum, is not that far from the truth. Before the Abbess is formally inducted, she is to take a pilgrimage to San Leor, the homeworld of the Daughters of the Emperor. The would-be Abbess, Sister Sabrina of the Order of the Ermine Mantle, disappeared during her pilgrimage. Tradition dictates there cannot be another Abbess elected until the current one's fate has been determined, so the seat of the Abbess remained empty for the longest time. Post-Great Rift, Celestine and her forces were able to find Sabrina trapped fighting off waves of Daemons on San Leor. After fighting them off, she was finally able to take up her seat. Later, Guilliman was able to get the newest Abbess to support his purge of Holy Terra’s more corrupted dredges in society while she also urged the Assassin to send a Vindicare agent on a hunt against an Ork Warboss that had [[looted]] a Shrine-World. The current Abbess Sanctorum is '''[[Morvenn Vahl]]'''. While it's uncertain what befell of Sabrina, Vahl was elevated here by the advisory of Guilliman and the Custodes (and by the Ecclesiarch, who mistakenly expected that her youth would make her easily manipulated). She's currently helping with the ongoing war in the Charadon sector against [[Typhus]].
**'''Cardinal of the Holy Synod of Terra:''' Some old fart from a group of old farts who spend all their time arguing about slight deviations in doctrine. Their only useful function is electing the head of the Ecclesiarchy who gets them their chair on the council. Mentioning that this is a conflict of interest is considered [[heresy]]. The Holy Synod is an organization that primarily concerns itself with running the church on Terra, so in theory, it can provide up to 3 Cardinals to fill all the vacancies, though this would never fly even in peacetime.

===The Thirteenth (and Fourteenth) Lords===
The position of '''Lord Commander''' of the Imperium's armed forces was one that [[Rogal Dorn]] was originally invested with as the coordinator of the loyalist war effort during the Horus Heresy. [[Roboute Guilliman]] took it from him at some point afterwards and used the title '''Lord Commander of the Imperium''' ''(as the first man to command the forces of the Imperium in its entirety)'' where it became synonymous with Lord Guilliman even past his injury and eventual removal by his brother [[Fulgrim]] ''(presumably because no one had the balls to remove the plaque from the door)''.

The position lasted at least until the 32nd Millennium and was the ''de jure'' leader of the Senatorum Imperialis, and on paper was the commander of the entirety of the Imperium's military forces. We say "on paper" because the last dude prior to Chapter Master [[Slaughter Koorland]] was a puppet of the other agents of the senate, and was generally incompetent. Koorland's successor, [[Maximus Thane]], also took the role of Chapter Master of the [[Imperial Fists]], and was presumably the last to hold the title, because after issuing a series of standing orders, he decided to leave Terra and rebuild the broken Imperium following the [[War of The Beast]], only returning to deal with [[The Beheading]]. The post appears to have been abolished at some point after this.

As of the closing years of the 41st millennium, '''Roboute Guilliman''' is back as the Lord Commander again, mostly because nobody else available could be trusted with a job that important, but also significantly due to the fact that nobody dared to say no to him when he announced he was taking his seat back. At least, not to his face. Several of the High Lords did, however, attempt to stage a coup, which was foiled by the Adeptus Custodes and Grand Master Fadix of the Assassinorum who had the four (well, three, he double agented and backstabbed them) serving and two fired High Lords attempting the coup simultaneously killed by his subordinates. He also appointed '''[[Dante]]''' as Lord Regent of the northern half of the Imperium and as mentioned replaced the Master of the Astronomican, who had coincidentally died due to the Long Night in the immediate aftermath of the Great Rift opening.

==The Senatorum==
As mentioned, the High Lords of Terra are a dynamic organisation, that shifts and changes according to the politics of the day. The seventeen Lords listed above in no way represent the entirety of Imperial government, nor do those Lords who '''''don't''''' get a seat on that particular day lose their ability to have their voices heard or impact policy; the Senatorum actually consists of tens of thousands of politicians, all with their own voting rights and agendas. However, the full body virtually never meets in session, and those positions that fall out of eminent favour simply don't occupy seats on the "High Twelve", which also comes with a reduction in privileges, including the right to give orders to Custodians ''(they make the distinction between High Lords and those of the High Twelve + Rotating Greater Lords not currently voting)''. That right to give orders, however, is rendered moot within the Imperial Palace, with the obvious exception of the Captain-General. Known lesser lords and positions are as follows, note how their jobs when described are relatively important to the general situation as well rather than being some nobody on present to raise numbers:

*'''Chancellor of the Imperial Senate''': A rank that exists outside of the High Lords, who acts like the presiding officer of the council. Their job is sometimes more arduous than the actual High Lords, as they have to essentially herd, bully, intimidate, sweet talk, and basically cajole all twelve into regular sessions, as well making sure the process doesn't turn into an eternal game of 'pass the buck'. They are also meant to be as politically neutral as possible, which considering how much cross intent and vested interest floats around the council is either very easy or extremely hard. Lev Tieron was the previous holder and retired during Guilliman's reforms citing old age. His protégé and successor '''Anna-Murza Jek''' was instrumental in the foiling of the Hexarchy plot and is currently in office.
*'''Commandant of the Schola Progenium''': The head of the [[Schola Progenium]], and the joint senior-[[Commissar]] of the Imperium, presumably with the head of the Commissariat. Makes sure the new generations properly worship the Emprah and properly hate anything the government does.
*'''Chirurgeon-General of the Orders Hospitaller''': The head Medicae of the Imperium. Though part of the High Twelve in the days of the Emperor, the Chirurgeon-General lost their status as a rotating member of the High Lords after the Horus Heresy, which goes to show how little a priority healthcare is in the Imperium, though for what its worth the post remained as major lesser High Lord.
*'''High Lord of the Imperial Chancellery''': The head of the Imperial Chancellery. This is the person who runs the offices of the Adeptus Terra and is essentially the superintendent of the Imperial Chancellery (Custodian interference and forbidden areas of the Imperial Palace aside). Originally part of the High Twelve, it lost its status after the Heresy and remained a major lesser High Lord.
*'''Lord Constable of the Synopticon''': The head of the Synopticon. What exactly this does is unknown, but "Synopticon" is a word that means ''"Surveillance of the few by the many"''; as his title is "Constable" that presumably makes him some kind of rule enforcer for the Senatorum itself, making sure proper procedure is followed while being more directly involved than the Chancellor. Other guesses are that he's the leader of the space CIA as opposed to the Inquisition's space FBI, or that he acts as the security chief for the Imperial Chancellery.
*'''Mistress Plenary of the Catacombs''': The person overseeing the Catacombs. What exactly that means is unknown, but given what is usually placed in the catacombs of the Imperial Palace, it probably isn't [[Heresy|pretty]].

These six are generally important to the galactic situation or at least Terra's (or the Chancellery within the Imperial Palace itself) and if any of the lesser lords outside the "can be one of the big thirteen" group are in an important but not-everyone is present level meeting its them. Other posts don't have names in the fluff at this time. Speculatively, the Segmenta and particularly important Sectors might have representatives.

When it is expedient or politically advantageous to do so, the High Lords may choose to take seats in various chambers around the Imperial palace. While some chambers are large enough to seat the whole of the senate and then some, others are barely larger than an office, where lesser lords get excluded (save the above posts who as mentioned previously are the most likely of the lesser lords to be present in big deal government meetings which involve those outside the High Twelve but not the other Senatorum politicians, alongside the rotating greater lords).

Finally, the actual bureaucrat in charge of the Senatorum itself, the Chancellor of the Imperial Council (currently Anna-Murza Jek, protege and successor to the retired Lev Tieron), should be detailed further. This is not a High Lord of Terra, but still wields great political power as being in charge of the top level bureaucracy allows them great influence and power as was seen when Jek became suspicious of the fired Master of the Administratum and Ecclesiarch plotting against Guilliman. She was critical in arranging for the traitors to spring their coup early and getting them killed by Grand Master of the Assassins Fadix backstabbing them.

==Trivia==
* The authors of the ''[[Horus Heresy]]'' series are collectively referred to as the "High Lords of Terra" on [[Black Library]]'s blog. According to [[Dan Abnett]], this is intended as self-deprecation. Yes, even the makers of 40K canon think the High Lords of Terra are useless.
* All tea and biscuits are the property of the High Lords of Terra and no one else. They are needed for the constant meetings the High Lords have (most likely to decide what colour to paint the Imperial Palace's walls this season).{{BLAM|Of course it should be GOLD, the Emprah's favorite!}}
* The High Lords do decide on foundings of Space Marines and assign the title of Warmaster to special individuals undertaking Imperial crusades. However considering how many chapters turn renegade or do their own thing and how many crusades seem to fall into failure, this could be further proof of the High Lords' collective uselessness.
* With Papa Smurf as defacto leader of the entire Imperium again, the usefulness of the High Lords have went up a reasonable notch. Mostly because most of them were sacked and replaced after they were [[Fail|dumb enough to try and stage a coup against Roboute freaking Guilliman]].
**Actually only two were sacked. Four more joined the treason plot. The Grand Master of Assassins backstabbed the plotters and killed the other five and kept his post.
* Their Fantasy equivalent, the [[Skaven#Hierarchy|Council of Thirteen]] manages to be more effective and productive despite being run by megalomaniac backstabbing ratmen drug addicts.

==See Also==
*[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/5492330/ Writefaggotry from /tg/ on the High Lords]
{{Imperium}}

Tuchulcha

2022-10-29T06:33:29Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Paradox */

[[File:Tuch.jpg|200px|thumb|right|[[Doctor Who]], proving nothing is too wholesome for 40k to rip off.]]
'''''Azrael saw a flicker of reflection - an immensely bloated daemonic creature with a dozen fanged maws and a thousand eyes. Yet beyond the daemon, inside its immaterial form, he saw a vast worm, coiled about the core of the daemon, feeding on it's own tail.'''''

{{Topquote|They made us, the one split into three,’ the essence of Chaos, refined and shaped. They thought they could tame the warp, use me to dig their tunnels and secret ways hidden from the eyes of the [[GW|Powers That Rule]]. They did not know that they made something else. Something far grander.|Tuchulcha on itself}}

The '''Tuchulcha Engine''' used by the Lion during the Horus Heresy is a truly interesting entity. It is an incredibly ancient sentient device of unknown origins; though it does mention that it was created by beings that used it to '''"tunnel their secret ways hidden from the eyes of the powers that rule"''', which sounds suspiciously like the [[Old Ones]] and their creation of the Webway (and on a metatextual level, like a TARDIS, but we'll get to that later). If its creators are indeed the Old Ones and it was truly used in the creation of the [[Webway]], then it is likely among the very oldest things still around by the time of 40k, even pre-dating the Chaos Gods themselves seeing as they came into being during or just after the [[War in Heaven]]. In fact, it may only be second to the [[C'tan]], who for their part are said to have been around since the formation of the Galaxy itself. ''(If we include the [[Enslavers]], some Warp entities existed before the Ruinous Powers existed. But because linear time doesn't apply consistently in the warp, this may or not be true; it's all so very Chaotic, isn't it?)''

Tuchulcha claims that it cannot be destroyed as it exists in the past, present and future simultaneously, and that if it was ever destroyed then it will no longer exist in any time line, though it admits that the Lion scares it as it has no wish to die.

==Paradox==
This brings up an interesting dilemma that the guys at GW could not possibly have missed, as it turns Tuchulcha into possibly the ultimate reset button; if Tuchulcha was indeed used in the creation of the Webway and if destroying it retroactively erases it from reality, that means if it does get destroyed then it couldn't have been used to make the Webway. And if the Webway doesn’t exist, then the Old Ones and the Necrontyr may never have crossed paths, which means that the War in Heaven never happens. The [[Eldar]] and [[Orks]] are never created, the [[C%27tan]] are never discovered, and the Necrontyr never become the Necrons. With the War in Heaven never happening, the turbulence that it created in the Warp never happens, and the Chaos Gods never come into being. Without them <s>the ancient Shamans never sacrifice themselves in order to protect their souls,</s> the God Emperor is never created...and so on.

TL;DR: if Tuchulcha is ever destroyed, the resulting chain reaction of time paradoxes will erase the 40k universe as we know it and humanity would safely rise and eventually become New Man like the Emperor wanted (probably to the Old One's joy). C'mon Lion, kill the fucker! Though that would also erase the grimderp and half of the grimdark. So we can't have that.

==The Trinity==

Tuchulcha is part of a trinity of sentient Warp constructs consisting of itself, the '''Plagueheart''' and the '''Consumer''' (the creature at the heart of Caliban, also called the '''[[Ouroboros]]'''):
#Tuchulcha takes the form of a large perfect sphere, presently hidden deep within [[the Rock]] and guarded by the [[Watchers in the Dark]].
#The Ouroboros (also known as "The Consumer" or "devourer worm") is a gigantic nightmare creature almost the size of a planet that comes straight out of H. P. Lovecraft. Its current state is unknown, but it is likely still hidden within the ruins of Caliban. During the event of ''Unforgiven'' by [[Gav Thorpe]], the [[Dark Angels]] and [[Cypher]] attempted to slay it, but they discovered that its "heart" was somewhere else.
#The Plagueheart is a vast living planet like entity that looks like it was the love child of a Great Unclean One and Marvel's [[/co/|Ego the Living Planet]], presently in the possession of [[Typhus]] and Merir Astelan.

When the three are combined, they can create a rift that bridges space and time. The three entities were apparently at one time part of a single whole, but were split apart at some time in the past by some unknown means. On its own, Tuchulcha is capable of extremely efficient, precise, and accurate Warp jumps by calming or flattening the Warp around it.

For some reason Tuchulcha claims that [[Caliban]] is its home and that salvation is waiting there for it and the Dark Angels.

''''''Who? Who made you?''''''

''''''At the dawn of the galaxy, so far removed from humans they might as well be gods. But even they could not tame the warp, only corral it for moments at a time. But that which creates also devours, and i am the foundation of all that was, is and will be. I am the Lens, the Bridge, the Doorway.''''''

==The Great Crusade==
During the great crusade the [[Dark Angels]] and the [[Death Guard]] brought to compliance the Perditus System where Tuchulcha was being worshiped as a god by the local population.

Tuchulcha apparently took a great liking to the Lion; it says that as soon as it felt the presence of the Lion, it knew its “saviour” had finally come. Its apparent fondness for the Lion borders on almost stalker-like levels of obsession: although it could have left at any time, it chose to remain in the exact same spot for more than fifty years waiting for the Lion to return and claim it. Even when Typhon turned up wanting to save it, Tuchulcha told him to go away as it would only leave with the Lion.

==The Horus Heresy==
During the Horus Heresy, the Lion would come into conflict with the Death Guard under Typhon over Tuchulcha. The Lion prevented Calas Typhon from acquiring the engine and was determined to use it to defeat the Night Lords and their Primarch, Konrad Curze. Lion El'Jonson began to frequently converse with Tuchulcha in the aftermath of the battle. Tuchulcha, of course, was overjoyed at the Lion's return and constantly wanted to know how it could help.

The Lion would use Tuchulcha to enter the realm of [[Ultramar]] through the [[Ruinstorm]] brought on by the devastation of Calth. After joining Guilliman's [[Imperium Secundus]], despite the fact he had only a small fleet and 20,000 warriors with him ''(the rest remaining on the opposite side of the Ruinstorm with [[Corswain]])'' he would employ it to great effect against the forces of the [[Word Bearers]] and [[World Eaters]] who were plaguing the 500 worlds. All the time throughout, Tuchulcha remained fairly reliable and never lied to the Lion, albeit speaking in a cryptic manner.

When the joint visions of [[Konrad Curze]] and [[Sanguinius]] proved the lie of Imperium Secundus, the three legions set out for Terra. Initially leaving separately, the Lion ordered Tuchulcha to take him to Terra, and was instead delivered to the '''Pandorax''' system. The engine later explained that it took the Lion as far as he needed to go, but no further until certain barriers were overcome; it became almost belligerent in its further explanations, saying that the Lion could not go directly to Terra, but could not explain what the barriers were, arguing that it could only see so far and it was not omnipotent.

After picking up some members of the Shattered Legions and getting pointed in the direction of '''Davin''', the Lion called his brothers to him so that he could lead them through the [[Ruinstorm]] together - at which point Tuchulcha [[Troll|noped]] him again and deposited the fleets at a literal brick wall in space, one billions of miles wide and thousands of miles thick, only made possible by being summoned from the Warp and anchored to a conquered Forge World.

The Engine then dropped the fleets in a region of space filled with giant solid blocks, light years in diameter, again summoned from the warp. The three Primarchs realized this was what the galaxy would look like if Chaos achieved its victory. Then Tuchulcha finally took them to Davin, which was surrounded by a boneyard of actual skeletons and ruined buildings, layered millions of miles thick, and it took hours to shoot their way through.

When their business on Davin was completed, the way to Terra was revealed. But the Lion would not go to Terra, because Sanguinius needed a diversion to make it there himself and face his own destiny. So the Lion and Guilliman set about assaulting the Traitor force's rearguard to start drawing them away from Terra and give Sanguinius a chance.

==40k==
[[File:Ouroboros-dragon-serpent-snake-symbol.jpg|200px|thumb|right|]]
Much later in the 41st Millennium, [[Cypher]] revealed that Tuchulcha was embedded within [[The Rock]] and that the [[Dark Angels]]' dark history of [[The Fallen]] could potentially be changed by finding the other two engines and changing history. He also warned that Astelan and [[Typhus]] both sought the engines as well, the former trying to ensure his rebellion would be a success (talk about a pipe dream) and the latter attempting to join forces with his past self. Eventually all 3 devices were gathered, and a warp rift was summoned over the ruins of Caliban.

''''''It is done, the plague-lord will no longer interfere. We will be remade.''''''

Convinced by [[Ezekiel]] to leave history be and to focus on trying to prevent nearby Fallen and Death Guard forces from accessing the rift first, [[Azrael]] destroyed the rift leaving the status of the other two constructs unknown, and it also had the unforeseen consequence of {{Blam|+++absolutely nothing of note happening. Any further questions should be forwarded to Interrogator-Chaplain Zacharias and [[Ordo Chronos|his strange new friends]].+++}}

==Contact Re-established==
Yeah, a living machine with a human-like avatar with the ability to travel through time and space, and that is much bigger on the inside than it has any right to be and the ability to open seemingly random doorways inside itself that weren't there before, all centered around a glowing orb power source? The writers don't dwell on it, but this thing is definitely 40k's answer to the TARDIS.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Chaos]]

Tuchulcha

2022-10-29T06:31:51Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Paradox */

[[File:Tuch.jpg|200px|thumb|right|[[Doctor Who]], proving nothing is too wholesome for 40k to rip off.]]
'''''Azrael saw a flicker of reflection - an immensely bloated daemonic creature with a dozen fanged maws and a thousand eyes. Yet beyond the daemon, inside its immaterial form, he saw a vast worm, coiled about the core of the daemon, feeding on it's own tail.'''''

{{Topquote|They made us, the one split into three,’ the essence of Chaos, refined and shaped. They thought they could tame the warp, use me to dig their tunnels and secret ways hidden from the eyes of the [[GW|Powers That Rule]]. They did not know that they made something else. Something far grander.|Tuchulcha on itself}}

The '''Tuchulcha Engine''' used by the Lion during the Horus Heresy is a truly interesting entity. It is an incredibly ancient sentient device of unknown origins; though it does mention that it was created by beings that used it to '''"tunnel their secret ways hidden from the eyes of the powers that rule"''', which sounds suspiciously like the [[Old Ones]] and their creation of the Webway (and on a metatextual level, like a TARDIS, but we'll get to that later). If its creators are indeed the Old Ones and it was truly used in the creation of the [[Webway]], then it is likely among the very oldest things still around by the time of 40k, even pre-dating the Chaos Gods themselves seeing as they came into being during or just after the [[War in Heaven]]. In fact, it may only be second to the [[C'tan]], who for their part are said to have been around since the formation of the Galaxy itself. ''(If we include the [[Enslavers]], some Warp entities existed before the Ruinous Powers existed. But because linear time doesn't apply consistently in the warp, this may or not be true; it's all so very Chaotic, isn't it?)''

Tuchulcha claims that it cannot be destroyed as it exists in the past, present and future simultaneously, and that if it was ever destroyed then it will no longer exist in any time line, though it admits that the Lion scares it as it has no wish to die.

==Paradox==
This brings up an interesting dilemma that the guys at GW could not possibly have missed, as it turns Tuchulcha into possibly the ultimate reset button; if Tuchulcha was indeed used in the creation of the Webway and if destroying it retroactively erases it from reality, that means if it does get destroyed then it couldn't have been used to make the Webway. And if the Webway doesn’t exist, then the Old Ones and the Necrontyr may never have crossed paths, which means that the War in Heaven never happens. The [[Eldar]] and [[Orks]] are never created, the [[C’Tan]] are never discovered, and the Necrontyr never become the Necrons. With the War in Heaven never happening, the turbulence that it created in the Warp never happens, and the Chaos Gods never come into being. Without them <s>the ancient Shamans never sacrifice themselves in order to protect their souls,</s> the God Emperor is never created...and so on.

TL;DR: if Tuchulcha is ever destroyed, the resulting chain reaction of time paradoxes will erase the 40k universe as we know it and humanity would safely rise and eventually become New Man like the Emperor wanted (probably to the Old One's joy). C'mon Lion, kill the fucker! Though that would also erase the grimderp and half of the grimdark. So we can't have that.

==The Trinity==

Tuchulcha is part of a trinity of sentient Warp constructs consisting of itself, the '''Plagueheart''' and the '''Consumer''' (the creature at the heart of Caliban, also called the '''[[Ouroboros]]'''):
#Tuchulcha takes the form of a large perfect sphere, presently hidden deep within [[the Rock]] and guarded by the [[Watchers in the Dark]].
#The Ouroboros (also known as "The Consumer" or "devourer worm") is a gigantic nightmare creature almost the size of a planet that comes straight out of H. P. Lovecraft. Its current state is unknown, but it is likely still hidden within the ruins of Caliban. During the event of ''Unforgiven'' by [[Gav Thorpe]], the [[Dark Angels]] and [[Cypher]] attempted to slay it, but they discovered that its "heart" was somewhere else.
#The Plagueheart is a vast living planet like entity that looks like it was the love child of a Great Unclean One and Marvel's [[/co/|Ego the Living Planet]], presently in the possession of [[Typhus]] and Merir Astelan.

When the three are combined, they can create a rift that bridges space and time. The three entities were apparently at one time part of a single whole, but were split apart at some time in the past by some unknown means. On its own, Tuchulcha is capable of extremely efficient, precise, and accurate Warp jumps by calming or flattening the Warp around it.

For some reason Tuchulcha claims that [[Caliban]] is its home and that salvation is waiting there for it and the Dark Angels.

''''''Who? Who made you?''''''

''''''At the dawn of the galaxy, so far removed from humans they might as well be gods. But even they could not tame the warp, only corral it for moments at a time. But that which creates also devours, and i am the foundation of all that was, is and will be. I am the Lens, the Bridge, the Doorway.''''''

==The Great Crusade==
During the great crusade the [[Dark Angels]] and the [[Death Guard]] brought to compliance the Perditus System where Tuchulcha was being worshiped as a god by the local population.

Tuchulcha apparently took a great liking to the Lion; it says that as soon as it felt the presence of the Lion, it knew its “saviour” had finally come. Its apparent fondness for the Lion borders on almost stalker-like levels of obsession: although it could have left at any time, it chose to remain in the exact same spot for more than fifty years waiting for the Lion to return and claim it. Even when Typhon turned up wanting to save it, Tuchulcha told him to go away as it would only leave with the Lion.

==The Horus Heresy==
During the Horus Heresy, the Lion would come into conflict with the Death Guard under Typhon over Tuchulcha. The Lion prevented Calas Typhon from acquiring the engine and was determined to use it to defeat the Night Lords and their Primarch, Konrad Curze. Lion El'Jonson began to frequently converse with Tuchulcha in the aftermath of the battle. Tuchulcha, of course, was overjoyed at the Lion's return and constantly wanted to know how it could help.

The Lion would use Tuchulcha to enter the realm of [[Ultramar]] through the [[Ruinstorm]] brought on by the devastation of Calth. After joining Guilliman's [[Imperium Secundus]], despite the fact he had only a small fleet and 20,000 warriors with him ''(the rest remaining on the opposite side of the Ruinstorm with [[Corswain]])'' he would employ it to great effect against the forces of the [[Word Bearers]] and [[World Eaters]] who were plaguing the 500 worlds. All the time throughout, Tuchulcha remained fairly reliable and never lied to the Lion, albeit speaking in a cryptic manner.

When the joint visions of [[Konrad Curze]] and [[Sanguinius]] proved the lie of Imperium Secundus, the three legions set out for Terra. Initially leaving separately, the Lion ordered Tuchulcha to take him to Terra, and was instead delivered to the '''Pandorax''' system. The engine later explained that it took the Lion as far as he needed to go, but no further until certain barriers were overcome; it became almost belligerent in its further explanations, saying that the Lion could not go directly to Terra, but could not explain what the barriers were, arguing that it could only see so far and it was not omnipotent.

After picking up some members of the Shattered Legions and getting pointed in the direction of '''Davin''', the Lion called his brothers to him so that he could lead them through the [[Ruinstorm]] together - at which point Tuchulcha [[Troll|noped]] him again and deposited the fleets at a literal brick wall in space, one billions of miles wide and thousands of miles thick, only made possible by being summoned from the Warp and anchored to a conquered Forge World.

The Engine then dropped the fleets in a region of space filled with giant solid blocks, light years in diameter, again summoned from the warp. The three Primarchs realized this was what the galaxy would look like if Chaos achieved its victory. Then Tuchulcha finally took them to Davin, which was surrounded by a boneyard of actual skeletons and ruined buildings, layered millions of miles thick, and it took hours to shoot their way through.

When their business on Davin was completed, the way to Terra was revealed. But the Lion would not go to Terra, because Sanguinius needed a diversion to make it there himself and face his own destiny. So the Lion and Guilliman set about assaulting the Traitor force's rearguard to start drawing them away from Terra and give Sanguinius a chance.

==40k==
[[File:Ouroboros-dragon-serpent-snake-symbol.jpg|200px|thumb|right|]]
Much later in the 41st Millennium, [[Cypher]] revealed that Tuchulcha was embedded within [[The Rock]] and that the [[Dark Angels]]' dark history of [[The Fallen]] could potentially be changed by finding the other two engines and changing history. He also warned that Astelan and [[Typhus]] both sought the engines as well, the former trying to ensure his rebellion would be a success (talk about a pipe dream) and the latter attempting to join forces with his past self. Eventually all 3 devices were gathered, and a warp rift was summoned over the ruins of Caliban.

''''''It is done, the plague-lord will no longer interfere. We will be remade.''''''

Convinced by [[Ezekiel]] to leave history be and to focus on trying to prevent nearby Fallen and Death Guard forces from accessing the rift first, [[Azrael]] destroyed the rift leaving the status of the other two constructs unknown, and it also had the unforeseen consequence of {{Blam|+++absolutely nothing of note happening. Any further questions should be forwarded to Interrogator-Chaplain Zacharias and [[Ordo Chronos|his strange new friends]].+++}}

==Contact Re-established==
Yeah, a living machine with a human-like avatar with the ability to travel through time and space, and that is much bigger on the inside than it has any right to be and the ability to open seemingly random doorways inside itself that weren't there before, all centered around a glowing orb power source? The writers don't dwell on it, but this thing is definitely 40k's answer to the TARDIS.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:Chaos]]

Horus Heresy

2022-10-28T08:24:20Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* The Siege of Terra series */

[[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|I never wanted this. I never wanted to unleash my legions. Together, we banished the ignorance of old night. But you betrayed me. You betrayed us all. You stole power from the Gods, and lied to your sons! Mankind has only one chance to prosper. If you will not seize it...'''then I will!!''' So let it be war! From the skies of Terra, to the Galactic Rim. Let the seas boil! Let the stars fall! Though it takes, '''the last drop of my blood''', I will see the Galaxy freed once more! And if I cannot save it from your failure, father...then let the Galaxy '''BURN!'''|Horus, making his own feelings known and [[A Game of Pretend|totally not projecting ''at all''.]]}}

{{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. [[Derp|Also notice how the Gothic Sector and Port Maw, canonically bordering the Eye of Terror, are positioned a quarter of the galaxy away from it.]] [[Forge World|For some reason.]]]]
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' to make the problem go away". 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 stories [[Alpha Legion|The Serpent Beneath]] and [[The Last Church]].

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 defenses. 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 realizing 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 shenanigans 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 cliché 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 Guilliman</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, as the main framing device is that of the official records of the Ultramarines Legion with a ticking clock, with T=0 marking the begin of the Assault on Calth and the massive confusion that ensues depsite every single Ultramarine being surrounded by more red flags than you could find at a Communist party meeting.
*'''''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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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. When not showing off the two traitor primarchs, the book 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. The guy also resurrects the Word Bearers' waifu, apparently turning her into a perpetual in the process, only for her to be <s>kidnapped</s> rescued by the Cabal soon after. She is never seen again in the rest of the series. 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 millennia, 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. Unmarked 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. John Grammaticus is up to no good (probably), looking for an artifact infused with the Emperor's groovy god juice and there is a Word Bearer who doesn't seem to be buying into the whole "Chaos is so epic and cool" schtick of his legion. 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 realize 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 foresees 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 exterminatus grade phosphex to the face (he survives nonetheless, 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 defenses 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' defenses 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 ritualized 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 millennium, 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 for 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 defense 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. The 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 acolyte 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 never-ending 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 deep-strikes 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 realizes 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, signaling 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. Big-E 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 few minutes 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 when Horus falls, all but confirming that the Chaos Gods expected Horus to lose his duel with the Emperor.
*'''''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 ultimately results their city getting bombed to shit. (Zenobi's story took about a quarter of the book, but its entirety can be summed up in one sentence, and could '''at best''' be described as misguided, inexplicable filler; 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 to a single (armless) man. 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]] (presumably losing his arms in the transfer) despite his own wish for death, as the Chaos Gods already have him in mind as their new Warmaster. 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 feeds Eidolon his own sword and just straight-up kicks him 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 as the result of what can only be described as a fucked up custody battle - 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 it 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 complete withdrawal of all IV Legion assets on Terra and fucks off, abandoning the siege entirely. 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 and in somewhat limited capacity. Princeps Aurum of the Ordo sinister (whom we saw in a previous short story tell Dorn to fuck off because being one of ''The Talons of the Emperor'', they only answer to Big-E himself), 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 daemon titan engines, and thanks to their nature as [[blanks]], they deny the traitors any further resurrections, so anything they kill ''stays'' dead. They also tank damage without even staggering, simply repairing any damage they accumulate on the spot. However, the traitors brought a LOT of titans, so even those few Psi-titans we get to see are eventually overwhelmed, though they take a fuckton of traitors with them.
** 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 yet. 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? The Dark Angels probably could due to their abundance of Dark Age archeotech and The Lion's maybe [[Tuchulcha|Old Ones-creation biological computer Pinnochio macguffin... Thing]], but everyone else? Nonetheless, the plot decrees that Corswain and his Dark Angels must be given something interesting to do I guess. Thus, 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 and secure 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 daemon (as in ''permakill''), but gets a bad nose-bleed. The horror.
* '''''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. 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. The White Scars' frenzy doesn't end until a newly raised khan gets word to Shiban that their primarch yet lives, and manages to remind Shiban that they were supposed to take the port, not destroy it. The Death Guard retreat in shambles, abandoning the Gate and rejoining Typhus, who had once again taken off to do his own thing earlier in the book.
**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 still 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. Incidentally, this book does the seemingly impossible and actually makes us root for Erebus (the quintessential Quizling/Hitler/High School Meangirl hybrid in SPHESS[[Games Workshop|™]] of the entire Horus Heresy), due to him dropping some much needed truth-bombs on Erda (humanity's worst mom) and hands her some long overdue comeuppance. Erebus then moves to finish her off and wreck her house, [[A Game of Pretend|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 [Shiban Khan leads the Lion's Gate Spaceport in his absence], Dorn is surrounded at Bhab Bastion, Corswain and his Dark Angels contingent have locked down the Astronomicon but are ordered to stay put, and all other 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 duel Angron as the big climactic fight.
** A lot of this books focuses on the defenders retreat to (and attackers assault on) the Eternity Gate leading to the Sanctum Imperialis, specifically their mustering and battle before the Delphic Battlement. That being said, this is also the point in the siege where things really start to go [[Not as Planned]] for Team Chaos, and as ever, it's often as much due to them getting in their own way, just as much as the efforts of Team Emperor. The Imperial side of things is mostly narrated through the perspectives of Nassir Amit and Zephon of the Blood Angels. Zephon apparently ''wasn't'' killed back in Saturnine and was just taking a nap until Arkhan Land and some Legion serfs fix him up with Dark Age archeotech and send him on his merry way. Meanwhile, the Chaos side of things is told from the POV of the World Eaters Apothecary Kargos from ''Betrayer'' as he tags along with a random Word Bearers Chaplain, reminiscent of Kharne and Argel Tal's previous bro-ship. It doesn't matter though, because Kargos gets curb-stomped by the Flesh Tearer and left for dead by his Word Bearers buddy. After a day of fighting, the defenders begin to retreat to the Sanctum, knowing that whoever is left on the outside after the doors close will be daemon chow. Sanguinius duels Ka'Bandha and wrecks him pretty one-sidedly. Just as the gates are being closed, a Legio Audax (the same guys from ''Betrayer'') titan holds the door open long enough for Angron to swoop in and start fighting the Angel. The two duel, and Angron gets a good sword-stab to Sanguinius' gutmeats, but then Fabulous Hawk Boy rips the Butcher's Nails from daemon Angron's head and drops him to the ground before heading inside and letting the gates close.
** There's a sub-plot about Vulkan going into the shattered remains of the Emperor's Webway project to duel with Magnus, who is on the other side after being ejected in ''Fury of Magnus''. Magnus does a bunch of magic tricks to Vulkan, but Vulkan is an [[Perpetual|unkillable]] primarch with a big fuckoff hammer and eventually Magnus gets tuckered out long enough for them to 'kill' each other. Magnus is banished from the Webway and Vulkan eventually gets up and wanders out. One revelation from these parts is that the Emperor's 'you only perceive me how I want you to perceive me' shtick extends to the Primarchs, as Vulkan remembers the Emperor's offer to Magnus to lead the Grey Knights as a stern 'lol gtfo'. Well that's one interpretation anyway; the other is that the corruption of Chaos wormed its way yet further into Magnus, altering his cognitive function, allowing him to think of himself as the victim, and thus ensuring that Magnus would dance further to their tune.
** We also get a look into how things are going in the fleet and for some of the mortal followers of Chaos. The aforementioned Legio Audax Warhound, the ''Hindarah'', has been on Terra pretty much since the beginning. It's princeps still believes herself to be alive, and frequently hallucinates that the cockpit of her god-engine has become an abattoir of horrors, but then she comes back to it and everything seems normal again. It isn't until we get another character's view on the interior that we see that, yeah, the princeps and moderati have all fused into a ''[[Chaos Spawn|that thing]]''... Yuck. Lotarra Sarrin, everyone's favorite spunky girl-boss captain of the ''Conqueror'', has become a corrupted ''thing'' partly fused with her command throne, while the parts of her that wanted to run away from the horror of it all became a ghost that the rest of the crew just sort of tolerate. This ghost even manages to get in a call to Horus aboard the ''Vengeful Spirit'', who has continued to deteriorate from 'kooky grampa' to 'scary kooky grampa'. It's heavily implied that Argonis is the only one left really running the fleet.
** The book ends with the Lion's Gate Space Port finally opening fire on the traitor fleet, much to the horror of those aboard, who were caught completely unprepared, in close formation while stationary in geosynchronous orbit, and immediately starts getting torn to pieces. They then receive a message from its [[White Scars|new occupants]], who basically just calls to laugh at them. [[Troll|Then he hangs up]]. In the epilogue a few pages later, we get a sweet little note from Guilliman to Sanguinius, saying that he's a couple days from the system's edge and only a solar week from Terra. However, this message is intercepted and blocked by daemon Lotarra Sarrin from reaching the surface.
** A lot of this helps to set up and answer the ultimate question of "why did Horus drop the void shields?" At this point in the siege, the defenders are on their very last legs. Dorn and a lot of forces are cut off at Bhab Bastion, while everyone else who is still alive has fled inside the Sanctum Imperialis, the only exceptions being the White Scars at Lion's Gate and the Dark Angels at the Astronomicon. There are no more walls to get behind, nowhere else to run to. On the Chaos side of things, by book's end, Horus is no longer the smug little shit we've seen throughout the siege, and is instead now shitting his pants, because he has now lost every single one of his generals. Lorgar had already been driven out for plotting to overthrow Horus, Konrad is not even in the correct side of the galaxy, Alpharius/Omegon (it's hard to keep track of which one is which at the best of times) died at Pluto while the other twin remains at large elsewhere, Fulgrim fucked off during ''Saturnine'', Perturabo during ''Mortis'', Mortarion got clapped by the Khan in ''Warhawk'' and shunted off into the warp, and by the end of ''Echoes'', both Magnus and Angron ([[Skub|arguably Horus' two most OP subordinates]]) have been reduced to greasy, whiny smears, staining sections of the Webway and Eternity Gates' floors, respectively. To make matters worse for Team Chaos, but Horus especially (as if any more were needed), with the death or absence of their respective primarchs, a significant percentage of the remaining astartes forces under the Warmaster's command (maybe even up to '''HALF''') have lost anything even remotely resembling unit cohesion, and in the case of the Thousand Sons and World Eaters, probably permanently; the former having fully succumbed to the flesh change en masse and the latter evidently now practicing for the upcoming [[Battle of Skalathrax]] by going all-in on the whole Teamkilling Fucktard thing, whereas before they'd only engaged in the occasional Teamkilling dalliance. The board, as they say, is set for the final showdown.
*'''''The End and the Death''''': This is it. 17 years and over 60 books, all leading up to ''the'' main event of the Heresy: the duel of the Emperor and Horus, as written by [[Dan Abnett|the man who started the series]][[Awesome|.]] Will be split into multiple volumes, because there's no way in hell BL wouldn't milk this for all it's worth, and because Abnett belongs to the school of write a shit ton of words (thankfully, unlike [[A Song of Ice and Fire|someone else we can name]] he actually finishes his shit).
*'''''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 has to go into suspended animation, Garuda the mechanical eagle watches over him as he passes out, 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.
* '''''Garro: Knight of Grey''''': The third novella in the series, featuring Nathaniel Garro's final showdown with Mortarion as he fights to protect Euphrati Keeler.

==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. The surviving natives of Morningstar are obliterated in space to stop the meme from spreading, and shortly before the Siege of Terra Magnus Pókeballs the psychic gestalt from its prison in the ruins of Prospero into his book so he can use it to get past the Emperor's psychic shield.

===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. A meeting takes place between Sanguinius, Magnus and the Khan to talk about protecting the Librarius but Magnus is dismissive as ever about it and doesn't seem to take the issue very seriously. The White Scars fight together with the Luna Wolves against Greenskins and the former legion uses their Librarius against the Orc shamans, in order to not miss a conquest deadline set by the Khan, who of course likes to go very fast in all manner of ways. This has a subtle backfire for the Imperium, as the Luna Wolves disapprove of the Librarius. Horus himself is implied to give Jagathai the cold shoulder as a result of this, due to Horus trying to be on his most neutral, goodie good boyscout behavior, in anticipation of winning the title of Warmaster. The Khan thus loses support of Horus regarding the psyker dilemma. 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. Much better book than most in the Primarchs series, as it's basically a Horus Heresy book and not a novel about a no-stakes Crusade campaign (Guilliman's book) nor a deep dive into the Primarch's life before the Emperor (Lorgar's). This is also a companion piece / prequel to Brotherhood of the Storm (this book directly intertwines with Brotherhood near the end) and Scars.

===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 [[Warhammer High|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. [[Slayer|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. To briefly retouch on a previous point though: the book does a good job of fleshing out the role of the I Legion. If the VIth are the Emperor's executioners, and the VIIIth his terror Legion, then the Ist are his exterminators. This, combined with the previously mentioned unparalleled trust Big-E has for his first son is likely why, alone of the rest of the Imperium (probably not including the Custodes) the Dark Angels are trusted with archeotech from the Dark Age of Technology so dangerous that not even the Cog-boys know it exists, including weapons so destructive that they probably outclass anything but Necron-tech, which is really saying something. 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 saw they were too tough a 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 [[Meme|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 be 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 comes across 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 (Alpharius even expresses a foreboding worry that Horus is carrying too much on his shoulders), The Lion to a certain extent (whom Alpharius speculates was the only brother to see through him and sense the truth), 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/foster father, 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 during Mortarion's early days in the Imperium, just after the events of ''The Verdict of the Scythe'' and flashing back to the Conquest of Galaspar, his first campaign as primarch of the Death Guard. As he's settling into command of his legion, Mortarion learns of a noncompliant human empire known as the Order in the Galaspar Cluster. Billions of people are enslaved, kept permanently drugged up, and forced to work themselves to death for the enrichment of the High Comptrollers, a pack of oligarchical assholes who refer to their slaves as "labor units" and have them executed and turned into nutrient sludge because their baking wasn't up to par (no, really). The Order's similarities to the Overlords of Barbarus piss Mortarion off to the point where he rejects the other Imperial commanders' suggestion that they blockade and besiege the cluster and decides to do a Leeroy Jenkins-style decapitation strike instead. He takes his fleet and barges clean through the Cluster's exterior defenses before ramming a cruiser into the side of the largest hive on Galaspar Prime and going out to kick ass the Death Guard way: fistfuls of rad grenades, rivers of phosphex, and power scythes, all topped off with plenty of orbital bombardments. No one who belongs to the Order is allowed to survive; Morty and the legion kill most of the Comptrollers even when they try to surrender and leave a few to be torn to pieces by their former slaves. Mortarion expects to be praised for his work, but the Emperor seems upset and sends Horus and Sanguinius to call him to account. Both primarchs are stunned by the level of destruction Mortarion has wrought, and when he tries to justify himself to his brothers, Horus points out that all he's done is replace one kind of tyranny with another. Mort has a brief moment of clarity and wonders if there is a better path forward for him and his legion. Ultimately, however, he concludes that the examples of Galaspar and Absyrtus justify his way of war and decides to become an embodiment of unstoppable, unrelenting Death, [[Nurgle|and we all know how well that worked out for him.]] Also features [[Typhus|Calas Typhon]] and [[Knights-Errant#Nathaniel Garro|Nathaniel Garro]] in their early days as line legionaries. Typhon falls into a disgusting sewer at one point and runs into a psyker who seems to know what he'll become, while Garro is the sole survivor of a kill team sent to take out the Order's chief asshole, which is probably what set him on the path to becoming battle-captain of the Seventh Grand Company.

===Rogal Dorn: The Emperor's Crusader===

Fafnir Rann and Sigismund are standing around on the walls of the Imperial Palace just before the Siege, wondering why their primarch got the job of fortifying Terra, when Malcador pops out and reminds them of the Night Crusade, whereupon all three of them start reminiscing about it.

Six decades into the Great Crusade, ten years after Dorn was recovered and shortly after Lion el'Jonson was found, Dorn, Fulgrim, Horus, and the Lion are ordered to deploy into the Occluda Noctis, an area of the galaxy obscured by a major Warp storm. Their goal is to bring the area into Imperial compliance and find the source of an unknown threat that’s already destroyed multiple expeditionary fleets. All four of them have their own ideas about how best to prosecute the campaign; the Lion wants to work his way in from the periphery of the Occluda, while Dorn’s plan boils down to “drive my fleet into the heart of the Occluda and get shit done”. He and the Lion disagree about who’s right to the point where Horus and Fulgrim have to try and calm them down, but Dorn insults the Lion, who demands an honor duel. The Lion’s champion wins because Dorn forgot he had Sigismund, and Rogal immediately apologizes to his brother for insulting him. Ultimately, they agree to do both plans. Dorn’s works surprisingly well, though the Fists don’t rack up nearly as many compliances as the Dark Angels and Emperor’s Children since he's insisting on a diplomatic approach and the fleet has to be careful when making Warp jumps in the Occluda. They eventually encounter the unknown enemy, which turns out to be a lost human civilization called the Kapikulu Continuum that uses cloaking tech and special warp gates to get around, requiring Dorn to up his game to counter them. He manages to outsmart and defeat the Continuum's fleet and convinces its leaders to join the Imperium. At the peace negotiations, he learns that the Continuum used to be the slaves of a xenos race that altered their brains to grow a special neural web that lets them use all their nifty technology (and also makes their heads explode if a psyker tries mind-probing them), which means that they’re not technically human anymore. Dorn concludes that he can’t risk letting them join the Imperium and orders them to be wiped out, following the exact letter of the Emperor’s orders: “Remove this hidden threat.” He is genuinely distressed by this outcome, but sucks it up and moves on.

The whole point of the story turns out to be summing up Dorn’s character: he was made the Praetorian of Terra because he can be trusted to do exactly what he is told to do, fulfilling both the word and spirit of the Emperor’s commands, and there’s no one else the Emperor would rather have guarding his capital world. Also a funny sidenote: Perturabo is found during the course of the Night Crusade and Dorn sends him a friendly welcome message, which one character declares will certainly lead to a greater fraternal bond between them in future.

===Sanguinius: The Great Angel===
A disgraced remembrancer joins the IX Legion on campaign and learns more about the early days of the Blood Angels, possibly including some of their more unsavory secrets.

===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."

==Horus Heresy Character Series==

A subseries of novellas and short stories focusing on major characters from the Crusade and Heresy eras. Originally these were part of the Primarchs series until BL finally split them off into their own category.

===Valdor: Birth of the Imperium===
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===
Solomon Voss comes to interview Sigismund for the first time near the end of the Great Crusade, and Sigismund reveals why he believes that there will only be war in the Imperium's <s>grimdark</s> noblebright future.

Most of the novel is concerned with Siggy's backstory: he 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 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 an entire day until Sigismund was about to land the killing blow and Sevatar 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 as a child what he'd become, he'd still have said no. Voss further realizes that Sigismund is hoping to die at some point so he can escape the endless cycle of conflict. The book ends with Voss summarizing what Sigismund believes: there will always be war, because even if the Imperium pacifies the galaxy, it will still have to fight against the cruelty, savagery, and cowardice of human nature. Needless to say, later events proved Sigismund to be absolutely right in every possible way.

==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 mentioned below and more alarmingly, the lead-up to Adepticon 2022 announced that the Horus Heresy wargame was going to see a new edition, now written by the core GW design team. Warhammer Fest 2022 displayed their full intent, with a full box set (filled with plastic Beakies, two new Praetors, a Spartan, and Cataphractii Termies, all in plastic) as well as plenty of other updated models: new support squad weapon kits, reboxed 20-man kits for Mk. III and Mk. IV Marines, plastic Deimos-pattern Rhinos, Sicarans, and Leviathan Dreadnoughts, an updated plastic Contemptor Dread kit, and the brand new [[Kratos Heavy Assault Tank]], a heavy tank placed in between the Sicaran and Fellblade. They've continued to make new models for the game since then (including plans for new models for each of the Primarchs), although it seems Forge World will still be making a bunch of the original models

===First Edition===
'''Book 1: 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.

'''Book 2: 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.

'''Book 3: 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.

'''Book 4: 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.
'''Book 5: 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.

'''Book 6: 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).

'''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.

'''Book 8: 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, two new squads, and an entire slew of relics that interact with Psykers and Daemons.

'''Book 9: 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 proved to be the last of the black books for the first edition of the Heresy tabletop, as GW announced a new edition of the game at Adepticon 2022.

====Condensed Lists====
The Istvaan Campaign Legions (ICL) and Legiones Astartes Crusade Army List (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 LACAL is basically the generic 30k Space Marine "codex", whilst the ICL contains all of the collected rules for the legions from Books 1-3, including their units, characters and wargear. 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 Taghmata 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.

====Exemplary Battles====
Starting in Fall 2021, GW started publishing a series of free PDFs for the Horus Heresy tabletop which contain mini-campaigns based around battles from the Heresy that have been mentioned in the novels or black books but weren't big enough for a book of their own. These PDFs also include fluff and rules for Legion units that haven't been given any yet, along with photos and conversion tips for said units. These tips boil down to "buy tons of Forge World stuff while you still can", 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; GW has confirmed that the PDFs released prior to the launch of the new edition have been written to work with both sets of rules.

*'''''[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]]. 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.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/AmPdr3yMZbvggCND.pdf The Breaking of the Perfect Fortress]''''': Raven Guard storming the III Legion's Perfect Fortress on the world of Narsis, previously mentioned in ''Deliverance Lost''. Includes rules for the Deliverers, Terran-born Raven Guard who were trained under Horus and still prefer to use Terminator armor and shock-assault tactics. They're Stubborn and get teleportation transponders for deep-striking, but their main rule is Corax's Shame, representing the fact that Corax wasn't fond of his brutal Terran sons. They get +1T against attacks that cause Instant Death and cannot be deployed within 18" of Corax, nor can he ever join them. If you take Deliverers as part of a traitor force, they instead gain Hatred against Corax.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/TLbrp4me5GEfL37Q.pdf The Scouring of Gilden's Star]''''': Word Bearers vs Blood Angels fighting over a ''Hamlet'' reference last seen all the way back in 1989. Has rules for the Word Bearers' Procurators, basically assault squads led by evil Apothecaries who [[Blood Ravens|steal gene-seed]] and desecrate corpses to summon daemons. They give boosts to friendly psykers with the Harbinger of Chaos, Diabolism, and Anathemata disciplines and award an extra VP every time they Sweeping Advance an enemy unit.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/6i9CeSwKmbWmzac4.pdf The Battle of Trisolian: Vengeful Spirit]''''': Taking a page from the ''Wolfsbane'' novel, this portrays the part of the [[Battle of Trisolian]] when the Space Wolves broke into Horus' flagship during Russ' attempt to kill Horus before he reached Terra. Introduces the Space Wolves' Jorlund Hunter Pack, assault marines that can temporarily supercharge their flamers, and the Sons of Horus' Chieftains, an elite retinue of junior officers who specialize in hunting down characters.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/3mVvZrTG9XOWeVxv.pdf The Axandria IV Incident]''''': Imperial Fists, Custodes, and Sisters of Silence raid a Thousand Sons repository world not long before the Siege of Terra, and the Thousand Sons actually score a win this time by evacuating their data stacks before the loyalist forces can trash them. Includes rules for Numerologist Cabals of the Order of Ruin, Thousand Sons Techmarines and tacticians who used divination to generate battle plans and predict enemy movements. The Numerologist gains a special psychic power that gives him a geo-locator beacon and boosts the BS of two friendly Thousand Sons squads if he passes a psychic check. He also gets a special bubble-wrap rule that prevents him from taking any wounds no matter what until all his bodyguards are dead, unless he accepts a challenge.

===Second Edition===
The first two books for the new edition of the tabletop were revealed at Warhammer Fest 2022: the '''Liber Astartes''' and the '''Liber Hereticus'''. These are basically updated and combined versions of the LACAL and ICL books. Both books contain the rules for all non-Legion-specific units, while the Liber Astartes has the rules for the loyalist legions and the Liber Hereticus has the rules for the traitor legions, including their Primarchs, unique units and wargear, Rites of War, Warlord Traits, and faction abilities. The '''Legacies of the Age of Darkness''' PDF contains the rules for vehicles, units, and characters who either never had models or whose models are now out of production, including most of the Legion-specific special characters, Castraferrum Dreadnoughts, the [[Crassus Armored Assault Transport|CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT]], and all of the Baneblade variants. Later leaks, which Warhammer Community would confirm, revealed that there would also be books for the Mechanicum ('''Liber Mechanicum''') that would contain rules for the Taghmata, Knights and Titans as well as a book for the Custodes, Sisters of Silence, Solar Auxilia, and Divisio Assassinorum ('''Liber Imperium'''). Daemons of the Ruinstorm and Imperialis Militia/Warp Cults will get downloadable lists, and according to the Legacies PDF the Knights-Errant and Blackshields are being made into full factions. They will also continue to release the Exemplary Battles series; the previously released PDFs got a separate update PDF in order to work with the new edition. The tactics page for the Legions can be found [[Age of Darkness-Warhammer 30k/2.0 Tactics/Legiones Astartes Tactics|here]].

The core rules have been drastically modified with the addition of "Reactions", which make gameplay more dynamic. In addition to basic reactions such as Overwatch that can be taken in response to the opponent's actions, each Legion now has an "Advanced Reaction" that is more powerful but requires more specific conditions to work. Furthermore, USRs have been rewritten to be more granular (e.g. Bulky, Very Bulky, and Extremely Bulky are now Bulky (X), where X is is how many models that unit counts as for the purposes of transport capacity) and the Psychic Phase has been removed in lieu of the pre-7th edition manner of resolving psychic powers.

==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==
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3170/horus-heresy-1993 Horus Heresy (1993)] at BoardGameGeek
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63543/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (2010)] at BoardGameGeek

{{40k-Timeline}}

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

Erda

2022-10-28T08:11:33Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Biography AKA The Skubian Heresy: Erda would like to Speak to your Manager */

{{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 <s>automaton-like yes-men</s> (Horus, raised by the Emperor, was anything but a yes-man even before his rebellion) as generals of the Astartes legions (and guides for the normal humans to greatness), 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. Even though the Emperor was the only one with the power and skill to see visions of what humanity had to do in order to survive. Which would mean the other Perpetuals were total morons who wanted to take it slow despite ''knowing'' that humanity didn't have time for that. To say nothing of the countless, powerful threats the Perpetuals doubtless knew were out there preying on or would plague humanity. I mean, heck, look at the difficulties encountered by the Great Crusade. Were these people completely retarded?

Because God forbid your children be raised to be responsible adults, live a future of glory, and in the lap of luxury and immortality. Why, surely no mother would ever want that for their kids!

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. Ironically, judging from his raising of Horus, the Emperor was actually a very good father. It's just that when he met his other sons, they were already fully grown adults and totally foreign to him. 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. Also, Chaos is a frequent part of the Warp, which means the presence of the Warp will often be Chaotic and so whether Chaos was involved or not is still both debatable and likely irrelevant.

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; individuals absolutely imperative to the plans of Team Chaos (individuals that [[Just as Planned|conveniently had recently become far more susceptible due to both shattering drops in morale and grievous physical injury]]), their [[Bullshit|believability]] could at best be called [[A Game of Pretend|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 the Chaos Gods aren't so crazy as a woman refusing to accept she's wrong and that the man in charge isn't evil for giving his kids a luxurious and glorious future. 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. [[meme|Just like a woman]]... 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, and which were even implied to have been ''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, [[Bullshit|Erda's bullshittery still literally imperiled the very survival of mankind as a whole]]. [[Just as Planned|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. Say that she got wounded enough to also be interned like the Emperor and she directs some esoteric function personally or something and leave it at that. On the other-hand, the athame is a Nurgle artifact and so perhaps could rot her soul or cause an injury her power can't heal, leaving her unconscious and plagued by the horror of the future that is entirely her fault for being a self-righteous bitch. She's a little bit like Spock's half brother Sybok from Star Trek V; it happened, it's canon, but it's so Earth shatteringly embarrassing that everyone just pretends like it never happened. The only good reason to bring her back would be to have her to run into some sort of Konrad Curze ghost or Warp manifestation and have him do his usual thing...

Her addition is stupid, still I can see why Erebus would want someone linked to the Astartes and Primarch projects to help boost either production or quality of marines once the siege is over. Anyway she'll come back in a stupid ritual using her symbolic connection to attack/corrupt either the Emperor or the loyal Primarchs only for that loyalist Wordbearer with the fulgurite to use it to kill her for good instead of assassinating Lorgar.

{{Imperium}}
[[Category:Imperial]]
[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

The God-Emperor of Mankind

2022-10-28T07:56:06Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

{{awesome}}

<div style="text-align:left;font-size:1.10em;font-weight:normal;font-style:normal;font-family:serif;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em">{{Topquote|I have come to eradicate Religion as it is the bane of Man, warped in superstition, ignorance and fear!|The Emperor before the Treason of Horus, while dressed in gold, brandishing a giant flaming sword and calling his soldiers his "angels of death" }}''' </div>

[[File:Lord of Mankind.jpg|400px|right|thumb|Conquering the galaxy is one thing, but He was so powerful He never once stopped looking ''fabulous'' while doing it. <s>At least until the whole 'Horus' thing, anyway.</s> {{BLAM}}]]
{{Topquote|Wars begin when you will, but they do not end when you please.|Niccoló Machiavelli}}
{{Topquote|The Emperor loves no one man. He cannot afford affection - that is the honest practical for the impossible task that faces the Master of Mankind. He did not love His sons, He does not love men, but He does love mankind.|[[Roboute Guilliman]]}}
{{Topquote|Well, ze Emperor's just zis guy, you know?|Gag Halfrunt}}
{{Topquote|I'm Here to kill Chaos, That's my Mission|Jack}}
{{Topquote|The Emperor battles daily with forces beyond understanding, yet you expect him to retain a mortal sympathy? He walks the paths of eternity; be thankful he is able to converse with you at all.|Malcador to Jaghatai Khan on why Big-E tends to be so inscrutable. Not an unreasonable point, frankly.}}

The '''God-Emperor of Mankind''' is the figurehead of the [[Imperium of Man]] in the [[Warhammer 40k]] universe and has been enthroned on (or rather in) a life-sustaining device known as the Golden Throne for the last ten millennia. He is nigh-on unable to communicate or influence things directly, so day-to-day ruling is done without (and too often in spite of) Him. He is the only sustaining [[Noblebright|hope]] for Humanity as faith in him is the only way humans can counter the insidious whispers of [[Chaos Gods|Ruin]], and the treacherous ways of the [[Xenos]]. Furthermore, He powers humanity's only means for safe Faster than Light Travel through the [[Astronomican]].

The [[Administratum]] He ordered to be established, continues to govern the [[Imperium]] in His name, but it is generally accepted that the absence of the Emperor's [[Malcador|proper guidance]] is what has turned the Imperium into the [[/b/|hellish mess]] that it is. In the [[Imperium]], questioning whatever your superior [[Commissar|yells]] at you, is treason and [[heresy]], typically punished by [[Blam|euthanasia]] (at least in the material realm). He created the 20 [[Primarchs]], who viewed him as their father. However, this has been complicated thanks to a lot of retcons saying he saw them more as tools, referring to them by number, rather than by name (albeit usually while speaking to his [[Custodes|aloof bodyguards]] or with senior-level members of [[Adeptus Mechanicus|a faction of cog-worshipping]] [[Neckbeard|tech nerds]] who value the excision of emotion and venerate him as an aspect of their god). Yet when speaking to his [[Malcador|right-hand man]], or the chief of his bodyguards Constantine Valdor, or a handful of other confidants, he does refer to them as his sons and by name. Furthermore, more recent fluff even saw him declare this to the Chaos Gods themselves during the Siege of Terra.

It goes without saying that would The Emperor be up and about in the 41st millennium, He would be very disappointed. Most fa/tg/uys expect Him to [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0191520/bio speak in a generic deep], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGZ97TiFGGg stentorian voice]. Though [[/v/|many]] also would expect him to speak more like another [[Kane|immortal who wishes to guide humanity to the path of Ascension, who may as well be one of his past guises.]] Clearly the cult of the extragalactic alien self replicating space rock thing didn't work out in the end so he had to try [[Grimdark|another approach]]. It would explain why he's so fond of impractically large tanks, walkers, mecha, incredibly unaerodynamic VTOLs and bling though.

==The Entire History of the Emprah==

===Early life===
[[File:Emperor of mankind by esoluna-d307owr.jpg|250px|left|thumb|Big E gets all the bitches.]]
The Emperor is a powerful [[psyker]] and <strike>(heavily implied to be)</strike> (Confirmed by GW) a [[Perpetual]]; an immortal with countless lifetimes' worth of knowledge and power and the ambition to use it. According to the fluff, the being that would eventually become known as The Emperor was born in 8000 BC in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) on the banks of the Sakarya river to a tribe, possibly in [[wikipedia:Göbekli Tepe|Göbekli Tepe]]. From his own account, his path towards greatness was spurred on when his uncle murdered his father; so kid-Emps did the responsible thing and gave his uncle a myocardial infarction, or as it's known on the street, a "fucking massive heart attack". Kid-Emps then realised that humans needed laws, and good laws needed to be given by good leaders (which he defined to [[Slaanesh|refer to himself specifically]]): setting him on the (xeno/geno)cidal path of self-righteousness and conquest that would continue for the next 38,000 years. Considering that the Imperium's two-headed symbol was used by Hittites, Games Workshop, for all its flaws and pricing policies, can be given credit for doing his history homework. After that, he headed to the first cities of mankind in Sumeria to guide the start of human civilization.

[[File:Neoth-gigamesh-erda-siduri.jpg|250px|right|thumb|Neoth and [[Erda]] back in the ancient days of Chaldea, it all makes so much sense now.]]
According to Saturnine, one of the Emperor's earliest names was Neoth, in the time shortly after leaving His home and tribe. In the "time of the First Cities" Neoth had become a warlord and king. There He met [[Erda]], a perpetual like Himself, who became one of His closest companions throughout history, by His side up until she caused the Scattering of the Primarchs (so is this a retcon from the story portrayed in "The First Heretic"). Neoth and Erda, father and mother of Primarchs... which begs the question why not all Primarchs were born as perpetuals, considering that both "mother" and "father" were (perhaps it's got to do with dominant and recessive alleles? Like when two brown-eyed parents produce a blue-eyed baby?).

''According to 1st & 2nd edition fluff'', his birth was the result of hundreds of human shamans committing ritual suicide to be reborn as a single individual capable of protecting humanity from the [[Chaos Gods]]. However, [[Skub|the validity of this fluff is frequently questioned]], given it hasn't been "official" since second edition. However, this theory seems unlikely, especially given that other Perpetuals are known to exist, [[Ollanius Pius|some of which]] may be even older than the Emperor, and they don't have godlike powers. On the other hand, they also wouldn't have had the memories and soul-stuff of all those shamans telling them what to do. (This theory would go a long way to explaining the seemingly contradictory behaviors of the Emperor - all those shamans have disagreements and Big E has to listen to it all. It's similar to the concept of Abominations in Dune; pre-born children with prescient powers due to being born to a melange ingesting mother - they can access all their genetic ancestors' memory egos but risk being driven insane without the learned discipline of an adult unless they're like Emperor Leto Atreides or his sister.) That, and how Erda commented that while each Perpetual was immortal and had special abilities, everyone considered the Emperor's powers to be on a completely different scale. The Chaos Gods apparently view the Emperor as an equal/rival due to beating them at warp poker to steal the power he needed to create the Primarchs (so he would not need to use his own)''(see below)'' and name him Anathema. Yet other fluff titbits (including a C'Tan who dismissively described him as a "weapon" rather than a God) imply that he is some sort of flesh-construct from the Dark Age of Technology run amok and aping human affectation (similar to the Eldar's Gods originating as warp constructed weapons made by the Eldar under the guidance of the Old Ones during the War in Heaven).

Lore also mentions that He guided humanity throughout history under a number of guises, and many of the probable identities of the Emperor in World History may include but are not limited to Hammurabi (the first man to invent the concept of Written Law), Alexander the Great (the most fabulous conqueror in all of History, with the philosopher Aristotle as his teacher), Julius Caesar (guess why the Imperium spoke Latin), Jesus (as demonstration of his supernatural God-like status and abilities and that He will sacrifice Himself for the progress of Humanity; which is a symbolic idea, [[Skub|as pre-retcon the lore leaned towards the Emperor being one of Jesus' disciples]]), Napoleon Bonaparte (to dismantle the old stagnating monarchies of Europe and replace them with Revolutionary ideals). And, it ''has'' to be assumed, [[Conan the Barbarian]] ([[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device|Yup, he used to be an asshole. A handsome, musclebound asshole.]] At least before he got wiser) and HE-MAN.

Sometime around the 11th or 12th century, He battled a shard of the [[Void Dragon]] in modern-day Libya. He eventually defeated it and locked it on [[Mars]], allowing the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] to control machines... eventually. Of course, it's not entirely clear whether this is true or not -- it's entirely possible that ALL of the Emperor's history is a lazily-crafted lie He throws around because no one can debunk it. Although given how [[Awesome]] it sounds, we're going to say it is. Either that, or it's just another example of how [[Games Workshop|Geedubs]] can't be bothered to keep their stories consistent even about the most important parts of the setting. Just remember to take stuff with a grain of salt, since, [[Retcon|you know]].

Whatever his actual origins might have been, for the most part He more or less stayed out of the way of humanity's progress during the next 30,000 years of history, including the [[Dark Age of Technology]], though hot-off-the-press fluff indicates He might have been traversing outer space in old-style NASA rockets with the other Perpetuals, to eventually coming to find the planet [[Molech]], where he passed through a gateway that led ''directly'' to the fortresses of the four [[Chaos Gods]]. Here, he either challenged, bargained, or stole portions of power from a source claimed by the gods as their own. This would earn him the ire of the duped/defeated Ruinous Powers, who consider him as some sort of usurper or that he reneged on some kind of undisclosed deal we haven't been made aware of yet.

===Unification Wars===
{{Topquote|‘You…’ repeated Uriah, the pain in his bones no match for the pain in his heart. ‘You are the… the… Emperor…’ ‘I am, and it is time to go, Uriah,’ said the Emperor. Uriah looked around at his now gleaming and brightly lit church. ‘Go? Go where? [[Imperial Truth|There is nowhere else for me in this godless world of yours.’]]|[[The Last Church]]}}
He returned to Terra at the closing years of the [[Age of Strife]]. With Terra cut off from the rest of the Human empire and Terra itself ruled by warring "techno-barbarians", in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, E-money decided to reveal Himself, using His mastery of genetic engineering to create the [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodians]] and cheaper, easier to make [[Thunder Warriors]] ''(the predecessors of the Space Marines)''. Using the classic "join-me-or-die" strategy, he managed to conquer the entirety of Terra during the event called Unification Wars. Then, He made contact with Luna and the Mechanicum of Mars. When dealing with Mars, He called Himself the [[Omnissiah]], and convinced them to build Him weapons and space-ships. Around this time, He also created a useful lie, the [[Imperial Truth]], which states that religion, faith, and superstition must be all banned, because they have never succeeded in unifying the human race during all of Emps' lifetime. Simply put: the whole "Peace, Love, and Religion" mumbo-jumbo never worked before and now must be eradicated; ignoring or forgetting what happened to [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union| real]-[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot| life] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_North_Korea| societies] that tried to throw faith and religion under the bus without molding the society towards abandoning religion willingly. He constructed this lie because he believed that belief in such things was feeding the Chaos Gods, [[Fail|but it turns out he had it backwards, and that such belief, being dedicated specifically to something other than said gods, was in fact starving them]]. Since Neoth is now a bona fide Warp entity in his own right, he has very likely realized his mistake.

Exception where's He's not a perfect badass? [[The Last Church]]. It is permissible to substitute the voice of whatever angry militant atheist appeals to you most/least for the duration of this one (short) story. Also, according to that same story, this asshole wiped out Scandinavia, <strike>[[Viking|right when Scandinavia was getting fun again]]</strike> [[The_End_Times|well well well, considering what they did]] [[Warhammer_Fantasy_Battle|to the other setting no one here is gonna miss them any time soon]]. According to the Horus Heresy books that mention the Unification Wars, He burned down a lot of things on a partially recovering Terra.

===Great Crusade===
Now that he was in control the Emperor had a relatively short to-do list, he wanted to: Lead and shape Mankind into a psychic race and surpass the Eldar by learning from their mistakes, unite Humanity under one aegis and allow for instant communication and travel across all human inhabited worlds, and most importantly, prevent another calamity like the [[Age of Strife]] or [[Fall of the Eldar]].

In order to achieve this He had to shelter and protect humanity from the fell hand of [[Chaos]], reclaim every single human inhabited world, spacecraft or station, and eliminate anyone who threatened his vision of humanity in any way.

But, before He set out to conquer the stars with the newly-formed Imperial Army (which contained both [[Imperial Guard|ground forces]] and [[Imperial Navy|space-borne fleets]]), He decided to create the twenty [[Primarch]]s, using Himself as the genetic template, while splitting the additional power He supposedly ''acquired'' from the Chaos Gods (Or so the treacherous space cancers claim. Although, since the Chaos Gods view all the energy of the Warp as their property, they're probably just pissed that Big E yoinked about 20 daemon princes worth of soul stuff without the proper rituals.) into 20 portions, infusing each piece with a fragment of His own personality, to allow them, in turn, to congeal and gestate [[Heresy|(just like how daemons are born!)]] into the indomitable souls of His future Primarchs. Then, He bound each such vessel/soul to their godlike bodies/shells as they formed in their gestation capsules. Let this sink in: each primarch is basically a unique quasi-daemonic (angelic?) soul, bound to a super awesomely tough material body.

Each of these Primarchs were to have their place: Lorgar was to be the Emperor's Herald and shelter mankind from superstition through enlightenment so that if ever they heard whispers in the dark, they knew it was not natural and to be feared by it, thus denying its embrace. Magnus was to assist the Emperor in sitting on the Golden Throne of earth, thus powering the human Webway shield (somehow), becoming a key figure in Humanity's ascension. Horus was to protect Mankind from [[Tyranids|external]] [[Necrons|physical]] [[Orks|threats]] throughout the Galaxy as Humanity's general. Konrad was to be the enforcer of the Emperor's Laws. Mortarion, His watchguard of wayward deviancy etc.

It was a good plan for building an intergalactic empire, But the Imperium was only one half of the Plan. The other was the Webway, allowing nigh-instantaneous travel and communication, limiting Mankind's reliance on the warp to almost nothing in the form of Warp travel and thus protecting them against the influence of Chaos. Therefore allowing Mankind to evolve in relative safety and security under the direct guidance and control of the Emperor. When Mankind would be ready, we'd be protected from the warp naturally. That was the final crowning achievement that would bring all the Emperor's plans to fruition and pull all the wayward goals into one singular perfect Great Work. All the sacrifice, all the death, all the heartache, the glory, the battles, the trials and tribulation, 48,000 years of history culminating into that one Plan. And it all would've been worth it because Mankind would've been saved for all time. Worth any price, where the ends justified the means, or so he claimed.

Unfortunately things went off to a rocky start before he even began: since the Primarch's power was ''apparently'' stolen, The Big Four would inevitably and continually be pissed at Him for using their power for His own ends, so they snatched the Primarchs away (via time-travel-as-a-vision shenanigans, don't even try to explain it here, just read ''The First Heretic''), inside their incubator pods and all, from the secret lab underneath the Himalayas, to scatter them away across the galaxy. Conversely, most recent fluff from the novel Saturnine brings another female perpetual by the name of Erda into play in the creation of the primarchs (because like any biological being a human requires a father and a mother). She also claims to have been involved in the scattering of the primarchs. If that is a retconn from the previously canon time travel hacks described in "The First Heretic" is not entirely clear. Erda says she allowed the Chaos Gods to snatch the baby primarchs so each could forge their own destinies. As if the story was not confusing enough already. Either way,luckily for the Emperor, some genetic samples were left over from each primarch, so from that He created 20 Legions to serve as the elites of His army: The [[Space Marine|SPEHSS MEHREENS]].

So, with His armies and space-ships complete (minus the Primarchs, which He hoped to find), He embarked upon the [[Great Crusade]], to restore mankind to its [[Humanity Fuck Yeah|rightful place as rulers of the galaxy.]]

As He found each Primarch, He assigned them command of their respective Legions and to act as His generals, warlords and pantheon of heroes that humanity were meant to emulate, in the quest to unify humanity in the Great Crusade ''(although, at some point, one of them may have been executed and the other disappeared, leaving only 18 Primarchs and Legions after 100 years of the Great Crusade).''

A military campaign of a grand scale, this is also when the SPESS MEHREENS were most awesome and at their peak. [[just as planned|Just when things seemed to be going well]], the [[Horus Heresy]] took place, where 8.5 of the Primarchs and their respective legions rebelled against the Emprah. In the end, the Emperor fought and slew [[Horus]] (who was daddy's favourite) but at a great cost. The Emperor was mortally wounded to the point that He had to be put permanently on a life support system known as the Golden Throne. On that day, an untold amount of manly tears was shed. Something seems to have gone wrong though, as the Golden Throne didn't manage to do its job and the Emperor managed to die sometime between the Horus Heresy and M41, although whatever's left of him still sticks around his corpse (quite a feat since he is a confirmed perpetual, so no matter how dead he may look he certainly still is alive after a fashion). (Are we sure on this last point? Indomitus confirms he never died, and that’s hardly a retcon since there doesn’t seem to be evidence to the contrary).

==="Modern" Day===
Subsequently, 10 thousand years later, without the Emperor's leadership, the Imperium eventually degraded into the theocratic, [[grimdark]] empire we all know and love today, in the 41st millennium. In the 500th year of the 41st Millennium (the exact middle of the millennium), which is a few centuries before the Time of Ending began, visions and signs reach out to all walks of life and social status to the Imperium of the Emperor crying, whether it's to lowly denizens of an underhive having dreams about it, to respected sanctioned psykers reading it from the Imperial Tarot, to shamans on feral planets instinctively knowing that the extra rain pouring down lately are tears of sadness from their "sky god".

In the last year of M41, tech-priests discovered that the Golden Throne is failing and if nothing was done... presumably the Emperor would be deader? In any case nobody wants to find out, as the Golden Throne is breaking apart the Mechanicus and certain elements at the top of the Imperium tries to contact the Dark Eldar for knowledge on how to repair the thing. ''The Carrion Throne'' reveals that a [[Haemonculus]] did make it to Terra, he is hunted down by the Inquisitor and the Custodes. The cheeky psycho doctor had absolutely no intention of repairing the thing but wanted to instead marvel upon the largest and greatest psychic pain machine ever constructed that made even a [[Haemonculus]] stand in utter awe, and look the cadaver buried within right in the eye sockets before both it and the machine ultimately died.

{{Spoilers}}

{{Topquote|This is a warning. The warp and the materium were once in balance. For too long, you have tipped the scales. Understand that it is not only the warp that is capable of pushing back. This realm is not real. Only will is real. And none may outmatch my will..|The Emperor is done being subtle or open to maybe-maybe-not.}}

However, with the introduction of '''Godblight''', several nuclear-sized bombshells was dropped. Turns out, the massive [[Great Rift|vaginal axe wound]] originally created as [[Chaos]]' biggest victory during the fall of [[Cadia]] was [[Retcon|changed into being an Imperial victory in the end]]. With the barrier between the Warp and Realspace further weakening, it created a psychic boost for the Empra to a thousand fold. Oh yeah, and the worship of trillions being supercharged because of the Great Rift is making E-Money to actually ''physically move''. Holy shit boys! IT'S HAPPENING! We're in the endgame now!

Anyways, other bombshells include Golden Big Dick Energy suggesting that the Daemon Primarchs could still be redeemed, which kind of kicks Chaos corruption in the dick. Moreover, there is also the fact that the Emperor kicked [[Nurgle|Grandpappy Nurgle]] in his STD-ridden nuts where he possessed a dying [[Roboute Guilliman|Grandpa Smurf]] during the [[Plague Wars]] on Iax and [[Awesome|set the whole fucking Garden of Nurgle on holy fire, thereby wounding Nurgle and kicking the Chaos Gods several levels down the curb.]]

As you can imagine, though well-received by many, and especially by Imperium fans, this revelation [[RAGE|did not go well with fans of Chaos]], as the perceived [[Nerf|nerfing]] of Chaos being the main threat and Big-E [[Bullshit|''literally'' giving Papa Smurf]] [[Plot armor]] [[Skub|was a tad-bit too much.]]

Alternatively, rather than a nerfing of the Ruinous Powers, it could just as easily be argued to be a display of the [[Ynnead|might of the gods of the Warp]] [[Cegorach| other than those of Chaos]] which has been said to be growing of late, in this case, a demonstration of Big-E's increase in power, in particular.

Furthermore, ''Godblight'' is far from the first contemporary novel to establish that the power of the Emperor has been growing, but while previously it had been only hinted at, or shown as more minor asides, this is just the first time an overt, overwhelming display was made. It therefore stands to reason that such a powerful blow would be unleashed by Big-E, as this has been building up consistently for years (in and out of universe), and has been a long time coming both thematically and narratively, so take that for what you will. Moreover, lest any Chaos fans forget, the ruinous powers regarded the Emperor as an existential threat before the Horus Heresy and feared his power and intentions even then; so much so that they even agreed to work together to fight him. Chaos, pretty much by definition HATES working together, and The Four hate each other to a ludicrous degree and typically wish for nothing more than the demise of each other. A group like that doesn't work together unless there is absolutely no other choice. That was before Big-E became a god, and it's not as though he's gotten weaker in the 10,000 years since.

On top of this, it can be argued that Chaos hasn't been nerfed at all. Nurgle, who had held reign in ten thousand years of stasis, is now returning to a lower place as a great change has come. Tzeentch, Khorne and Slaanesh are certainly stronger than ever. The difference now is that The Emperor has become powerful enough to hit back at the Chaos Gods hard enough to inflict truly substantive damage. Whether or not that will actually occur remains to be seen however, especially as [[Games_Workshop|the Chief Deity would never let one side truly gain the upper hand, for fear of something interesting happening,]] but with the field levelled now, the potential to do so exists.

==The Emprah Himself==
[[File:Climax.jpg|250px|right|thumb|A typical father-and-son chat between Empy and Horus.]]
{{Topquote|1=The Emperor was a brilliant scientist, a powerful warrior, and great psyker, but he was a terrible [[Venus' Burn|father...]]|2=[[Roboute Guilliman]], giving a short, yet accurate biography of the Emperor.}}

After He shaved His goatee, His chin radiated [[Astronomican|a brilliant light]] through the [[Warp]]. The [[Imperial Navy]] uses this light as a beacon to guide them through that beautifully terrible place. He is sometimes referred to as the Emprah, a joke derived from the voice acting in the ''[[Dawn of War]]'' game, ''[[Dawn of War: Soulstorm|Soulstorm]]'', specifically [[Indrick Boreale]]'s final speeches.

It is common knowledge that the Emperor is the most powerful psyker <s>alive</s> around, humbling even the [[Eldar]]. The Emperor is said to be so powerful that He could [[C'tan|destroy suns with ease]], though He has never actually done so (However, he ''made'' a golden sun which he put in the middle of his broken [[Webway]] gate to prevent daemons from spilling through, albeit needing to concentrate on powering it for the next ten thousand years. This would indicate that the Emperor does indeed have the power to destroy stars). The [[Chaos Gods]] are scared as fuck of the guy, calling him "The Anathema", as in the polar opposite to [[Chaos]]. Their fear of him cannot be overstated: during a discussion between Ku'Gath and Mortarion, you'd think Ku'Gath was referencing Morgoth. The idea his gathering strength terrified Ku'Gath to the point he feels they're dead if he's active and won't even say his name; whatever Emps is, Chaos is THAT scared of him. The [[Eldar]] fear that if the Emperor were to die, a new [[Eye of Terror]] would pop out with Terra at its center and possibly a new Chaos God would be born (though seeing as how he's been dead for quite a while and that hasn't happened, their fears are likely unfounded).

He was also capable of summoning what can only be called an army of human souls (including every soldier who had died for him, [[Ferrus Manus]] included) to fight for him; an ability utterly unseen in the 40k universe and suggesting that he has some fundamental connection to human souls in the afterlife - a comforting thought compared to dissolving into the Warp to be eaten by daemons and giving some credence to the 40k era theory that when the Time of Ending ...ends... the Emperor and all loyal human souls will join in one final battle against Chaos.

It is also suggested that He has guided humanity in a guise of people like Julius Caesar, [[Conan the Barbarian]], [[meme|Chuck Norris]], Christopher Lee, Tommy Wiseau, Keanu Reeves, and Jesus.

Overall the Emperor has always had a strong desire to protect and shepherd humanity, even if his methods are a bit... [[Blam|unorthodox]]. His desire to guide and protect humanity, in addition to his power and foresight made the Emperor as close to a Farseer as humanity was ever going to get. He declared humanity to be superior to all Xenos which was fair enough considering the collapse of the Eldar, planned to destroy every shard of religion by force of arms if needed in order to protect them from the whispers of Chaos (though at the time he got the whole thing backwards, since said religions were starving the Chaos gods), planned to reunite humanity under His rule no matter what anyone else wanted/thought of that (again by force of arms if needed), originally loved the Primarchs as his sons (and then retconned into a confusing mess suggesting he cares little for the Primarchs being His actual sons. In "The Outcast Dead" he even implies that he sacrificed Ferrus Manus because he knew he could not win the war and that the most he could hope for was a stalemate, i.e. prevent Chaos from winning. However, this theme has varied greatly from novel to novel and is hard to pin down.), carried out many unorthodox, morally questionable experiments and much much more... all because this was the only way He could foresee humanity surviving the threats to come. Also known as the "[[Golden Path]]".

His reign eventually [[Inquisition|killed more humans]] (not even counting those who were innocent) than the entire total of all of humanity's dictators in history (ironically that may have been [[A Game of Pretend|past personas]] of the Emperor). Even during the Unification Wars, several Terran cultures were wiped out completely (Orioc on Antarctica, for example, was razed to the ground for being religious, just to make a point, even after its forces were defeated and its people ready to surrender), while simultaneously being pretty terrible at incorporating non-Terran elements. Because THAT is just how damn important and dire the circumstances were. An entire galaxy spanning empire needed to be constructed in little under two centuries when the cataclysm was foreseen to occur and ain't no one got time to fart about with treating people the way they deserve if the species won't survive.

Contrary to popular belief, he really did think the post-Ullanor phase through to some degree, Horus was the right choice as Warmaster for no other could command the respect of nearly all his brothers better than Lupercal the First, and Dorn as Praetorian was as correct a decision as was possible to make considering that his talents were put to good use throughout the Heresy that followed. There was no need to put a Primarch in charge of the Council of Terra for the Primarchs were not made to rule, but to serve as generals in retaking the galaxy since his goal was for humanity to be governed by humanity (as he clearly said to Lorgar in "The First Heretic". "This is not my Imperium, it is humanitys". Primarchs like say, Guilliman, though perfect as an administrator, were better suited and needed as generals for the Great Crusade. Stil the whole theory that the Emperor wanted to dispose of the Primarchs once they ceased being useful is utter horseshit, for why would he have created living rooms for all of his sons in the Emperor's palace. And why create 20, functionally immortal tools if he had no plans for them following the crusade. Either way, it's bewildering that no one in the military saw the need for human administration, having godlike Primarchs in charge at the top only serves to increase superstition in a secular galaxy when the idea was to rid humanity of religion and superstition in order to better protect it from warp predation (no matter how bad that idea played out in practice).

After Big E was nearly killed by his favourite son / tool, He was placed upon the Golden Throne and hasn't moved for the past 10 millennia, presumably because he later died (why he hasn't come back to life despite being a perpetual is a highly debated topic). Most of the fluff maintains that His mere existence since then has been living hell (by comparison, the torture astropaths go through when becoming one would be like a trip to the dentist). It's the mother/father/uncle/2nd Cousin of all mindfucks, so bad that even an Inquisitor would likely go insane as a result (or anybody else for that matter).... and yet He carries on. Why? He may be the universe's most powerful vegetable, but that doesn't mean that he will just sit there and remain dead. Oh no, it's exactly the opposite and death's not the handicap it used to be, because it gives Him a fuckton of work to do. Along with being THE lighthouse in the Warp, guiding the Imperial Navy, he also needs to make the aforementioned astropaths, as well as keeping all the [[daemon|nasties]] of the Warp where they're supposed to be (i.e. not invading realspace to make the lives of all living things miserable). He also does it for the good of humanity (sounds kinda familiar, doesn't it?).

That being said, his love of humanity doesn't exactly extend to his sons. In older lore it did, however, in the retconned lore the Emperor himself states to [[Arkhan Land]] ''(the guy who discovered '''Land's''' Speeders/Raiders)'' that he never considered the Primarchs to be his literal sons and saw them as well-crafted tools so he could get his work done. Likening himself to Geppetto ''(from 'Pinocchio')'' in that it is only natural for 20 wooden boys to think of their creator as "Father". Whether He felt any kinship between all of them or only some of them is not entirely known. But it seems like He was all like, "Yall think I'm a bad dad, but look, shit I just made these kids in a lab! I'm not really their dad!". Then again He puts on personas for every occasion (during the meeting, Land saw him as not as a gold armoured god, but as an utterly logical scientist and the Emperor had the whole shtick of people interpreting his words in the manner that made the most sense to them personally) who really knows when He's being genuine or not or how He feels. There must have been a reason why he prevented Vulkan from going completely batshit insane when he was killed over and over by his brother Konrad Kurze after all... but to say it in Guillimans own words (from memory) "our father never loved us, but he certainly does love humanity". Also Guilliman reflects that Big E could not have afforded deep affection for any of his sons, so lets see how the final confrontation between Horus on roid rage and Big E will play out in the end - as in older fluff Big E held back because he couldn't bring it upon himself to snuff out his most favoured son (and it did not read like in "my most favoured screw driver" kind of way). But in the end, despite being the most powerful psyker to have ever lived he may still have been "human" after all, and every living being has emotions. So maybe his biggest "flaw" (if you want to call it such) may have been that he might not have been able to separate himself from his sons (err I mean toolbox) as he would have hoped for.

*On that note, Aaron Demski-Bowden has insisted that nothing the Emperor says in Master of Mankind should be taken at face value. Moreover, the Emperor is inconsistent in how He describes the Primarchs. While He uses numbers and "it" when talking to Ra and Land, at the end of a book He's referring to Horus by name and as a "he", not an "it". AD-B has doggedly refused to clarify, because he enjoys watching the arguments he's kicked off. As noted in "Valdor: Birth of the Imperium" by Cris Wraight, it was noted by Valdor and Malcador that they were both surprised by the Emperor referring to the Primarchs, his planned generals, as sons. Valdor noted that the Emperor's emotions "are ebbing still" with Malcador saying all three predicted this and that victory had a price.
*However, in [[Laurie Goulding]]'s audiobook: Malcador First Lord of the Imperium; Malcador pretty much spells out exactly the same thing, saying that the primarchs were designed to be ''"conqueror's tools and nothing more"'', and had been manipulated into conflict with each other from the very start so that they would eventually destroy each other and pave the way for a "human" civilisation, rather than a "transhuman" one and that the Horus Heresy was always [[Just as Planned|part of the plan]]. He does later have a minor breakdown and admit that he was forced to lie though, but is not clear on what elements. As a result, it is entirely possible (and in fact more likely) that there was no such plan to have the Primarchs destroy each other and that Malcador was merely trying to hide the fact that things had gone off the rails. This is confirmed in ''The Board Is Set'' short story by [[Gav Thorpe]], which seemingly reconfirms Malcador's admission as the the Big E and His bestie play a game of cards with each Primarch represented (heavily implied). In such a game, Mal takes the role of "Warmaster" ''(symbolically representing [[Chaos]])'' whilst Big E played the position of the "Emperor". The two play out the entire events of the Horus Heresy and even hypothetical scenarios had they played each Primarch differently against the others, though they still get caught off guard from time to time as the rules change unexpectedly. Though Malcador only belated understands that considering this was a symbolic game of "what if?" rather than simply a means of devising strategy. So, while Emps and Mal were partly responsible for the current state of everything; if Malcador's "lie" was that it was all planned and that everything was under control, then the truth would be an acknowledgement that their opponents ''(the Chaos Gods)'' actually existed which was something they had been denying for centuries. Now they were backed into a corner and desperately scrambling to find a solution that didn't fuck everything.

While interred on the Golden Throne, the Emperor's psychic-essence prevents [[Daemon|daemonkind]] from directly assailing [[Terra]] through the broken remains of the Imperial Webway (in the form of a golden sun), while additionally sustaining and managing the psychic-beacon known as the [[Astronomican]], that makes warp travel within 50,000 light years around Terra possible.

An interesting theory is that if Emps was born of a group of psykers combining their might and souls in one ritual act then maybe Empy has gained all human souls since he got put on that Throne {see: leveling in Dark Souls), as he ''is'' the afterlife now, provided one excludes the veritable Hell that is the Warp (and all that [[Infinity Circuit|stuff]] the Eldar get up to).

A question that remained unanswered for a long time is that, is the above thing the only thing he is capable of doing these days? Or can he communicate with others? In the past few supplicants were allowed an audience with the Emperor though the fluff's always been iffy on whether or not they talked, or if it was more a spiritual visit to a shrine. The recent advance in the timeline revealed that the newly revived Guilliman had an audience with him for a whole day in which they did talk (and he still seems to have some sort of connection to the Custodes), so yes, he can. But then, what is he [[Black_Crusade| waiting for]] [[Emperor%27s_To-Do_List| before]] waking the [[Lion_El%27Jonson| sleepy beauty ]] up? It could be that he literally couldn't talk to anyone before that, considering that even Guilliman shuddered at the thought of the mental sand blasting that was speaking with the Emperor. It's possible the same communion might destroy a mortal, or kill the comatose Lion by accident. Perhaps the only thing stopping the Emperor from direct governance of the Imperium is his psychic voice delivering the equivalent of an Ordinatus blast every time he uses it, so he cannot chastise the incompetence of the High Lords for fear of killing them outright.

Speaking of talking to him, when Roboute was revived from stasis and finally got to Terra to talk to dad, Roboute noted the Emperor regarded him with the interest one would regard a tool. He also reflects on how he feels that the Emperor's psychic might has grown since his death, but that his humanity has gone as well, to the point that Guilliman thinks that even if he is a god he doesn't deserve to be worshiped. However, following the Plague Wars Guilliman has considered the possibility that his ascension may have been a plan B for humanity following the failure of the Imperial Truth, and both [[Mortarion]] and [[Ku'Gath]] believe the Emperor is gathering energy to create what they call an "Unliving Legion".

{{Topquote|He's been up to all sorts of things, our beloved father. Consorting with Xenos, resurrecting ancient technology. Don't believe that he is blameless in this...|Magnus the Red}}

In contrast to the above quote, the Emperor (and the Imperium as a byproduct) fucking hates aliens, though not without reason. During the Age of Strife numerous Xenos races exploited humanity's trust and either raided, lollygagged, [[loot]]ed or all of the above and were generally a nuisance the entire time. Then the Emperor comes along and decides that the best way to stop all that from happening again is to wipe out all Xenos that might even think to pose a threat to the fledgling Imperium. However, those few Xenos species that did not pose an immediate threat to humanity were usually made protectorates similar to the Tau government (unless they resisted, were in the way, or <s>possessed a planet</s> influenced human culture at all). Ever since His ascension, the Imperium mostly forgot about the part where harmless aliens could be tolerated, but on the other hand, [[Orks|the]] [[Necron|most]] [[Tyranids|common]] [[Tau|xenos]] [[Dark Eldar|are]] [[Asdrubael Vect|massive]] [[Eldrad|dicks]] and aren't exactly willing to buddy up with the Imperium themselves. Plus, at least according to ''Horus Rising'', the idea of letting Xenos exist and then eventually grow stronger is wrong on every level to the Imperium (hence the whole mess with the [[Interex|Interex/Diasporex]]).

To be even more fair (and meta), the triumvirate of Horus Heresy authors tend to have their own interpretation of the Big E. [[Graham McNeill]] generally portrays Him as competent and benevolent (if flawed), [[Dan Abnett]] portrays Him as competent but bloodthirsty, while [[Aaron Dembski-Bowden]] portrays Him as a vicious, needlessly cruel imbecile (and even this is counterbalanced by his portrayal in Master of Mankind, where he's interestingly a mixture of all the previous portrayals at once - which is kinda of appropriate really). Chris Wraight, as far as he has portrayed Him, has done so through the eyes of Jaghatai Khan, showing Him as deeply flawed and distant from His own sons, but also countering that He was working towards goals even the Primarchs couldn't fully grasp. Even in Path of Heaven, where the Khan gets close to learning the secrets of the Webway project, he's shown to not have all the cards (the Emperor's knowledge that humanity is evolving into a psychic race, for example).

On another note, [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|long before the Horus Heresy novel series]], there were hidden gems Noobs are not aware of, such as a text describing the fight between Horus and the Emperor (although it wasn't written especially well), or Conspiracy Theories. One of them was actually the possibility that the Emperor was already dead when Rogal Dorn managed to reach him; however, in the aforementioned text, [[Luther|Horus had realised that he had been wronged and deceived]] by the [[Assholetep|Chaos Gods]], who immediately ceased to possessed the Warmaster and fled before the Emperor's final Force attack [[FATAL|bring woe to both of them]]. What if the Emperor had spared him or if the Warmaster survived somehow? In Olden Fluff, all Primarchs were Psykers and originally supposed to be [[Grey Knight|shining examplars of Human free from the taint of the Empyrean]] which they failed to bear true potential due to their early contact with the Warp, via the Dark Gods abducting them pedobear style.

This in turn was what caused their mutations and unique characteristics and diversity which was more of a metaphor that each Primarch was an image of humanity themselves; in fact, much of the powers of the Primarchs, like the Emperor, would have come from their psychic abilities. It is known that [[Sensei]]'s powers include health, regeneration, greater athletic prowess and [[God Stat|overpowering their Strength stat]] when they try to attack something, thus it would not be surprising if it was also the case for Primarchs (baby Sanguinius was super healthy and immune to Baal's radiations, Curze crawled out of his molten drop-pod and crater while screaming in pain and fled immediately, instinctively, into the darkness, and later his body was fully healed) prior to the new fluff messing everything up, 'cause BL writers have trouble getting their shit together.

But back to where we are; the notion that the Emperor was dead forebodes a terrible possibility, in which [[Pretend|the corpse that Rogal Dorn took back on Terra's Imperial Palace was not Big E but of Horus being passed as the Emperor... and was worshipped as such for Ten Thousand Years]]. While [[Retcon|this has become highly unlikely]], it would both be a great and GRIMDARK [[Just As Planned|plot twist]] and an immense source of [[Lulz]] especially when you mix in the events of Gathering Storm 3 with [[Roboute Guilliman]].

===On His Pragmatism and Flaws===
The Emperor was a firm believer that the ends justified the means and was pragmatic in the extreme, and yet at the same time, it was this very same pragmatism that ultimately led to his downfall:

*Though his pragmatism made him a superb ruler in wartime, the ultra-militarized society He had [[First Founding|created]] was entirely dependent on the Imperium being constantly at war. Even if the Great Crusade had [[Just as Planned|proceeded exactly as the Emperor expected]], it still would have run out of enemies eventually. And when you have a few trillion newly unemployed soldiers with no other skills beyond killing on your hands and no other purpose in life beyond said killing...well, they tend to get rowdy. He should have realized this already when he had to mop up the surviving [[Thunder Warriors]]. It remains unknown how the Imperium would have continued to look after the Great Crusade was completed and how the large military would be scaled down- or if such a feat could even be possible with a civilization he designed to work only in the presence of a steady stream of conquests. Sure, some of the primarchs and legions had other skills like Guilliman's political organization, but the rank-and-file? Or the likes of the [[World Eaters]]? There are hints that he might have planned to fix that by arranging the Primarchs to come to blows with each other, [[Horus Heresy|but we all know exactly how well ''that'' turned out]]- which if anything makes him look even more foolish as a result.
*The Emperor's concern for humanity as a whole belied his refusal to acknowledge that humanity was not just a species, but also a group of individuals with infinite variety and whose goals did not necessarily support His own. The fact that other human civilizations such as the Interex had already found ways to fight against Chaos on their own (granted what they did makes them partially responsible for the setting being so fucked) and were just as advanced as the Imperium (if not more so) meant nothing to him/his plan. In his mind, he alone knew what was good for humanity and anything short of total submission to the Imperium was grounds for destruction even (or ''especially'') if they were doing a better job than he was. In effect, all his efforts were performed in the name of an abstraction that arguably '''never existed in the first place'''.
*He made a critical mistake in that trying to erase religion without replacing it with secular ideals that had the same degree of universal appeal. Lacking the immortality and inhumanly grand perspective of the Emperor, it's a basic part of human nature to look for meaning and purpose in a cause greater than oneself, especially in the harsh and grimdark universe that was the [[Age of Strife|Old Night]]. The Imperial Truth tried to do this, but it didn't take into account that "reason", "logic", and "humanism" were by definition too mundane to be suited for the replacement of the old religions, as they were poor substitutes for finding individual meaning. The fact that the Imperial Cult took off so quickly after the Emperor's internment on the Golden Throne (and is arguably the only thing keeping the Imperium a remotely unified entity in the present) is proof that the Emperor was once again either too stubborn for his own good or too divorced from the "normal" human condition to understand the value of belief. Most likely the latter, the Khan recounts scrambling to even converse with the Emperor, Custodes have an internal study schools to try figure out out what ''exactly'' he meant in his orders and how it applies to the modern day. Yes, his Companions have what are basically rabbis Talmudically mulling over every syllable the Emperor ever uttered. In either case, all it accomplished was giving all four of the Ruinous Powers a reason to get rid of him, while also giving them an invaluable tool to do so in the form of Lorgar. And all while he was telling the Primarchs that daemons were just another Xenos race in an ill-advised attempt to dispense with their mythological appearance and obvious possession of supernatural powers. This attempt left them vulnerable for Chaotic corruption among themselves or their Legions. Yes, He gave them incredibly vague warnings, but those were not even close to the amount of information He needed to give them. Or, for those of us who think this sounds just a little bit religious for our tastes and don't want to get into a philosophical debate over the importance of belief, imagine the trillions of citizens who had gone their whole lives worshiping a belief only to have ol' Emps turn up and just say "No" without a word of explanation beyond "its bad".
*For a guy who says he's trying to avoid the same mistakes the Eldar made, his obsession with human supremacy and the supposed "purity" of the human form (as defined by what, his own opinion?) are almost indistinguishable from the pre-Fall Eldar's certainty that they were the rightful rulers of the galaxy. Even if humanity did become a purely psychic race, nothing would stop it from making ''another'' Chaos God by accident. It's not a stretch to hypothesize that this was itself a ploy for him to use the collective psychic power of humanity to elevate himself to the status of godhood, where he could truly rule with infinite power.
**The only beings who knew how to create new parts of the Webway were the [[Old Ones]], and they're all dead. At best, the Webway project would've delayed the inevitable before the fact that nobody can figure out how to keep it working became obvious. And since the Warp already bleeds into the Webway at the best of times...well, the whole thing would've been rendered pointless if or when the Warp completely breaks through into the Webway.
**The so-called mistakes and subsequent "Fall" of the Eldar [[Lileath|may have been foreseen]] and [[Morai-Heg|apparently planned for]]. By the close of the 41st Millennium, the psychic gestalt of the conscious-dead Eldar have formed the new god [[Ynnead]], quite probably proving that willpower eventually counters [[Slaanesh|desire]] and completing the Eldar's psychic ascension as a species. The Emperor may not have been aware of this and humanity's own psychic awakening may not have been as tragic, but to give him credit, his own endgame is somewhat similar in wanting to nurture mankind's psychic ascension but without the catastrophe. He is possibly positioning himself to become the focus for humanity's willpower rather than needing enough souls to die before they gestalt together, becoming a guiding will rather than a collective one.
*Most damningly of all, his total disregard for the possibility that the Primarchs might actually have their own thoughts and feelings ended up being one of the key reasons why so many of the Legions ended up falling to Chaos in the first place:
**The humiliation of Lorgar was the ultimate catalyst for the Horus Heresy, and is probably the most colossal failure the Emperor has ever produced. This event is what showed the future "heretics" (and us) who the Emperor truly is behind his charisma and lofty dreams. Lorgar was so enthralled with his father that he not only worshipped him as a god but made it his life's goal to convince others to do so as well. He built gleaming monuments and cities in His name. He trained an entire legion to glorify their perfect and benevolent father. Suddenly, the Ultramarines descend and obliterate the greatest of Lorgar's cities and the Emperor himself forces Lorgar's entire legion to kneel before the invaders. The Emperor tells his most admiring son that he, alone of all his brothers, has failed. It would be as if God set Vatican City on fire, kicked the pope over, put out the fire by covering him in dog shit, and then told him to quit being such a fucking pussy. The main thing this incident says about Lorgar is that he's such a tough motherfucker that he didn't break down completely forever or kill himself upon the revelation that the most powerful and perfect being he can even imagine hates him, personally. The Emperor took the leader of the most powerful religious organization in the galaxy and kicked him straight into the claws of evil gods powered by belief. However, the biggest irony, considering that religion is the only power that can counterattack and fend off Chaos, is that the Ecclesiarchy used religion to battle Chaos for several millenia using very book that Lorgar wrote. The Emperor basically threw out the smartest and safest option to counter Chaos due to his stupidity and narrow-mindness. (Unless it really WAS a test as [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists#Known_Loyalist_Members_of_the_Traitor_Legions|the Anchorite]] believe).
**Angron's case is self-explanatory; honestly, if it weren't for Emps sending him into battle so often he would have rebelled sooner. Sure, he couldn't just let one of his Primarchs get himself killed in a slave revolt, but you'd think he'd send down some of the War Hounds or something instead of warping him away and earning Angron's undying hatred. Instead he could have earned Angron's undying love, furious loyalty and the worst case, a martyr Primarch who'd die from the nails and gotten rid of: was one fucked up dusty planet's short term compliance worth the whole shit roller coaster, we will never know. Why a <s>man</s> <s>superman</s> Primarch (god damn it!) who knew only killing (not even war, just murdering people with MURDER NAILS JAMMED IN HIS BRAIN), and is traumatized to ETERNALLY HATE HIS LORD should be controlling 100,000+ Space Marines is something only the Emperor and his divine ass can fathom.
**[[Fulgrim]]'s road to damnation started because he decided to loot a Slaaneshi-possessed sword. Knowing nothing about Chaos, Fulgrim had no idea he was using an incredibly dangerous warp artifact that that would lead to untold consequences. It didn't help that his strict xenophobic teachings prevented Fulgrim from taking [[Eldrad]]'s advice about the Laer Blade into account.
**Even with the Webway fuck-up (which itself could have been prevented had the Emperor not kept it a secret from the most important people in his plans) Magnus might have remained a loyalist if the Emperor had brought Magnus to the Great Work earlier, or had him stationed on Terra along with Dorn, or even just listened to his warning that Horus had turned traitor. Instead, he totally disregarded Magnus's entirely correct warning in favor of allowing Russ (the one Primarch who most wanted Magnus dead) to arrest him because he didn't like the way said warning was delivered. And with the door already broken, he could have simply psy-phoned Magnus to clear it all up instead of jumping to conclusions. Then again, Magnus wouldn't even comply to his demand to stop practising sorcery...
**Similarly to Angron, [[Mortarion]] always resented the Emperor for not letting him get to kill his adoptive father, and when the Emperor refused to give him an answer about the obvious piece of Warp-tech that was the Golden Throne he concluded that the Emperor was a hypocrite and the Imperial Truth was bullshit.
**The Emperor, being the wisest and most powerful human psyker in the galaxy of all people, should have been able to see that [[Konrad Curze]] was an unstable psyker who was on the fast road to devolving into insanity due to his uncontrolled talents. And if he already was aware of it, then at best he was being incredibly careless. And what with the whole Night Lords comprise of criminals, one must really question his divine quality control. Or maybe he is just totally rely on his <s>large</s> huge brain capacity to manage things, and simply dismiss things that can't fit in.
**Completely ignoring that [[Perturabo]] needlessly had one in ten men in his legion killed by decimation under flimsy pretenses. Coupled with the fact that Perturabo was originally a peaceful, diplomatic soul; these two should have triggered some alarm bells about his mental stability. While it was said that the Emperor considers the Primarchs more of tools and less of his children, in retrospect it was obvious that there was plenty of [[Rogal Dorn|favoritism]] going on. Seriously, why can't the Big E act like a spiritual psychiatrist for ONE FUCKING MOMENT?
**Horus himself was only pushed to fall because the Chaos Gods played on his worries that he wasn't fit to be Warmaster combined with the unrealized, greater fear that the Emperor never cared for him as a person and that he, the other Primarchs, and the Astartes as a whole would have no place in the Imperium after the Great Crusade's conclusion. (Horus likely being aware of what happened to the [[Thunder Warriors]] when they outlived their usefulness at the end of the Unification Wars probably stoked that particular fire nicely.) You'd have thought the Emperor's most beloved 'son' would at least have been shown the special rooms in the Imperial Palace the Emperor made specifically for the Primarchs to live in after the Great Crusade ended, or at least discussed what he had planned for them when they weren't needed as generals any longer, but no.
**Perhaps the biggest kicker to this is that if we're going to take all of Black Library into account, the Emperor never truly cared for the Primarchs at all (loyalist and traitor included), viewing them as nothing more than powerful but ultimately expendable tools to further the ambitions of Humanity's survival and ascendancy. As determined by the Emperor, of course.
***Although one can always argue that the remaining Primarchs stayed loyal either because they believed in his vision for humanity or were too loyal to be turned, there's no telling exactly how long that might have gone on after the Great Crusade's end - some of them showed signs of disloyalty to the Emperor even during the Heresy, only staying on his side either out of loyalty to Mankind as a whole (Guilliman and his [[Imperium Secundus]] come to mind here), by recognizing the other side as an even greater evil (like Jaghatai), or only because the Imperium is on the winning side (if Curze's trolling was true; The Lion, which probably isn't true considering he stabbed him in the next paragraph and told Curze that he didn't care and that he was balls-to-the-wall loyal).
***To clarify the above point, after Guilliman's meeting with the Emperor following the Primarch's revival, he noted that while he loved humanity as a whole, the Emperor was practically incapable of caring about individual people, even the Primarchs. Everything and everyone was just a tool to him. While some might interpret this as the Emperor simply being a dick, you have to understand his situation; he's an immortal superhuman with a plan to uplift humanity. The fact he's immortal means he would be unable to form any meaningful relationships with mortals, because he'll always outlast them in one way or another. His plan also involved tons of sacrifices for the <s>greater good</s> {{Blam|'''*BLAM!* HERESY!'''}}, common good, when you're forced to sacrifice anything to continue your plans; you can't afford to be too attached to someone you might have to throw into the fire in a split second. The Emprah is cursed to always look forward on the endless road of the future, so he can never live in nor understand the concept of the present. As a result, his plans failed to account for the fact others might not just meekly go along with his plans without question and became further detached from the real human condition.
*Overall, and quite ironically, the main reason why the Emperor's plan was doomed to fail in time was because while the Emperor understood the path on what humanity must take for a brighter future, he himself was either unable or unwilling to understand humanity. Instead, he chose to remain distant from them and act like he was above their understanding, and that they should just simply follow him because he's the Emperor and he alone knows what's best for humanity, because shut up or be on the receiving end of a boltgun. (Even more ironically, this was how the majority of the gods that humanity originally believed in acted as well, and at least they had the excuse that they really were divine. For all his efforts to remove religion, the Emperor played the part of a god hilariously well.) Lastly, maybe the Emperor understood that his Primarchs were unstable and unreliable. Given the issues with the Thunder Warriors he had to know all of this was coming eventually just from past experience. But it's possible he just didn't expect it to be in the form of a team death match. He could see Kurze being unstable enough eventually that he and his Legion would need to be removed but expected it to be individual Legions and Primarchs that would need censure but couldn't foresee his own flaws causing enough gulfs with each of his Primarchs that they would have a reason to band together. If that was the case, he was a poor father and a poor leader not to see his own arrogance as a flaw in his design. If it is true that he had always intended the Primarchs' rivalries to grow to the point that they would begin fighting each other, all of the above is even more damning since it means he had made them flawed on purpose and yet failed to see how Chaos would gladly exploit said flaws at the first opportunity it got.

On another note, the fact his ossified self has managed to shed tears and there was an incident where everyone across the Imperium saw statues of the Emperor weeping tears of blood due the incoming disasters of the End Times may mean that he has finally started to realize how horribly he fucked up on every possible level. Or maybe it's hurting even more than ever to stay sit at the Golden Throne.

The latter is far more likely; according to Roboute Guilliman, when he met with the Emperor after his revival, He treated Guilliman as a mere tool without showing even the faintest display of affection or care for him as a person. One can only assume that 10,000 years on the Golden Throne has done absolutely nothing to make the Emperor be less of an asshole; in fact, he's described as being human in name alone, and Guilliman believes that [[HERESY|even if he is a god he doesn't deserve to be worshipped.]] Strangely, the final novel of the trilogy, Godblight, makes the whole thing even more confusing, as it's revealed Guilliman's meeting with the Emperor was what can only be described as fractally confusing in nature, you see, when referring to Guilliman, Emps uses all sort of descriptions, from "my son" "my last hope" to "betrayer" and "failure", in every single novel of the Horus Heresy we see E-Money seen differently through the eyes of different characters, to the Adeptus Mechanicus he acts like the epitome of passionless logic to the point of seeing his own offspring as disposable tools, a similar thing happens with the Custodes, where they see him as his king, with them being their favourites and above the Primarchs, on the other hand to Malcador he acts like an old friend who can confide with, and we don't even need to begin with the Primarchs and the Space Marines, being a father-figure and patriarch to them, or the citizens of the Imperium, whenever he appears to one of them he looks like what they want him to look like, a glorious superb leader, a kind if stern master (Uriah Olathaire, Kai Zulane, etc), the incarnation of all that is good in mankind.

Not a god you say?

We may consider the following, every single human group has a tendency to see the aspects they feel more appealing in their deities, the Emperor can make people do exactly that, and unlike Belisarius Cawl who needs to upload the specific personality in his databanks for the specific situation the Emperor's glamour can make most people see what they wish from him, simultaneously, back to Guilliman's pointing out what's going on, Emps is simply trying to be cool with everyone, even if that means falling to each specific group's personal antipathies and prejudices, since he has to be the god... like ruler of mankind of course he had to do this, he is playing the politician, the manager, the candidate, the family guy, the not-priest of the congregation and while he may still have some personal preferences and quirks TTS-style back in 30k he had to put them aside (loves no man) and by 40k it seems there is barely anything left of his original personality when occupied with his main task (loves mankind, and mankind needs him to be their god), it may be that even back during the Great Crusade this attitude is what ended up allowing the followers of the Lectitio Divinitatus to pull the miracles they did, He just provided the psychic equivalent of earthing for mankind to start creating a real god out of him and ultimately it may be he ended up running along with not really many options left.

tl;dr He was a horribly flawed but still well-meaning OCD workaholic with a "The needs of the many" outlook on life meaning he couldn't afford to show trust, love or compassion to anything but mankind as a whole, not even his "sons". Ultimately however even though his complete separation from the human condition helped him make the hard decisions, it was a decision he paid the ultimate price for and a large contributor to the Horus Heresy being as terrible as it was. If you have experience in pedagogy, he is your typical working dad who can't spare time to raise sons and makes *very* bad, fatigue influenced decisions, and after they grow up, wonders why they grow to hate him/be distant. Add the lack of a loving mother figure for the kids, and [[Horus Heresy|well...]]

====Planning for the Horus Heresy====

To throw a spanner into the works when considering whatever the Emperor's "goals" might have been: A very interesting claim was made by Malcador himself to his dying confidante Sibel Niasta that the Heresy was all [[Just as planned|part of the plan]], that the Primarchs were designed as "conquering tools and nothing more", set on course to fight for dominance and eventually turn on each other and challenge the Emperor directly. This is corroborated by what we already "knew" from ''Master of Mankind'' and the Emperor's own attitudes towards the Primarchs ''(which admittedly has constantly been shown to be shifting. As has been frequently pointed out the final confrontation between Horus and the Emperor - as we currently know it - would not make any sense if he merely considered them to be disposable tools anyway. Why "hold back" then to start out with?)''. The Primarchs were manipulated against each other with [[Rogal Dorn|unequal]] [[Perturabo|favour]], jealousies stoked in order to achieve this, and he also claims that those who [[Magnus|would not be manipulated]] [[Primarch#Two Missing Primarchs|never reach the end game.]] What is not certain is whether he was speaking the ''whole'' truth since he does later admit privately just after the conversation that he had to lie to mortals to spare their sorrow, so what parts he "lied" about are uncertain ''(he could've made the whole "just as planned" story up, it could've all been true and he was regretting manipulating the Primarchs and their legions, it could even refer to a single sentence where he implies that the Emperor will save her soul after death)''; he also admits that the outcome had been altered by the [[Chaos Gods|great enemy]] who had emboldened their champions and started the battle early so he did not know with absolute certainty how it was going to turn out. Also, if all of the above Malcadors statemenent "if we could have saved just one of them I wish it would have been Lorgar" makes even less sense.

However, as shown from ''"The Board is Set"'' or the novel "The Outcast dead" Malcador and the Emperor were certainly shown to have considerable amounts of foreknowledge regarding the Horus Heresy and certainly ''did'' play the Primarchs against each other in order to attempt to counter the manipulations of Chaos. However in the Board is Set, Malcador is shown that the Primarch's destinies were not necessarily fixed and could have been played in different ways; some [[Ferrus Manus|Primarchs]] were [[Sanguinius|sacrificed]] for greater goals like you would remove a figure from the board to give you a better edge. Whilst the Emperor had the knowledge that certain [[Roboute Guilliman|others]] were crucial to final victory. Malcador is also shown to not have been aware of the full plan or the flow of destinies; he is unaware of how certain seeming "winning" strategies are left unplayed because they have unexpected knock-on effects, or that certain moves played early or late could have had disastrous consequences.
*Such as why the [[Rogal Dorn|"Invincible Bastion"]] is not used to take the [[Horus|"Lord of Hearts"]] [[Battle of Phall|early on in the war]], since it would force both of the [[Alpharius|"Twin"]] pieces to switch sides to the Warmaster and be able move on the Emperor's home space and cause the game to be lost. This is also significant because it shows that whichever side the Primarch had joined could have been variable, and did not automatically mean that it was working towards the same goal as its leaders.
*Malcador was also surprised to find out that the game could be changed by factors they might be unaware of, such as the "Corruption" of the [[Mortarion|Lord of Clouds]] in the mid-game when they had expected him to resist like he had in their previous playthroughs. The Emperor appeared genuinely saddened by this change, hinting that he either still cared about them even when they had already turned against him, or that some Primarchs could have potentially been recovered and returned to the fold after the conflict had ended. Malcador was also shocked to think that the Emperor could be blind-sided by such an alteration; with Malcador only beginning to see the game for what it truly might have been, rather than simply a means of testing strategy.
*It is important to note that from the beginning of the game, the "Primarch" pieces were essentially blank slates, and only gained their unique shapes and identities as part of their first activations after the Scattering, possibly indicating that the Primarchs could have potentially switched roles with one another depending on the first few moves. ''(Perhaps Sanguinius could have become the Lord of Hearts? or Perturabo become the Invincible Bastion?)''
*Before the first move takes place, the pieces were arranged ten per side, which was more than available Primarchs at the time. The Emperor had his own golden piece but the "Lord of Hearts" began the game in blue and became switched in the first move ''(giving the Warmaster eleven pieces after the first move)'' while the "Twins" would not be divided until the second move, providing twenty-one pieces on the board. Ignoring the additional piece ''"the Fool"'' that Malcador had never seen before, means that there must have been one other significant player somewhere that we are not aware about. That and the division of units under the control of the "Emperor" and [[Chaos|"Warmaster"]] in the game would have been very different from the apparent division of Loyalist/Traitor Primarchs in the actual conflict, meaning that the roles they played and were expected to play '''did''' change drastically as the game progressed.

Taking several factors into account, it is absolutely certain that Malcador and the Emperor had enough foreknowledge to know that the Horus Heresy was going to happen from the point of the '''Scattering''' onward. To say that it was all part of his "Grand Plan" would be a stretch, that many of the Primarchs had municipal gifts ''(Perturabo's architectural mastery, Fulgrim's artistry etc)'', came with purposes suited to the Emperor's grand plan for a post-human society ''(Magnus' and the Webway, Mortarion as a witchseeker)'' and he definitely [[Vulkan|created one of them]] [[Perpetual|"different"]] from the rest with the explicit purpose of teaching the others how to settle down after a lifetime of war shows that the Emperor probably did have a plan for his Primarchs that didn't involve losing half of them and then chaining himself to the Golden Throne. Otherwise why make twenty Primarchs with gifts related to your post-battle plans in the first place if you knew you were going to lose half of them? People who claim that this outcome was all part of the Emperor's plan have either missed or forgotten the fact that his opponent in the "game" was Chaos, and not Malcador ''(Malcador and Emps switched places several times in their playthroughs which Malcador thought was just a means of testing strategy until it finally dawned on him that there was more to it)'' and that the Chaos Gods had their own plans for the Primarchs too and were fully capable of changing the rules whenever it suited them. Not to mention the [[Cabal]]s of alien psykers manipulating humanity for their own outcome, [[Perpetual|Immortal humans]] that interfere with predictions of the future, and [[Watchers in the Dark|extradimensional beings]] trying to stop the primordial annihilator from manifesting all by making their own moves and causing more complications.

If anything; ''The Board is Set'' goes a long way in explaining why the Emperor couldn't do any more with his advanced notice of impending conflict as any wrong move he made could have immediately spelled disaster for humanity. Plus the Emperor's foresight was not perfect and it did not necessarily marry up with his practical knowledge; even though the game he played with Malcador showed the "[[Lion El'Jonson|Double Edged Sword]], [[Roboute Guilliman|The Uncrowned Monarch]] and [[Sanguinius|The Angel]] spending most of the game off to the side, the Emperor had no idea [[Imperium Secundus|what they were actually doing]] until Malcador relayed the message from [[Leman Russ]]. His psychic foresight seems to have been shrouded in allegory and symbolism, rather than concrete certainty.

Also note that "destiny" is different from what the Primarchs were "designed" for ''(case in point: Magnus being designed to operate the Golden Throne, but also being destined to damage it)''. While Emperor had designed all of his Primarchs for specific tasks, he would not have been able to identify the destined role that each Primarch was meant to play until events had already been set into motion and pulled them onto certain paths. He might been able to guess that Magnus was "the Library" or that Dorn was the "Invincible Bastion" but could not have been certain until the first moves of the game had been made. So until then he could only treat the Primarchs according to their gifts; hailing them as heroes, building them statues and trying to steer them away from obvious sources of corruption such as [[Magnus|sorcery]] or [[Lorgar|religion]]. Even if the Emperor ''had'' suspected which ones would turn against him and tried to eliminate them before they became problems, their destinies could have unfolded in a completely different way, potentially causing a similar conflict to happen albeit with a different combination of playing pieces on the board, or alternatively sacrificing any control he might have actually had over the Primarchs and still have ended up with a disaster on his hands. Also bearing in mind that he still needed to complete the Great Crusade and his Webway project; to put those plans on hold until the issue with Primarchs had sorted themselves out would probably have done him no good either because like the Emperor himself, [[Chaos]] is capable of playing the long game.

[[Lorgar]] is an interesting issue: Malcador once claimed that if he could have saved just one of the traitor Primarchs, it should have been Lorgar. However, from the Board is Set, the Emperor points out that game doesn't start with any piece other than the "Chosen", strongly hinted to represent Lorgar with his initial swaying of Horus and thus beginning the Heresy. This implies that no matter what moves are planned for, or what Primarchs ended up on either side; Chaos will '''always''' have a "Chosen" piece to start the game with. If Horus had been protected, Lorgar might have simply started the conflict with someone else, making Chosen/Lorgar perhaps the more crucial piece. Though keep in mind that Malcador speaks with the benefit of hindsight, and as mentioned previously, the Emperor was not omniscient, it is possible that neither of them were to fully realise that Lorgar was the Chosen until the first move of the game had already been made. What is most tragic is that Lorgar ''really'' wanted the love and approval of his father and was probably the most fanatically loyal to him in the early days, so turning him into Chaos most pivotal piece is a cruel irony. If it were possible to have actually saved Lorgar before the conflict started, it would have probably unbalanced the game as Chaos would have been forced to find a different Primarch to fill the role of "Chosen", potentially upending the game altogether.

Until the end of the Heresy, Malcador was not actually aware of how the final conflict actually played out; having seen himself only as an advisor, he was ignorant of his own role. The Emperor showed him in the final days that his piece, "The Fool", would switch places with the Emperor to snatch victory and allow the [[Roboute Guilliman|"Uncrowned Monarch"]] to play his "Salvation" strategy and win the game against chaos by tearing the throat out of the serpent. Malcador's "lie" to his servant was most likely to provide the illusion of control; when in fact the Emperor and Malcador were desperately seeking to find an alternate solution that would not doom everyone. But pretty much like the Emperor stated in "The Outcast dead": "Sometimes the only victory possible is to keep [[Chaos|your opponent]] from winning.".

===But what does all that mean for The Duel?===
Yeah...about that. Regarding the Emperor's duel with Horus, we're all reasonably sure we know the old story. The Emperor faces down Horus, and had the power to roflstomp him, but his love for his favorite son prevented him from going all out, and Emps gets his ass kicked. It takes an extraordinarily callous killing by Horus, traditionally Olianius but that character has changed a couple times, to finally convince the Emperor that Horus is completely beyond saving, and Emps blasts him full power to put an end to the Horus Heresy. The rising problem here is that this version of events heavily relies on the Emperor's compassion (particularly towards his sons), compassion that the Horus Heresy books and Dark Imperium repeatedly assert that he ''never had'', either then or in the 41st millennium. For example, the Emperor put down his Thunder Warriors as soon as they served their purpose, and he didn't even pretend to care about Angron and his Butchers nails, asserting that he would keep him as long as he had a use for him, and so on. Anyway, without compassion, the duel scene in its current form simply does not work. After all Horus had done in the years before, in a room with the maimed corpse of Sanguinius, a loyal and beloved (as far as it goes with Big E, at least) son of his, there is really no way he would have gone all fatherly love on Horus and not just blasted him, or at least tried to. (Maybe the current form is Imperial propaganda trying to conceal the fact that Horus simply kicked his shiny golden ass for some reason?) So what the hell actually happened? A very good question, at this point. [[Laurie Goulding]] has implied that when the Heresy books finally get to it, the final duel may play out ''very'' differently from how we think we know it. It certainly wouldn't be the [[Ollanius Pius|first time it's been retconned]].

One possible explanation for why Emps' couldn't immediately obliterate Horus is perhaps due to divided attention and strength. During the fight, Malcador was being taxed to the core and maybe the Emps was lending his power to buy Malcador some more time and thus was not able to actually unleash his full strength on Horus. However, Malcador had already received the same speech about being used as a disposable pawn by the Emperor for the sake of the overall goal, and knew he was going to die anyway as the Throne-switcharoo had been planned before the traitors had even arrived at Terra, so the Emperor would have no reason to stall just to save one man, even if they were genuinely friends. The Emperor also knew in advance that the outcome would be his entombment on the Throne; when he found out about this he claimed that it was more than he expected but went so far as to tell his Custodians that his dream for the future of humanity was pretty much dead. Without the support of Magnus ''(who was always intended to sit on the Throne)'' unless someone came around with the knowledge to fix the Throne he would be trapped there until it it failed but according to his discussions with Malcador there was room for "[[Roboute Guilliman|Salvation]]" to come later. One other possible suggestion for why the Emperor might have stalled is perhaps his prescience glimpsed some preferable alternative to simply pasting Horus then and there, but until that gets resolved it can only be speculation. The meeting between Alpharius Omegon and The Cabal in the novel "Legion" implies that if either side decisively won the Horus Heresy, then humanity would die out shortly after; either murder-fucked to extinction by Horus, or doomed to follow the Eldar's fate after a few millennia under the Emperor's rule. This reveal gives the possibility that Emps purposefully drew out the duel to clear the board for Guilliman to be able to swoop in for the win later. The scariest option might be that Horus really was a match for the Emperor after being supercharged by the Chaos gods and it was only the intervention, however small, of Ollanius or someone else to give the Emperor just enough of a lead to defeat Horus. This is implied in ''The First Wall'' and onwards with several speeches about small forces making the difference at a key moment. It's relevant to the moment at hand but could easily be foreshadowing for the final showdown.

On a rather related note, one can assume E-Money knew the tragic cases of Magnus, Curze & Angron and all of his sons through premonitions. Given that the future can be changed (as in the case of the Lion who feared the future of Curze) though not necessarily changed for the better or come without consequences ''(such as knowing that Rogal Dorn could have defeated Horus early in the war, but Alpharius would have assaulted Terra and resulted in a Chaos win anyway)'' the only options available to E-Money were to salvage the best he could from a shit situation.

Anyway, he is now stuck on the Throne guiding his subjects in the few ways available to him in his current state as an all-powerful vegetable.

Perhaps, or perhaps not, to have hesitated out of love for a son, the final weakness during the last test to save mankind, that would have shown why the Emperor couldn't afford to love anyone, not even his own sons, and turned him into what he is now. Though more recent fluff shows him to have always been more pragmatic than that. While he did seemingly care for his "sons", his foresight had shown him that half of them would turn to Chaos and move against him ''(whether or not you believe Malcador's statement that it was planned from the start)''. Perhaps he even saw that there would always be half the Primarchs turning to Chaos and all the Emperor could do was choose which ones and try to plan for them (which would explain why he was such a massive prick to some of his sons and somewhat decent to others). Maybe the two missing Primarchs were dealt with just to try and reduce the number of Primarchs and Legions involved without crippling the Great Crusade. (As of ''The Chamber at the End of Memory'' we now know that the Two Unknown Primarchs were erased because whatever they did was somehow worse than the Heresy.) Though even with this foreknowledge, the Emperor was on the back foot and many of the actions of the Horus Heresy involved playing the Primarchs against each other to prevent an overall Chaos victory rather than achieving an Imperial win.

However, recent lore has revealed that the Emperor alone would have never defeated Horus and that the intervention and sacrifice of Oll Persson/Ollanius is the only thing standing between victory or defeat. This gives a lot of credence to the speculation that Horus was indeed much more powerful that Emps by the time of the duel, oh shit.

It is implied that Euphrati Keeler, Amon the Custodian, and a virus designed to kill Horus would all play a part in his defeat further cementing Ascended Horus being more powerful than the Emperor

==Worship of the Emperor==
[[File:646545.jpg|thumb|300px|What the Emperor looked like before Horus decided to [[Rip and tear|bitchslap]] Him so hard he ended up spending the next 10,000 years on the Golden Throne as a rotting corpse. Notice the giant skull. How did that skull get so big? Is it a plastic faux-skull, or is it an mutant or even an alien skull? <s>(What He doesn't want you to know is that The E is actually a midget, the armor is a mech and that that's a regular-sized skull)</s> [[Blam| '''*BLAM!*''']] Anyway, back to the topic at hand. You don't get to see the Emperor out of armor very often. But he still looks ''fabulous'' without his armor.]]

{{Topquote|We believe in one Lord, the Emperor, the Almighty, ruler of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen. We believe in one Lord, Emperor of Mankind, the only Lord of creation, eternally begotten of Humanity, Human from Human, Light from Light, true Lord from true Lord, begotten, not made, of one Being with Humanity; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and came among us. For our sake he has faced down Chaos; he withstood death and was enthroned. To this day he lives on in accordance with the Scriptures; he resides upon Mother Terra and is seated upon the throne of Humanity. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Emperor, the giver of life, who proceeds from Humanity and from Terra, who with Humanity and upon Terra is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets. We believe in one holy true and divinely guided Ecclesiarchy. We acknowledge one path for the defense against Chaos. We look for the justice for our dead, and the life of the worlds to come.
 ++ Ayhmen ++|the [[Imperial Cult|Creed]] of the Mankind's Council of Nicene of Holy Terra (Most Christian elegan/tg/entlemen will recognize it as a bastardized version of The Apostle's [[Creed]])}}

{{Topquote|Did Horus not say that you sought godhood? He built a [[Horus Heresy|rebellion]] upon that claim. How he would gloat, to see the Imperium now|[[Roboute Guilliman]]}}

The Imperium advocates worship of the Emperor as the one true God through the [[Imperial Creed]]. This creed is propagated and its adherence is enforced by the [[Ecclesiarchy|Adeptus Ministorum]] and the [[Inquisition]]. All citizens and fighters of the Imperium have little-to-no say about their choice in faith (or lack thereof); they ''must'' worship the Emperor through the various Ministorum-approved faiths throughout the galaxy (due to varying cultures, many planets have their own way of worshiping the Emperor. Although these are heavily regulated by the Ministorum to weed out any heretical influences.), there is no middle road or compromise that doesn't involve the apostate being on the receiving end of a state-sponsored public lynching. Anyone who defies or deviates from the teachings of the Imperial Creed (or even is just perceived to defy it), whether willingly or unwillingly (after all, incompetence is inexcusable in the eyes of the Emperor), is condemned as a heretic and is executed (whether its going to be fast or excruciatingly slow is dependent on the person judging the condemned). Even if someone hasn't disobeyed the Imperial Creed but is deemed to have will be treated as if they broke the Creed. Forgiveness for one's sins is possible, although these cases are exorbitantly rare (at least the ones that doesn't end with the accused being condemned to a glorious death, and it usually is extremely painful.). It doesn't help that some of the members of the Ecclesiarchy and Inquisition are so batshit insane that they are killing countless innocent followers of the Imperial Creed for no reason.

Now, the only reason the Imperium worships the Emperor is that after His fight with Horus and His internment into the Golden Throne, they realized what he taught them when he preached the Imperial Truth was complete bullshit. Ol' Empy did not actually tell anyone of the Chaos Gods, withholding the information even from the Primarchs in hopes of protecting them from corruption by hoping that ignorance is bliss, unfortunately, this became part of why the Horus Heresy happened in the first place. Some saw that the Emperor [[Mortarion|lied to them by holding the truth hidden]], some did [[Magnus|not know how to handle the temptation]] the Gods conveyed, some did [[Fulgrim|not even know that they were manipulated]] all this time and by whom, some would [[Lorgar|try to seek out something to place their faith upon]], not realizing what would needed to be done to become chosen in the eyes of the Gods. Plus, it's pretty damn hard to fight against something if you don't know that it exists. The Horus Heresy novels also mentioned the [[Interex]], another atheist empire who understood that threat of Chaos, but treated that information secularly and scientifically: they told every citizen everything that was known about "Kaos", and thus resisted the taint altogether (which basically shows how ineffective the Imperial Truth really was and how much the Emperor has screwed up). Unfortunately this still made them targets and the Imperium was used by Chaos as a cats-paw to wipe them out.

In the Emperor's long game, he knew that humanity was evolving into a psychic species with even more potential than the Eldar, and look what happened to them? E-money wanted mankind to be [[Star Trek|a utopia of science and reason]], by eliminating religion (and thus preventing the temptations of daemons), controlling psykers (and thus preventing random daemonic possessions), and eliminating warp travel by creating the Human Webway (and thus eliminating all human contact with Chaos when traveling through the Warp). He wanted to isolate humanity from the Chaos Gods, cause who gives a shit about the Ruinous Powers if they're stuck in the Warp with no way of getting out?

However, He made a critical mistake in disregarding the human need to believe in something greater than oneself, and despite His best efforts, nothing was enough to fill the place of religion in human society. Ironically, the best solution would be not to suppress faith but to redirect it towards something else, but because of his natural awesomeness, unmatched psychic powers and enigmatic nature, that "something else" ended up being the Emperor himself. After He went off being the most powerful psychic cucumber in the universe, and lost direct control of the Imperium, belief in Him sort of helped the Imperium stand together against all odds. With the Warp being what it is, the act of worshiping the Emperor supercharged His power in the Immaterium to the point of being truly godlike, even while His body shut down and died. The Imperium's faith in the Emperor is basically their biggest anchor of bravery and perseverance in a universe where humanity is constantly beset by:

*[[Tyranids|Unimaginably massive swarms of voracious space locusts who exist only to feed and multiply their biomass]]...
*[[Necron|Older-than-Chaos-itself zombie-terminator robots set on culling all life from the galaxy]]...
*[[C'Tan|Diabolical celestial beings literally as old as the stars, whose single desire is harvesting all living souls]]...
*[[Orks|A race of nigh-unkillable barbarians, genetically engineered to have pastimes, ambitions, job skills, and dreams only be about rip and tear]]...
*[[Tau|Technologically superior but naive and dangerously unaware fish people wanting to assimilate everyone into their hierarchical caste system]]...
*[[Kroot|Humanoid wingless bird men cannibals who absorb traits from what they eat]]
*[[Vespid|Humanoid insects with claws capable of ripping through the toughest armour]]
*[[Eldar|Snooty and uncaring space elves that can read minds and who eat, sleep, and have Heterosexual Sex in the Missionary Position in planet-sized battle cruisers]]...
*[[Dark Eldar|Psychotic, hedonistic space elves who routinely torture others to the point of death for sheer amusement before grinding their remains into refined cocaine and are callous enough to taunt their normal cousins over having to ally to survive]]...
*[[Chaos|Fanatical zealots that knowingly devote themselves to all that is insane or arrogant fools who think not being devoted makes their souls safe]]...
*[[Daemon|Nightmare horrors made real who will rape and eat, usually simultaneously, any sentient being they get their goat-hooves on]]...
*[[Chaos Space Marines|Deformed, demented traitors clad in power armor and aided by the evilest forms of weaponry and sorcery ever conceived]]...
*[[Lost and the Damned|Traitors who turn their backs on the Imperium and try to destroy it, perhaps out of legitimate causes being coopted by the aforementioned infohazard horrors or out of shits and giggles]]...
*[[Rak'gol|Homicidal alien, lizard, insect, cyborg type monster-pirates that horribly kill you for fun (and who may be the puppets of an older and even more malignant civilization)]]...
*[[Slaugth|Giant swarms of worms in cloaks who might be older than the Old Ones, are more sadistic than the Dark Eldar and more manipulative than regular Eldar, and feed on humans in the most disgusting and painful way imaginable (it involves maggots.)]]...
*[[Enslavers|Huge floating obese octopi that eat psykers souls and use theirbodies into warp portals]]...
*[[Q'Orl|Massive insectoid hive mind filled to the brim with heavy firepower and has a slow but growing empire that is one of the largest in the galaxy, dwarfing the Tau several hundred times over and is seen as the next successor of galactic domination after humanity's potential fall (if the traitors don't take over, which isn't exactly better for the average human]]...
*[[Hrud|Humanoid rats that cause anything, living or not, to rapidly decay through touch]]...
*[[Games Workshop|Malignant, omnipotent intelligence from beyond the cosmos, exerting all the power at their disposal to prevent any faction from breaking the stalemate or upsetting the dreadful status quo]]...
*[[Sly Marbo|And fuck knows who the guy in the cardboard box is]]...

Without their faith in the Emperor after His internment into the Golden Throne, the fragments of the Imperium would have fought against each other again like in the pre-Great Crusade days and subsequently devolved into what they were before the Emperor revealed Himself. So yes, much like IRL religion, it gives them hope and courage to fight on and survive in a universe that leaves the [[grimdark]] faucet running everyday and night.

It's worth noting that good ol' Empy wouldn't have had nearly as much of a problem with all this unwanted worship if He hadn't, just as a quick example, insisted on wearing horrifyingly ornate solid gold armour and a big glowy halo at all times. Or on carrying a flaming sword of righteousness. Or on building continent-sized monuments to His vanity. Or on decking all His personal troops and favored genetic experiments in as much bling as they could possibly carry. Or on being eleven fucking feet tall. Or on creating a functional pantheon of genetically engineered demigods, one of whom looked like and was referred to as a literal Angel. If you look like space-Jesus and act like space-Jesus, people are going to take those observations to their extreme conclusions, like what Lorgar did when he wrote the ''Lectitio Divinitatus'', which can be summarized as "Ordinary men can't blow up suns and carry big glowy halos at all times, only a God can, therefore the Emprah is God." This is made even more relevant given that the fluff very strongly implies that the Emperor '''was''' Jesus.

That said, to Games Workshop's credit His being buttfucked by His own hubris and disregard for the humanity He claimed to be guiding in this manner was probably [[Grimdark|intentional as a classic tale of Greek Tragedy]] or in an absolute grimdark alternative him having the foresight to see there really was no other option but an eternal stalemate.

==Emperor: Endgame==
[[File:Emperor of mankind flaming sword armor.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Son, I am disappoint.]]
The Emperor's body might be broken and destroyed, and while he's dead by every clinical definition of death, there is sufficiently enough of his consciousness sticking around to still be relevant and extremely powerful. This is at odds with his status as a confirmed [[Perpetual]], but his body has been dead for longer than he's been a perpetual so chalk this up to GW not bothering to account for it properly. Very few people are ever allowed to enter the Throne Room, and accounts differ on what they actually witnessed while in there.

What is perhaps more important is the Golden Throne itself and what the Emperor expected to achieve by maintaining his silent vigil on it for the last ten thousand years. What is known is that the Throne started out as an important part of his Webway project and sit on a long sealed portal to the human portion of it; it also supposedly directs the beacon of the [[Astronomican]]. It might also be somehow enhancing or maintaing his psychic abilities through its connection to his desiccated body and this would be lost when it gives out. It also still requires a constant source of [[Psyker]] fuel to keep running, and that has only increased in demand more recently. What it actually does do now that the Emperor's body is dead and dessicatted is up in the air.

We can only guess what would happen if it ever stopped working; the Imperium might be changed forever. With the mechanism being consistently worn out, and the Tech-priests too power-armour-on-head rebooted to do anything about it (at least until they finish studying Malcador's staff, provided GW doesn't forget that plot point), it is certainly possible that the Golden Throne may stop working entirely. It's also possible nothing would change, seeing as how parts of it keep giving out yet nothing happens.

Suffice to say, no one knows exactly what might happen should the Golden Throne give out, and no one really wants to find out.

===The Nuclear Option===
Ultimately, if the Golden Throne fails (and assuming it's actually doing something), it is possible that Holy Terra might be plunged into the Warp. This is supported by the fact that the Throne was built as a part of a portal to the Webway and was a significant part of the Emperor's ultimate plan for humanity. Unfortunately the psychic wards for the webway were later broken by [[Magnus]], causing a warp tear to open on Terra and creating a whole secret war in the Webway at the same time as the [[Horus Heresy]]. Although the portal was eventually sealed with the direct intervention of the Emperor himself, the fact remains that it still sits on top of a closed doorway with an infinite multitude of daemons on the other side, though it's not been elaborated on as being a part of keeping that door shut.

According to the Old Earth novel, the Golden Throne has a Vulkan-forged device called '''Talisman of Seven Hammers''' that acts as a dead man's switch: it supposedly will destroy all of Terra if the Throne finally kicks it. The Talisman has never been referred to in previous fluff, though the fullest implications of the Throne failing have never been explored either. The effect of Vulkan's talisman is a wildcard, as it was shown to have the capability to annihilate ''(not merely banish)'' a Greater Daemon even '''before''' it was connected to the Throne, and earlier in the same section the ''residual'' energy left over in the Emperor's fulgurite was sufficient to make an army of Bloodletters simply not be there any more. Connecting the talisman to the Throne magnifies its power to the point that the Emperor believes it would not merely deny Chaos their victory on Terra, but can strike a blow against them "the likes of which they will never recover from".

Additionally, the [[Grey Knights]] have a set of instructions called the '''Terminus Decree''' with icons that match that of the Throne itself, and these instructions could either destroy the Imperium, or bring it salvation in its darkest hour, one could speculate that the two outcomes could be linked.

Chaos may still get their chance to destroy Terra and bring down control of the Imperium, but may be burned badly by the Emperor's final "fuck you".

===Regeneration===
As mentioned, the Emperor is a [[Perpetual]], just like John Grammaticus, [[Vulkan]], Oll Persson, [[Alivia Sureka]] and [[Anval Thawn]], all of who were able to survive multiple deaths that completely obliterated their bodies in the process. The question becomes why he hasn't picked himself up and dusted himself off and regenerated yet after long millennia of inactivity.

In any case, if the Golden Throne fails - '''regardless of whether Terra gets nuked, the two outcomes are not mutually exclusive''' - whatever remains of the Emperor likely will have the freedom to recover and lead humanity once again.

All of this is still speculation (duh). Vulkan, for instance, was driven mad by the torturous experiences he had endured thanks to Night Haunter, and they were child's play, compared to sitting in unthinkable agony, unable to move or speak for ten thousand years while feeling Himself rotting away. And don't you forget [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device|that nose itch]]. However, a more commonly held belief is that He will get up, re-establish the [[Imperial Truth]], and [[Great Crusade|just be]] [[Commissar|a cool guy]]. Too bad the Warp rift and the Astronomican don't have time to wait for him to do so.

A whole faction of the [[Inquisition]], '''Thorianism''', exists to investigate the possibility of regeneration; looking for possible signs that the Emperor's consciousness can be transferred elsewhere, allowing Him to walk among his children once more. ''(They don't know about the existence of Perpetuals and would rather look for a new body to place the Emperor's soul into.)'' Opponents to Thorianism generally see that encouraging this is a terrible idea, as having the Emperor rise in a physical form would only cause a schism in the Imperium, as many people would not believe it to be true, having been ruled and brainwashed by the Ecclesiarchy over thousands of years, which would lead to another major [[Horus Heresy|civil war]].

A final outcome might be that the Emperor is so far gone that there would be no regeneration for him. He could you know, just be "dead" the same way that Malcador died after his stint on the Throne, though Malcador didn't get to stick around. They were both perpetuals, although the Emperor's orders of magnitude more powerful, Malcador never got up after what might have only been a few hours or days when the Emperor has been sitting there for Millennia. This would also mean the Imperium is absolutely out of luck with the failure of the Astronomican AND the aforementioned warp nuke centered on Terra and their seat of government.

Alternatively it could also be that his connection to the Throne might be the last thing preventing him from achieving true Godhood after ten-thousand years of worship. The destruction of the Throne might by the catalyst of everything that the traitors called him a hypocrite for desiring, ironically causing it to happen with their rebellion and his entombment.

This however is just speculation, so the outcome remains unknown. However, it is confirmed that Perpetuals can still die for real and Chaos does have the ability to do so. Malcador learned this the hard way.

===Beyond the Emperor===
As stated in ''The Master of Mankind'', the Emperor himself considers he already lost the game to save Mankind's from consuming itself into the Warp while attempting to give the evolutionary jump, with the loss of the Webway he seems to have concluded the only thing that remains is a long decline and there is nothing else to do but to wage an ever losing war. Or is it? The Emperor himself recognized He isn't omniscient, His foresight can't reach all. When Guilliman shows up, the Emperor is amazed that humanity has still managed to survive and the Imperium is still alive.

During recent years the writers of Games Workshop have been hinting at a few facts, let us consider the following:
* The future is not absolutely written, and this comes from Chaos itself; even [[Tzeentch]] can't predict everything perfectly, requiring him to ask his [[Kairos Fateweaver|insane bird-oracle to clarify on these events]].
* The fall of the Imperium may be inevitable, but mankind may live on. Given the sheer scope of the human exodus, it's not outside the realm of possibility that some remnant of the Dark Age of Technology has continued unchanged from its original height, though it's very unlikely. For this to be the case it would somehow have to avoid nearly all xenos, chaos influence/worshipers, have its own way of dealing with latent psykers so that they don't be used be Daemons [[Enslavers|or worse]] and never have met any of the other traders, explorators and travelers in general that make up how the current Imperium discovers new planets.
* The [[Cadian Pylons]], while destroyed, were developed by beings that still exist. The fact the [[Necrons]] are still around opens the possibility that they may yet be capable of building replacements, and thanks to [[Trazyn the Infinite|Trazyn]] we know they are capable of closing of warp storms. Oh, and it seems like [[Belisarius_Cawl|Uncle Cawl]] is working on that.
* The Akashic Records truly exist and are somehow linked to [[STC|Ark Mechanicus ships such as Speranza]], this simple fact means all already existing knowledge is never lost forever, but merely incredibly hard to acquire.
* Creating humans immune to Chaos is a reality, both the [[Exorcists]] and the [[Grey Knights]] are evidence to this, and while the process is excruciatingly slow, highly prone to failure and prohibitive in resources it means Mankind can achieve through artificial means a sort of new evolutionary step.
* Not all Eldar died during the Fall, even if we are talking about 1 percent of the race it's still a great deal of individuals, and the fact they have managed to kick-start [[Ynnead|an anti-Chaos god]] is something no one, not even the Emperor managed to foresee (assuming he did not know that is what the Infinity Circuits were for, which he no doubt did considering how old he is). [[Eldrad]] has ultimately demonstrated there are other ways to fight Chaos (by being a dick).
** And thanks to Eldrad waking Ynnead up early (if only barely), Roboute Guilliman was awakened from stasis. Now he is preparing a [[Primaris Marines|new generation of Super Space Marines]] along with some awesome new gear to help take down Chaos. Plus some of the other loyalist Primarchs are still out there, and there is a possibility that they could return to help lead the Imperium fight it's many enemies.
** And for that matter, Eldrad declared by the end of The [[War of The Beast]] that the futures of Mankind and the Eldar are irrevocably interlinked. But, he did nothing to build on that, the dumbass. Add to that the fact the necrons too have given the Imperium a hand a few times and you suddenly notice there are more parties than the Emperor interested in not letting the human race fall. Despite the Imperium's completely justified hatred of xenos, they may be mankind's best chance of survival. That said, we still do have to remember that both the Eldar and Necrons want the Imperium and each other out of the way eventually in order to rebuild their empires, and the Imperium isn't keen on relying too heavily on the entities who will turn on them in a tip of the hat. On the other hand, desperate times call for desperate measures and who knows what the future could bring? Well, at least the Eldar to have more or less accepted their empire will never return and that sticking with the Imperium is their best bet for survival and power in the universe from now on. Which broke the balance and caused plot progression.
*Nobody saw the Tyranids coming because they hadn't even noticed the Galaxy was inhabited until the whole mess with the Pharos device. Not the Chaos Gods, not the Emperor, not the Eldar (though [[Orikan the Diviner|Orikan]] saw them coming), and the Tyranids are both an outside context issue for the galaxy (being the only faction with galactic pull that is completely and unambiguously disconnected from the War in Heaven or the Horus Heresy that serves as everyone else's origin stories) ties and a wild card in the fate of the Galaxy.
* If the Emperor wasn't a god to begin with, millennia of worship and countless psyker souls empowering him means that he's almost certainly a god now- and he knows it. Even when wielded by a "mere" Primarch his sword alone is capable of permanently destroying Greater Daemons (keep in mind that during Great Crusade and before he seems not to be able to do that), and given enough time his power might eclipse that of Chaos itself. (Though one could argue that Chaos powers up much faster than the Emperor due to having more sources to feed one and possibly having more worshippers)
* Finally, there is humanity itself. While He failed to take into account the fact that humanity is a mass of individuals rather than an abstraction, He also underestimated how this could work for good as well as evil. For every traitor and heretic, there is an equally devoted believer in the inherent goodness of mankind willing to stand against the Ruinous Powers, and it is on the individual level that the struggle between the Ruinous Powers and humanity is ultimately fought and decided upon.

Yes, the Emperor failed to avoid mankind's inherent flaws to hinder His Great Work (ironically, because He was guilty of several of them as well), but He also failed to see a lot of the good things mankind can bring in. In yet another twist of irony, his incapability to predict us may even thwart his own prediction of humanity's doom. At the very least, humanity accomplished more and survived longer than anyone expected, even the Emperor.

Indeed, this is [[Warhammer 40,000]], a cautionary tale about the End of Empires, but so was Warhammer Fantasy Battle, and, although we may not like the AoS-ification of the setting, there may still be more than [[Abaddon|just a complete failure]] for the future of Mankind and the Emperor.

==Emperor's nicknames==
Like Roboute, his central status in 40k spawns a plethora of nicknames, which warrants its own section here

'''The Emprah''', '''Emps''', '''Big Daddy Emps''', '''The Motherfucking Emperor''', '''Big E''', '''Mr. Xeno Destroyer''', '''Chaos Fister''', '''Golden Daddy''', '''E-Money''', '''The Chad-Emperor of Chadkind''', '''The Bling-Emperor of Mankind''', '''Chad Thundercock''', '''Augustus Imperator''', '''Deus-Imperator''', '''Him Upon the Throne''', '''Primogenitor''', '''[[Salamanders|The Outlander]]''', '''[[Imperial Fists|Him on Earth]]''', '''[[Space Wolves|All-Father]]''', '''[[Space Sharks|Rangu]]''', '''[[Star Phantoms|Imperator Mortifex]]''', '''Master of Mankind''', '''[[The Last Church|Revelation]]''', '''Neoth''', '''The Immortal Emperor''', '''The Golden King''', '''[[Adeptus Mechanicus|The Omnissiah]]''', '''The Cartomancer''', '''The Empinator''', '''[[Arkhan Land|Jimmy Space]]''', '''The Fresh Emperor of Sacred Terra''', '''That guy with the bigger gun than you''', '''Golden Boy''', '''Space Jesus''', '''[[/tg/|/tg/]]''', [[TTS|'''The Man-Emperor of Mankind''']], '''Glorious Overlord''', '''Lord of Bling''', [[TTS|'''My Manly Man-peror''']], '''Lord Sovereign of the Imperium''', [[TTS|'''Starman''']], ''' Mega Dick Daddy ''', ''' The King of Terra''', '''Boney-Em''' or if you are of [[Heresy|different inclinations]], called '''The Carrion Lord''', '''The False Emperor''', '''The Corpse Emperor''', '''The Corpse God''', '''Oathbreaker''', '''That Twat with the Chair''', '''Space Hitler''', '''Space Stalin''', '''[[If The Emperor Had a Text-To-Speech Device|That Loony Shaman-Chassis]]''', '''[[Tyranid|giant crunchy psychic sandwich]], [[Chaos|the Anathema]], [[Ork|Dat Big Shinny Git]], Professor Utonium, Doctor Fate, The Immortal, Leto Atreides, Vandal Savage, Manji, Shigeo Kageyama, Tetsuo, Conan The Cimmerian, Maximilian Zelevas, Gilad Anni-Padda, Henry Cavill, Great-Grandpapa Smurf, Connor MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod, [[Settra the Imperishable|and many more]].

==And now for some tabletop rules...==

These are rules I thought of. They are not meant to actually be used, and they will put the Emperor at a position where He can easily shit on any Primarch. Like, seriously. These rules will make [[Matt_Ward|the destroyer of fluff]]'s rules look mega-balanced in comparison.

The Emperor of Mankind is a single model equipped with: The Emperor's Sword, the Imperialis Bolter, psychic focusing prism. Your army can only include one The Emperor of Mankind model. If this model is part of your army, you may not take any models with the Primarch keyword.

{| class=wikitable
|- valign=top
! Name !! M !! WS !! BS !! S !! T !! W !! A !! Ld !! Sv !! Cost
|-
| The Emperor of Mankind || 16" || 2+ || 2+ || 8 || 8 || 20 || 7 || 10 || 2+ || 1000 pts.
|}

'''Weapons''':
{| class=wikitable
|- valign=top
! Name !! Range !! Type !! S !! AP !! D !! Abilities
|-
| The Imperialis Bolter || 36" || Rapid Fire 6 || 5 || -3 || D3+1 ||
|-
| Psychic focusing prism || 50" || Assault 14 || 4 || 0 || 1 || Whenever an attack with this weapon is allocated to a Psyker unit, the Damage characteristic of that attack is changed to D3. In addition, if a Psyker unit is not destroyed by an attack from this weapon, that unit immediately suffers Perils of the Warp.
|-
| The Emperor's Sword || Melee || Melee || +2 || -4 || 3 || Any unmodified hit rolls of 6 deal d3 mortal wounds in addition to any other damage.
|}

===Other Wargear:===
'''Aegis of the Emperor''': This model has a 3+ invulnerable save.

'''Relic Teleport Homer''': This model has the Judgement has Come ability.

===Abilities:===
'''The Master of Mankind''': If your army is battle-forged, this model must be your Warlord. If this model is your Warlord, then gain 3 CP. While this model is on the battlefield, any units with the Imperium keyword gain +1 to their Move, BS, WS, and A characteristics. They also gain +5 to their Ld characteristic. Any units with the Adeptus Custodes and Anathema Psykana keywords, in addition to these benefits, can reroll all failed rolls, can ignore mortal wounds on a roll of 5+ and become Fearless.

'''The Anathema''': While this model is on the battlefield, any units with the Chaos keyword get -3 to their Ld.

'''God of the Immaterium''': Add 3 to Psychic tests and Deny the Witch tests taken by this model. This model never suffers Perils of the Warp. Whenever this model manifests ''Smite'', it does 7 mortal wounds instead of d3.

'''Master of the Blade''': This model may make two hit rolls per attack made with the Emperor's Sword if the target has the Daemonic keyword.

'''Master of the Bolter''': This model may triple the number of shots it makes with the Imperialis Bolter if the target is within half range.

'''A God made Manifest''': The first time this model is slain, roll a d6. On a 1, this model releases a psychic shockwave before returning to the Imperial Palace. If this shockwave is released, then every unit within 12" takes d6 mortal wounds. On any other result, set this model up anywhere on the battlefield that is 10" away from any enemy models. The next time this model is slain, this model releases the psychic shockwave and leaves.

'''Perpetual Healing''': At the beginning of each of your Command phases, this model regains d3 lost wounds.

'''Graceful Movement''': Add 2 to armour saves taken by this model on a turn in which it moved more than 10".

'''Judgement has Come''': This model can start the battle in a teleportarium chamber in the Inner Palace. If it does, then in any of your latter four Movement phases, this model can teleport anywhere on the battlefield that is at least 5" away from enemy models.

'''Psychic Dome''': Any units wholly within 6" of this model have a 5+ invulnerable save against ranged attacks.

===Enjoy!===

'''Thought for the day:''' "The man who has nothing can still have faith."

== Gallery ==
{{SectionalPromotions}}
<center><gallery>
File:Emperor-Church windows.jpg|Put this everywhere to praise him, on your windows, the neighbours, just all your hive city.
Image:Horus and the Emperor.jpg|<s>Son, I am disappoint.</s> Empy's disappointment occurred well before this moment.
Image:E-Money_LowRes.gif|Now in animated ultra HD for your heresy needs.
Image:Golden Throne-Imperial Webway.jpg|The Big E upon the Golden Throne (before the decay set in)
Image:Emperor of Mankind Classic Portrait face.jpg|The guiding light in the Imperium of Man shines forever bright. He's also Arnold Schwarzenegger. Try unseeing that now bitches.
Image:1220179589932.jpg|The Emperor protects man from all.
Image:Wh40k-emperor.jpg| Yearbook photo.
Image:When you ruin his groove by Lutherniel.jpg| His groove, do not ruin it. Or you'll get schooled.
Image:Emperor_Decree.jpg| Emps laying down some rules, mid combat from the looks of it
Image:Go Ahead Make My day Emperor.jpg|That is EXACTLY the same look that's on Batman's face when he's about to put the beatdown on some little bitch!
Image:Emperor of Mankind model action figure.jpg|He makes for one helluva action figure
Image:8.jpg|The Em-purr-or of all Catkind! Nyah!
Image:God-Emperor_Goldlich.jpg|Death is no excuse to stop bein' pimp.
Image:God_Emperor_Interred_On_Golden_Throne.jpg|Thinking to himself, "I really, REALLY hate Horus!" Then again he never liked Horus in the first place.
Image:The Immortal Emprah.jpg|The Emperor isn't looking good here.
Image:Emperor_miniature.jpg|Roll d6; stays on the field on seven or less
Image:emperor_old.jpg|A real man never dies, even when he's killed.
Image:emperor.png|Down but not out.
Image:Emperormini.jpg|In all His miniature glory
Image:Carrionlord.jpg|<strike>The Carrion Lord with his two left arms.</strike> {{BLAM}} how the fuck did that heretic get past the custodes?
Image:Painting.jpg|This painting sold for $900, that lucky ca/tg/url...
Image:Emperor_model.jpg|Probably the best model of him yet
Image:slowemperor.jpg|Oh God-emperor, how did this get here? I am not good with computers.
Image:Emperor_Sagan.jpg|Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
Image:EmpsVSigmar.jpg| You all know you wanna see how this pans out!
Image:Emps&SigmarGenderBendBy Flick The Thief.jpg| The same situation, but improved! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Silence Heretic!'''}}
Image:Emprasque3.jpg|How do you kill what can not die?
Image:Slavegirl Emperor.jpg|Emperor [[Rule 63]]! NO EXCEPTIONS! {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Heresy!'''}} [[Extra Heresy]]!
Image:Femprah.jpg|Not actually the God-Emperor; besides it is Heresy to believe that The Immortal God Emperor looks like Cher. {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''HERESY!'''}}, no make that [[Extra Heresy|extra Hersey]]
Image:Femprah_by_Mr-Culexus.jpg|Oh, give it a fucking rest...
File:R34 R63 Emperor 1.jpg|I don't know if this is Heresy, but I don't care,
Image:GodEmpress.jpg|On second though... this [[lovedagger|one]] is... nice. - {{BLAM}} {{Blam|'''Heresy!'''}}
Image:Emperor_upon_his_other_throne.jpg|Yeah. We get it. The Emperor sits upon the Golden 'Throne'.
Image:1377291976783.jpg|Unbeknownst to many 40k fans, ol'Emps is actually fairly amicable when he meets an elf/eldar who isn't a complete and utter failure.
Image:Rainbow Emperor.gif| The Emperor in Rainbow Form, and his theme tone!!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDZoyNzuWbQ&t=10s
Image:Konya.jpg|The symbol of the town Konya in Turkey. In Central Anatolia. Emprah's birthplace. CONNECTION, BITCHES!
Image:Hittite eagle large.jpg|The symbol of ancient (1600BC) Hittite Empire from Anatolia, which, unknown to many, is Emperor's first try at conquering the world.
Image:NotSureIfWant.jpg|The Emperor has just discovered [[Rule 34]].
Image:1393390057238.png|The Emperor is a man of simple tastes.
Image:Emperuh.jpg|The Emprah is watching you Masturbate!
Image:Emperor blackwhite.jpg|The very first image of the Emperor, dating back to Rogue Trader.
Image:God_Emperor_Numen_Kawai_Onii-chan.jpg|[[Drawfags|Kawaii]] [[End Times (Warhammer 40,000|Emprah teaching]] us about the evils of [[Heresy|heretics]], while displaying his mighty [[Pauldrons]].
Image:First_Founding_Problems.jpg|Perhaps with a better armor design (or if he actually cared about him), The Big-E might not have been late for all of [[Horus]]'s after school soccer games and things might have turned out a lot differently.
Image:1271118030729.jpg|Just imagine what would've happened if <s>the Chaos Gods</s> [[HHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhnnnnnnngggggg-|fucking ]] [[Erda]] didn't scatter the primarchs across the galaxy and The Emperor didn't have to start the Great Crusade to go and look for them... Wait a minute, where is that little scamp Omegon? (he's just off picture, sneaking up behind Guilliman)
File:Emperor of Mankind Contemplation.jpg|"Why IS IT that hot dogs come in packs of 8, and hot dog buns come in packs of 12? So people will have to buy 3 packs of hot dogs and 2 of hot dogs buns, hereby promoting imperial production of course! Ketchup sold separately!"
File:Strolling Emperor.jpeg|Having him look at you like this is a reliable indicator of how soon people are going to start referring to you in past-tense.
File:Emperor of Mankind 1.png|He is the ultimate Chad. Look at him.
</gallery></center>

==See Also==
* The [[Imperium]], for the empire he founded.
* [[Malcador the Sigillite]], the Emperors best bro.
* The [[Primarch|Primarchs]], the Emperors "sons".
* [[Sigmar]], his [[Warhammer Fantasy Battles]] and [[Age of Sigmar]] counterpart (especially in the latter).
* [[Emperor's To-Do List]]
[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/25959559/ This thread] which makes the Emperor even cooler.
* [[If the Emperor had a Text-to-Speech Device]]
* [[Heresy from the Emprah’s point of view]]
{{Imperium}}

[[Category:40k and Fantasy Gods]][[Category:Awesome]]

Ynnead

2022-10-28T07:53:25Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Overview */

{{cleanup}}

[[File:Ynnead2.PNG|400px|thumb|right|Yncarne, the avatar of Ynnead about to wreck [[Slaanesh]]'s shit and devour souls ([[Skub|We will leave it at that, trust us its complicated]]). Also has an uncanny resemblance to late musician David Bowie in ''Labyrinth''.]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;font-family:MS Gothic;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"> I am Death and Resurrection born anew! - Ynnead's motto in the 41st Millennium'''</div>

{{topquote|What fool would plan to defeat their enemy by dying forever themselves?|Asdrubael Vect}}

{{topquote|Dessert, too!?|Slaanesh}}

'''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie (Ha! [[Just as planned|Bet you can't unsee that now!!!!]] ([[Cegorach|Cegorach pls]])). He was previously more of a concept than an actual being, representative of what may be the last hope of the Eldar against their eternal enemy, [[Slaanesh]] - and possibly Chaos in its entirety.

== Overview ==

When Slaanesh was born, she devoured most of the Eldar race, and their souls, and most of their gods, and basically caused a lot of things to get badly screwed up, making a terrible mess in the toilet afterwards that the Eldar were forced to mop up. The crap on the wall that won't scrub off was that the surviving Eldar found Slaanesh was constantly hungering for their souls, laying in wait for the moment when any member of their race died to completely consume them. In the past the Eldar believed that when they died, their soul would be reincarnated - with Slaanesh's coming, the Eldar's ability to reincarnate disappeared. To save themselves from this fate, the Craftworld Eldar use [[spiritstone]]s to trap their souls upon death. The spiritstone is then used to intern the soul within the Infinity Circuit of a Craftworld, next to a carefully placed egg timer, where the soul is free to roam around and chill with the other Eldar souls of the Craftworld.

As more souls over time have been added to the infinity circuits, the Eldar [[Farseer]]s perceived something stirring from this collection of souls; this was Ynnead, a god formed from untainted Eldar souls and the power of [[Asuryan]], the king of the Eldar gods, who passed on his power to the Farseers of the Eldar before he was devoured by Slaanesh. The Farseers believed that when the last Craftworld Eldar dies, Ynnead will be fully born and will rise up to cast down Slaanesh, destroying him/her/it forever. It's unknown whether this would have been feasible or not considering Slaanesh's immense power, but Ynnead represented the Eldar race's last, best hope for a better future, and so all their efforts went toward making him as strong as possible.

Worship of Ynnead was, and likely remains, pretty controversial among the Aeldari, as would be expected of xenos modeled on the "dying elder race" shtick. Death is literally his entire purpose and portfolio, and the species that alternately worships and reviles him is coming increasingly closer to extinction - about as permanent of a death as you can get in this universe. [[Grimdark|Their last and best hope is essentially a gamble involving the soul of every single Eldar, alive or dead, on the off chance that they ''might'' be rid of Slaanesh forever, and if that fails...]]

Those who accept Ynnead have the following point of view: Ynnead is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead. Or at least he will be, as he is currently being created. He is in godly limbo at the moment while the Eldar try to amass enough pure souls, or at least souls that have overcome petty desires, in the various [[Craftworld]]s' [[Infinity Circuit]]s which are bonded together by the Eternal Matrix that links all the Infinity circuits and World Spirits together through the Webway, to give him enough mojo to become a proper god.

With the release of the Gathering Storm, it turns out that the Ynnead is [[Emprah|anathema]] to the Chaos Gods and they are actually afraid of it; that's no small aside either, since that's a distinction previously exclusive to Big-E himself, and [[Skub|arguably]] a few [[C'tan]]. Slaanesh has already been put on a bus in Age of Sigmar (Never mind he's getting some new stuff already) and Ynnead is a pretty good way to put Slaanesh on a bus in 40k too.

Other Aeldari see the worshipers of Ynnead as a misguided [[Heresy|heretical]] death cult who are risking the souls of the Aeldari race on a gamble. It also doesn’t help that the Yncarne bears more than a passing resemblance to Slaanesh.[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/09/30/24th-sept-grim-dark-corners-the-aeldari-pantheongw-homepage-post-2-gw-homepage-post-3/ 1]

Basically, Ynnead is the Eldar's last hope against [[Slaanesh]]. '''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. He's alive (for a given value) and active now, but this is new fluff and as always in WH40k the Eldars' plan did [[Not As Planned|not survive]] contact with reality. As always, they didn’t take into account that the future is constantly changing and other factions and species have their own agendas.

Slaanesh was born out of unbridled hedonism, giving them the theme of extreme pleasure. Ynnead is born out of the dead post-fall Eldar who are vengeful but still optimistic stuck-ups, so Ynnead would theoretically be born out of the Eldar's [[Khorne|vengeance]] and [[Tzeentch|hopes]] for a better tomorrow. Assuming it follows the same process as Slaanesh; Ynnead probably won't go rogue and will follow the main purpose of its creation. Probably.

Could the Eldar have simply had a bunch of Farseers, Warlocks, and Exarchs of each Path commit ritual suicide to reincarnate as an Eldar-Emperor being like the ancient human shaman did in outdated fluff? Probably, but these are Eldar. Their whole schtick is being cowardly pussy-tards. They would probably be too afraid of failing and being eaten to take such a chance. Or worse, it succeeds inside Slaanesh, further strengthening the abomination. That sounds about right for 40K.

Something to consider: Ynnead is a very different god than any other active entity in the setting. All of the other gods are immortal beings of perpetual nature. They are always focused on the concept of being endless, be it stagnation, warfare, evolution or excess. Only The Emperor shares a base concept with Ynnead, which is the concept of finality. Ynnead is the god of Death, and death is by its very concept a mortal thing, making it impossible for the Chaos gods to comprehend. So few daemons are truly destroyed that the ruinous powers don’t actually view the concept beyond something mortals do in their spare time, and facing mortality would be such an alien concept that it would make them fear its existence. Ynnead was able to negate the passion of Slaanesh, the disease of Nurgle, the sorceries of Tzeench and stop the senseless conflict of Khorne. Its very existence is the possibility of ending them, and so they fear what they cannot understand. Ynnead may be small now, but if it ever gains enough power the Chaos gods will have major problems. Even worse problems if Ynnead comes to terms with the Necrons; a god of death backed by an army of soulless metal doom skeletons with gauss flayers who's only motivation is to destroy chaos and then anything else that lives... fun times.

=== Yncarne ===

[[File:The_Yncarne.jpg|300px|right|thumb|The Yncarne, Avatar of Ynnead. Watch as it sings "Dance magic dance!"]]

The Yncarne (Ha! Get it? Yncarne as in...''Incarn AKA Incarnation?'') is the Avatar of Ynnead. Yncarne was the first step to the Seventh Path, a method of awakening Ynnead without sacrificing the entire Eldar race. A lot like the [[Khaine#Avatar of Khaine|Avatar of Khaine]], except rather than a bajillion of them, there is only ONE Yncarne. This is due to the fact that Ynnead's birth was cut prematurely during Gathering Storm, so as of now, Ynnead is now in fetus-form in the persona of the Yncarne.

While not on the same humiliating scale as poor Khaine over there, the Yncarne did got his ass handed to him by [[Ahriman]]. But to be fair, the Yncarne wasn't fully formed so we don't really know his true power.

In battle, The Yncarne wields the Crone Sword Vilith-zhar.

Tabletop wise, this little Death God is 250 points, and what a character you get for that. With its Vilith-shar, the Sword of Souls, the Yncarne will be hitting targets with an [[Awesome]] weapon using one of two profiles: a piercing hit for walloping characters and vehicles (S+4 AP-4 D3+3 that ''ignores invuls''), or a sweeping hit for wiping out big squads (SUser AP-4 D1 Ax2). It also has a magic flamer that auto-hits ''every unit'' within 6" (S7 AP-2 D1). The Yncarne is also pretty resilient, T7 with 12 Wounds, a 3+ armor and 4+ invuln and halved damage from Deathly Form.

But it's not just a beatstick. It confers ignore-Combat Attrition to all friendly Ynnari infantry within 12", it starts the game knowing ''all'' of the powers from the Revenant psychic discipline and can cast two of them each phase (with two deny's), it has Battle Focus and Strands of Fate, and it can fly over terrain and appear within 1" of a just-wiped unit whether you have it in-reserve or on the board (the caveat is it cannot appear within engagement range of an enemy nor can it charge or heroically intervene).

All of this means that the Yncarne is a ridiculously strong deathstar model and character assassin with a monstrously wide threat range. Pretty much any enemy squad dies within a round of this beast getting within arms' reach, and very few characters can come out on top in a fight with it.

== The Gathering Storm ==

Surprise! Instead of sucking up all the dead Eldar souls, Ynnead is prematurely "born" during the 13th Black Crusade following the fall of [[Cadia]]. [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]] attempts to summon him early by stealing the fossilized bodies of all the dead Farseers from all the Craftworlds, and conducting an elaborate ritual on a crystal moon. It gets fucked up by the [[Deathwatch]], and only a tiny fraction of Ynnead enters the Materium.

After searching through space, this fragment discovers [[Yvraine]]. Due to her history, she was considered the ultimate expression of being Eldar because apparently the true Eldar are supposed to travel all the paths of life, even the dark ones. With her is the [[Visarch]], a former [[Exarch]] of the Dire Avengers who trained Yvraine and had his heart broken when she chose to leave rather than succeed him. He ended up sneaking into Comorragh, pretended to be an [[Incubi|Incubus]], and fought his way to Yvraine after she unlocked the power of '''The Sword of Sorrows''', one of the severed fingers of [[Morai-Heg]] forged into a sword by [[Vaul]]. The Visarch would later get his own sweet croneblade, '''The Sword of Silence''', when it was pulled from the heart of Craftworld Biel-Tan.

Together, Yvraine and the Visarch become the prophets of Ynnead, preaching that not ALL the Eldar have to die for Ynnead to be born. This ends up fracturing Eldar society at all levels, and Biel-Tan ends up tearing itself apart over whether or not this is actually Eldar [[heresy]]. The destruction of Biel-Tan causes all kinds of Warp holes to tear themselves into existence around the ruins, and Ynnead births an Avatar through them known as the Yncarne (get the pun?), the one-horned ghost-fire model that's been making the rounds in photos of the latest White Dwarf.

Yvraine, Visarch, and Yncarne are now gathering [[Ynnari|an army of all the branches of the Eldar race]] who believe they can fight Chaos without all having to hara-kiri, while those who don't believe in Ynnead are preparing to kill all the heretics for daring to alter the fate of the Eldar. Eldrad himself is imprisoned and placed on trial by the Eldar Inquisition, because he's not Eldar enough, and proposed, after his failure to birth Ynnead, allying with the [[Imperium of Man]] to defeat Chaos once and for all. Even if the other Eldar don't like the idea of becoming best buddies with the Imperium they still reluctantly agreed that they are still the best of a bad bunch, what with the other options being either the [[Orks]] or [[Tau]] both of who are either too "young" (translated as to naïve and inexperienced to face the forces of Chaos and lack the incredible power of any major faction) or simply too uncooperative and uncouth to be allied with (basically every alien that isn’t a devoted Imperial citizen ordered to cooperate), that didn't stop Yvraine from helping to resurrect [[Roboute Guilliman]], so perhaps an actual alliance may be possible.

It may also be that Ynnead simply disagrees with the stupidity of not allying with the only faction which is willing, able, and actively doing something against chaos. It could also be possible that once Guilliman gets in charge the Imperium will stop killing everything that isn't human and start killing everything that is a daemon with them. And then realize they should have been rushing to wipe out the non-protectorate aliens as quickly as possible as the Imperium fights aliens for survival. Killing daemons while aliens assrape the Imperium is a bad idea and the xenos can be killed off far more quickly and easily, best to get that out of the way first.

== Phoenix Rising ==

The Ynnari still spend most of their efforts attempting to rally the disparate eldar factions to Ynnead's cause, but for the most part are still facing stiff resistance from most of the major Craftworlds. What remains of Biel-Tan and Ulthwe still staunchly oppose joining the Ynnari due to them being responsible for the Fracture and Eldrad stealing everyone's crystallized Farseers for his ritual to awaken Ynnead, respectively. Alaitoc, despite the massive insurgence of Chaos across the galaxy due to the Great Rift, still believe that the Necrons are the only real threat that matters and aren't interested in assisting the Ynnari while they remain. Saim-Hann remains highly skeptical of the Ynnari, with its various clans more or less deadlocked on whether or not to side with them or to keep to their own. Iyanden is the only major Craftworld to whole-heartedly ally with Yvraine and Ynnead, lead by Iyanna Arienal. Note that not joining the Ynnari is not the same as not allying with the Imperium and whether it’s Eldrad’s proposed permanent alliance or a temporary one varies regardless of Ynnari membership.

Iyanna, inspired by the death and subsequent resurrection of Prince Yriel, came up with the hypothesis that perhaps all eldar could escape Slannesh's grasp by killing themselves and empowering Ynnead (as the original prophecy stated), then once Slaanesh is defeated resurrect themselves using the same methods the Drukhari Haemonculi use for any Commorragh denizen able to afford their services (basically they create a clone body from any scraps of dead flesh and put the original soul in it). This theory has kind of caught on among the Ynnari recently, though there are a number of hurdles they need to be wary of if they want to successfully pull it off (like having sufficient Wraithguard on hand to protect the Craftworld Infinity Circuits else [[Not as Planned|Slaanesh gorges on their souls instead of Ynnead]]).

In the meantime, Slaanesh has been sicking his/her daemons on the Ynnari in his/her attempt to abort Ynnead before it becomes a true threat. This has been proving moderately successful, as Helbane wracked up a significant body count while trying to assassinate Yvraine and the prison-vaults contained on Agrimathea unleashed a horde of Slaaneshi daemons that slew roughly a third of the entire Ynnari army before they could re-seal the vaults. With Yncarne’s nifty resurrection ability and absorbing souls thing, this isn’t clear.

== The Croneswords ==

The five Croneswords are legendary shapeshifting blades said to have been formed from the five broken fingers of the severed hand of [[Morai-Heg]]. According to legend, the five blades are imbued with a connection to Ynnead, and will reveal themselves when the unborn god begins to stir, where the blades will find their way into the right hands and lead to the eventual salvation of the Eldar race.

The blades are as follows:

*'''Kha-vir, the Sword of Sorrows''' - The first awakened blade, appeared to [[Yvraine]] while in the fighting pits of Commoragh

*'''Asu-var, the Sword of Silent Screams''' - Was pulled out of the Biel-Tan Infinity Circuit before the craftworld broke apart, is now held by the [[Visarch]]

*'''Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls''' - Currently wielded by the [[Yncarne]], was recovered from Belial IV.

*'''The Spear of Twilight''' - Relic weapon of the [[Iyanden]] [[Craftworld]], said to drain the life of its wielder. Had been wielded by Prince [[Yriel]] since the invasion of [[Hive Fleet Kraken]], its power awakened after Yriel fell to [[Nurgle]] daemons and resurrected him.

*The fifth blade has since fallen into Slaanesh's possession, which he/she loves to dangle between the legs, daring Yvraine to try and claim it.

== The Eternal Matrix and the Whisper of Ynnead ==

Before Slaanesh, when the Eldar were at the height of their power, each Eldar soul was connected to a system Eldrad referred to as the Eternal Matrix. Upon death, an Eldar's soul would be sent to the matrix to be later reborn anew, memories and experiences of prior lives preserved within the soul for the resurrected individual to build upon in their next life. As this safety net took away any lasting consequences for the Eldar, one could well and truly argue that it only encouraged the denizens of the progressively depraved Aeldari empire to delve deeper into the vices that led to Slaanesh's birth. Speaking of, Eldrad hypothesized that the psychic shock of Slaanesh's creation usurped the "natural" link the Eldar had with the Eternal Matrix, which is why all unprotected Eldar souls are dragged kicking and screaming into Slaanesh's [[Rape|wet holes]] upon death. Eldrad further conjectures that, in the millennia since the Fall as more and more Eldar (living and dead) began placing their faith in a new Eldar god borne from the death of their race bringing them salvation, Ynnead is a literal personification of the greatly atrophied Eternal Matrix. It's also heavily hinted that "the Whisper" all inducted members of the Ynnari hear is the original connection to the Eternal Matrix.

All Ynnari are psionically linked to Ynnead through a connection referred to as "the Whisper". The primary function of the Whisper is to guide any and all Ynnari who die to Ynnead's care, though it offers several additional benefits to all the aeldari connected to it. Craftworlders no longer require Soulstones (indeed, their link to said spirit stones is actually severed once they fully join the Ynnari) while Dark Eldar are freed from the Soul Thirst that plagues the denizens of Commorragh. Additionally, after spending enough time connected to the Whisper, the atrophied psychic potential in the Dark Eldar awakens somewhat, enabling them to communicate psionically and interact with equipment and vehicles in a manner very similar to their Craftworlder kin. The Whisper extends even to Ynnari technologies. Many Ynnari ships and other vehicles using the Whisper to create a complete psychic connection with the pilot in lieu of the many buffering interfaces (like Soul Stones or more basic control systems) their more [[Eldar|traditional]] or [[Dark Eldar|psychically stunted]] kin use.

It's not all sunshine and roses for the Ynnari, however. The Whisper, as a psionic connection, can be suppressed by Null Zones or similar effects. Any Ynnari cut off from the Whisper are vulnerable to having their souls stolen by Slaanesh, as they remain trapped in their deceased bodies while under the effects of the psychic suppression (fortunately, for the Ynnari, they're at least not automatically gibbed by Slaanesh, they'd need to be dragged to the Warp or be pilfered by Daemons first). More recent Dark Eldar inductees also relapse a bit regarding their soul thirst.

== Gallery ==

<gallery>
File:Ynnead-rebirth.PNG|
File:Harlequins-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Craftworlders-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Dark eldar-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Warhammer-Ynnead-what we know.jpeg|
File:Prophecy of the hidden path.jpg|

</gallery>

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Eldar]]

[[Category: Ynnari]]

{{Eldar-Forces}}

{{Ynnari-Characters}}

{{Template:Eldar-Gods}}

Ynnead

2022-10-28T07:52:38Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Overview */

{{cleanup}}

[[File:Ynnead2.PNG|400px|thumb|right|Yncarne, the avatar of Ynnead about to wreck [[Slaanesh]]'s shit and devour souls ([[Skub|We will leave it at that, trust us its complicated]]). Also has an uncanny resemblance to late musician David Bowie in ''Labyrinth''.]]
<div style="font-size:1.10em;font-weight:bold;font-style:italic;font-family:MS Gothic;margin-top:1em;margin-bottom:1em"> I am Death and Resurrection born anew! - Ynnead's motto in the 41st Millennium'''</div>

{{topquote|What fool would plan to defeat their enemy by dying forever themselves?|Asdrubael Vect}}

{{topquote|Dessert, too!?|Slaanesh}}

'''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie (Ha! [[Just as planned|Bet you can't unsee that now!!!!]] ([[Cegorach|Cegorach pls]])). He was previously more of a concept than an actual being, representative of what may be the last hope of the Eldar against their eternal enemy, [[Slaanesh]] - and possibly Chaos in its entirety.

== Overview ==

When Slaanesh was born, she devoured most of the Eldar race, and their souls, and most of their gods, and basically caused a lot of things to get badly screwed up, making a terrible mess in the toilet afterwards that the Eldar were forced to mop up. The crap on the wall that won't scrub off was that the surviving Eldar found Slaanesh was constantly hungering for their souls, laying in wait for the moment when any member of their race died to completely consume them. In the past the Eldar believed that when they died, their soul would be reincarnated - with Slaanesh's coming, the Eldar's ability to reincarnate disappeared. To save themselves from this fate, the Craftworld Eldar use [[spiritstone]]s to trap their souls upon death. The spiritstone is then used to intern the soul within the Infinity Circuit of a Craftworld, next to a carefully placed egg timer, where the soul is free to roam around and chill with the other Eldar souls of the Craftworld.

As more souls over time have been added to the infinity circuits, the Eldar [[Farseer]]s perceived something stirring from this collection of souls; this was Ynnead, a god formed from untainted Eldar souls and the power of [[Asuryan]], the king of the Eldar gods, who passed on his power to the Farseers of the Eldar before he was devoured by Slaanesh. The Farseers believed that when the last Craftworld Eldar dies, Ynnead will be fully born and will rise up to cast down Slaanesh, destroying him/her/it forever. It's unknown whether this would have been feasible or not considering Slaanesh's immense power, but Ynnead represented the Eldar race's last, best hope for a better future, and so all their efforts went toward making him as strong as possible.

Worship of Ynnead was, and likely remains, pretty controversial among the Aeldari, as would be expected of xenos modeled on the "dying elder race" shtick. Death is literally his entire purpose and portfolio, and the species that alternately worships and reviles him is coming increasingly closer to extinction - about as permanent of a death as you can get in this universe. [[Grimdark|Their last and best hope is essentially a gamble involving the soul of every single Eldar, alive or dead, on the off chance that they ''might'' be rid of Slaanesh forever, and if that fails...]]

Those who accept Ynnead have the following point of view: Ynnead is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead. Or at least he will be, as he is currently being created. He is in godly limbo at the moment while the Eldar try to amass enough pure souls, or at least souls that have overcome petty desires, in the various [[Craftworld]]s' [[Infinity Circuit]]s which are bonded together by the Eternal Matrix that links all the Infinity circuits and World Spirits together through the Webway, to give him enough mojo to become a proper god.

With the release of the Gathering Storm, it turns out that the Ynnead is [[Emprah|anathema]] to the Chaos Gods and they are actually afraid of it; that's no small aside either, since that's a distinction previously exclusive to Big-E himself, and [[|Skub|arguably]] a few [[C'tan]]. Slaanesh has already been put on a bus in Age of Sigmar (Never mind he's getting some new stuff already) and Ynnead is a pretty good way to put Slaanesh on a bus in 40k too.

Other Aeldari see the worshipers of Ynnead as a misguided [[Heresy|heretical]] death cult who are risking the souls of the Aeldari race on a gamble. It also doesn’t help that the Yncarne bears more than a passing resemblance to Slaanesh.[https://www.warhammer-community.com/2018/09/30/24th-sept-grim-dark-corners-the-aeldari-pantheongw-homepage-post-2-gw-homepage-post-3/ 1]

Basically, Ynnead is the Eldar's last hope against [[Slaanesh]]. '''Ynnead''' is the [[Eldar]] god of the dead and may or may not be the reincarnation of David Bowie. He's alive (for a given value) and active now, but this is new fluff and as always in WH40k the Eldars' plan did [[Not As Planned|not survive]] contact with reality. As always, they didn’t take into account that the future is constantly changing and other factions and species have their own agendas.

Slaanesh was born out of unbridled hedonism, giving them the theme of extreme pleasure. Ynnead is born out of the dead post-fall Eldar who are vengeful but still optimistic stuck-ups, so Ynnead would theoretically be born out of the Eldar's [[Khorne|vengeance]] and [[Tzeentch|hopes]] for a better tomorrow. Assuming it follows the same process as Slaanesh; Ynnead probably won't go rogue and will follow the main purpose of its creation. Probably.

Could the Eldar have simply had a bunch of Farseers, Warlocks, and Exarchs of each Path commit ritual suicide to reincarnate as an Eldar-Emperor being like the ancient human shaman did in outdated fluff? Probably, but these are Eldar. Their whole schtick is being cowardly pussy-tards. They would probably be too afraid of failing and being eaten to take such a chance. Or worse, it succeeds inside Slaanesh, further strengthening the abomination. That sounds about right for 40K.

Something to consider: Ynnead is a very different god than any other active entity in the setting. All of the other gods are immortal beings of perpetual nature. They are always focused on the concept of being endless, be it stagnation, warfare, evolution or excess. Only The Emperor shares a base concept with Ynnead, which is the concept of finality. Ynnead is the god of Death, and death is by its very concept a mortal thing, making it impossible for the Chaos gods to comprehend. So few daemons are truly destroyed that the ruinous powers don’t actually view the concept beyond something mortals do in their spare time, and facing mortality would be such an alien concept that it would make them fear its existence. Ynnead was able to negate the passion of Slaanesh, the disease of Nurgle, the sorceries of Tzeench and stop the senseless conflict of Khorne. Its very existence is the possibility of ending them, and so they fear what they cannot understand. Ynnead may be small now, but if it ever gains enough power the Chaos gods will have major problems. Even worse problems if Ynnead comes to terms with the Necrons; a god of death backed by an army of soulless metal doom skeletons with gauss flayers who's only motivation is to destroy chaos and then anything else that lives... fun times.

=== Yncarne ===

[[File:The_Yncarne.jpg|300px|right|thumb|The Yncarne, Avatar of Ynnead. Watch as it sings "Dance magic dance!"]]

The Yncarne (Ha! Get it? Yncarne as in...''Incarn AKA Incarnation?'') is the Avatar of Ynnead. Yncarne was the first step to the Seventh Path, a method of awakening Ynnead without sacrificing the entire Eldar race. A lot like the [[Khaine#Avatar of Khaine|Avatar of Khaine]], except rather than a bajillion of them, there is only ONE Yncarne. This is due to the fact that Ynnead's birth was cut prematurely during Gathering Storm, so as of now, Ynnead is now in fetus-form in the persona of the Yncarne.

While not on the same humiliating scale as poor Khaine over there, the Yncarne did got his ass handed to him by [[Ahriman]]. But to be fair, the Yncarne wasn't fully formed so we don't really know his true power.

In battle, The Yncarne wields the Crone Sword Vilith-zhar.

Tabletop wise, this little Death God is 250 points, and what a character you get for that. With its Vilith-shar, the Sword of Souls, the Yncarne will be hitting targets with an [[Awesome]] weapon using one of two profiles: a piercing hit for walloping characters and vehicles (S+4 AP-4 D3+3 that ''ignores invuls''), or a sweeping hit for wiping out big squads (SUser AP-4 D1 Ax2). It also has a magic flamer that auto-hits ''every unit'' within 6" (S7 AP-2 D1). The Yncarne is also pretty resilient, T7 with 12 Wounds, a 3+ armor and 4+ invuln and halved damage from Deathly Form.

But it's not just a beatstick. It confers ignore-Combat Attrition to all friendly Ynnari infantry within 12", it starts the game knowing ''all'' of the powers from the Revenant psychic discipline and can cast two of them each phase (with two deny's), it has Battle Focus and Strands of Fate, and it can fly over terrain and appear within 1" of a just-wiped unit whether you have it in-reserve or on the board (the caveat is it cannot appear within engagement range of an enemy nor can it charge or heroically intervene).

All of this means that the Yncarne is a ridiculously strong deathstar model and character assassin with a monstrously wide threat range. Pretty much any enemy squad dies within a round of this beast getting within arms' reach, and very few characters can come out on top in a fight with it.

== The Gathering Storm ==

Surprise! Instead of sucking up all the dead Eldar souls, Ynnead is prematurely "born" during the 13th Black Crusade following the fall of [[Cadia]]. [[Eldrad|Eldrad Ulthran]] attempts to summon him early by stealing the fossilized bodies of all the dead Farseers from all the Craftworlds, and conducting an elaborate ritual on a crystal moon. It gets fucked up by the [[Deathwatch]], and only a tiny fraction of Ynnead enters the Materium.

After searching through space, this fragment discovers [[Yvraine]]. Due to her history, she was considered the ultimate expression of being Eldar because apparently the true Eldar are supposed to travel all the paths of life, even the dark ones. With her is the [[Visarch]], a former [[Exarch]] of the Dire Avengers who trained Yvraine and had his heart broken when she chose to leave rather than succeed him. He ended up sneaking into Comorragh, pretended to be an [[Incubi|Incubus]], and fought his way to Yvraine after she unlocked the power of '''The Sword of Sorrows''', one of the severed fingers of [[Morai-Heg]] forged into a sword by [[Vaul]]. The Visarch would later get his own sweet croneblade, '''The Sword of Silence''', when it was pulled from the heart of Craftworld Biel-Tan.

Together, Yvraine and the Visarch become the prophets of Ynnead, preaching that not ALL the Eldar have to die for Ynnead to be born. This ends up fracturing Eldar society at all levels, and Biel-Tan ends up tearing itself apart over whether or not this is actually Eldar [[heresy]]. The destruction of Biel-Tan causes all kinds of Warp holes to tear themselves into existence around the ruins, and Ynnead births an Avatar through them known as the Yncarne (get the pun?), the one-horned ghost-fire model that's been making the rounds in photos of the latest White Dwarf.

Yvraine, Visarch, and Yncarne are now gathering [[Ynnari|an army of all the branches of the Eldar race]] who believe they can fight Chaos without all having to hara-kiri, while those who don't believe in Ynnead are preparing to kill all the heretics for daring to alter the fate of the Eldar. Eldrad himself is imprisoned and placed on trial by the Eldar Inquisition, because he's not Eldar enough, and proposed, after his failure to birth Ynnead, allying with the [[Imperium of Man]] to defeat Chaos once and for all. Even if the other Eldar don't like the idea of becoming best buddies with the Imperium they still reluctantly agreed that they are still the best of a bad bunch, what with the other options being either the [[Orks]] or [[Tau]] both of who are either too "young" (translated as to naïve and inexperienced to face the forces of Chaos and lack the incredible power of any major faction) or simply too uncooperative and uncouth to be allied with (basically every alien that isn’t a devoted Imperial citizen ordered to cooperate), that didn't stop Yvraine from helping to resurrect [[Roboute Guilliman]], so perhaps an actual alliance may be possible.

It may also be that Ynnead simply disagrees with the stupidity of not allying with the only faction which is willing, able, and actively doing something against chaos. It could also be possible that once Guilliman gets in charge the Imperium will stop killing everything that isn't human and start killing everything that is a daemon with them. And then realize they should have been rushing to wipe out the non-protectorate aliens as quickly as possible as the Imperium fights aliens for survival. Killing daemons while aliens assrape the Imperium is a bad idea and the xenos can be killed off far more quickly and easily, best to get that out of the way first.

== Phoenix Rising ==

The Ynnari still spend most of their efforts attempting to rally the disparate eldar factions to Ynnead's cause, but for the most part are still facing stiff resistance from most of the major Craftworlds. What remains of Biel-Tan and Ulthwe still staunchly oppose joining the Ynnari due to them being responsible for the Fracture and Eldrad stealing everyone's crystallized Farseers for his ritual to awaken Ynnead, respectively. Alaitoc, despite the massive insurgence of Chaos across the galaxy due to the Great Rift, still believe that the Necrons are the only real threat that matters and aren't interested in assisting the Ynnari while they remain. Saim-Hann remains highly skeptical of the Ynnari, with its various clans more or less deadlocked on whether or not to side with them or to keep to their own. Iyanden is the only major Craftworld to whole-heartedly ally with Yvraine and Ynnead, lead by Iyanna Arienal. Note that not joining the Ynnari is not the same as not allying with the Imperium and whether it’s Eldrad’s proposed permanent alliance or a temporary one varies regardless of Ynnari membership.

Iyanna, inspired by the death and subsequent resurrection of Prince Yriel, came up with the hypothesis that perhaps all eldar could escape Slannesh's grasp by killing themselves and empowering Ynnead (as the original prophecy stated), then once Slaanesh is defeated resurrect themselves using the same methods the Drukhari Haemonculi use for any Commorragh denizen able to afford their services (basically they create a clone body from any scraps of dead flesh and put the original soul in it). This theory has kind of caught on among the Ynnari recently, though there are a number of hurdles they need to be wary of if they want to successfully pull it off (like having sufficient Wraithguard on hand to protect the Craftworld Infinity Circuits else [[Not as Planned|Slaanesh gorges on their souls instead of Ynnead]]).

In the meantime, Slaanesh has been sicking his/her daemons on the Ynnari in his/her attempt to abort Ynnead before it becomes a true threat. This has been proving moderately successful, as Helbane wracked up a significant body count while trying to assassinate Yvraine and the prison-vaults contained on Agrimathea unleashed a horde of Slaaneshi daemons that slew roughly a third of the entire Ynnari army before they could re-seal the vaults. With Yncarne’s nifty resurrection ability and absorbing souls thing, this isn’t clear.

== The Croneswords ==

The five Croneswords are legendary shapeshifting blades said to have been formed from the five broken fingers of the severed hand of [[Morai-Heg]]. According to legend, the five blades are imbued with a connection to Ynnead, and will reveal themselves when the unborn god begins to stir, where the blades will find their way into the right hands and lead to the eventual salvation of the Eldar race.

The blades are as follows:

*'''Kha-vir, the Sword of Sorrows''' - The first awakened blade, appeared to [[Yvraine]] while in the fighting pits of Commoragh

*'''Asu-var, the Sword of Silent Screams''' - Was pulled out of the Biel-Tan Infinity Circuit before the craftworld broke apart, is now held by the [[Visarch]]

*'''Vilith-zhar, the Sword of Souls''' - Currently wielded by the [[Yncarne]], was recovered from Belial IV.

*'''The Spear of Twilight''' - Relic weapon of the [[Iyanden]] [[Craftworld]], said to drain the life of its wielder. Had been wielded by Prince [[Yriel]] since the invasion of [[Hive Fleet Kraken]], its power awakened after Yriel fell to [[Nurgle]] daemons and resurrected him.

*The fifth blade has since fallen into Slaanesh's possession, which he/she loves to dangle between the legs, daring Yvraine to try and claim it.

== The Eternal Matrix and the Whisper of Ynnead ==

Before Slaanesh, when the Eldar were at the height of their power, each Eldar soul was connected to a system Eldrad referred to as the Eternal Matrix. Upon death, an Eldar's soul would be sent to the matrix to be later reborn anew, memories and experiences of prior lives preserved within the soul for the resurrected individual to build upon in their next life. As this safety net took away any lasting consequences for the Eldar, one could well and truly argue that it only encouraged the denizens of the progressively depraved Aeldari empire to delve deeper into the vices that led to Slaanesh's birth. Speaking of, Eldrad hypothesized that the psychic shock of Slaanesh's creation usurped the "natural" link the Eldar had with the Eternal Matrix, which is why all unprotected Eldar souls are dragged kicking and screaming into Slaanesh's [[Rape|wet holes]] upon death. Eldrad further conjectures that, in the millennia since the Fall as more and more Eldar (living and dead) began placing their faith in a new Eldar god borne from the death of their race bringing them salvation, Ynnead is a literal personification of the greatly atrophied Eternal Matrix. It's also heavily hinted that "the Whisper" all inducted members of the Ynnari hear is the original connection to the Eternal Matrix.

All Ynnari are psionically linked to Ynnead through a connection referred to as "the Whisper". The primary function of the Whisper is to guide any and all Ynnari who die to Ynnead's care, though it offers several additional benefits to all the aeldari connected to it. Craftworlders no longer require Soulstones (indeed, their link to said spirit stones is actually severed once they fully join the Ynnari) while Dark Eldar are freed from the Soul Thirst that plagues the denizens of Commorragh. Additionally, after spending enough time connected to the Whisper, the atrophied psychic potential in the Dark Eldar awakens somewhat, enabling them to communicate psionically and interact with equipment and vehicles in a manner very similar to their Craftworlder kin. The Whisper extends even to Ynnari technologies. Many Ynnari ships and other vehicles using the Whisper to create a complete psychic connection with the pilot in lieu of the many buffering interfaces (like Soul Stones or more basic control systems) their more [[Eldar|traditional]] or [[Dark Eldar|psychically stunted]] kin use.

It's not all sunshine and roses for the Ynnari, however. The Whisper, as a psionic connection, can be suppressed by Null Zones or similar effects. Any Ynnari cut off from the Whisper are vulnerable to having their souls stolen by Slaanesh, as they remain trapped in their deceased bodies while under the effects of the psychic suppression (fortunately, for the Ynnari, they're at least not automatically gibbed by Slaanesh, they'd need to be dragged to the Warp or be pilfered by Daemons first). More recent Dark Eldar inductees also relapse a bit regarding their soul thirst.

== Gallery ==

<gallery>
File:Ynnead-rebirth.PNG|
File:Harlequins-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Craftworlders-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Dark eldar-ynnead.jpeg|
File:Warhammer-Ynnead-what we know.jpeg|
File:Prophecy of the hidden path.jpg|

</gallery>

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Eldar]]

[[Category: Ynnari]]

{{Eldar-Forces}}

{{Ynnari-Characters}}

{{Template:Eldar-Gods}}

Horus Heresy

2022-10-20T08:28:57Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Lion El'Jonson: Lord of the First */

[[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|I never wanted this. I never wanted to unleash my legions. Together, we banished the ignorance of old night. But you betrayed me. You betrayed us all. You stole power from the Gods, and lied to your sons! Mankind has only one chance to prosper. If you will not seize it...'''then I will!!''' So let it be war! From the skies of Terra, to the Galactic Rim. Let the seas boil! Let the stars fall! Though it takes, '''the last drop of my blood''', I will see the Galaxy freed once more! And if I cannot save it from your failure, father...then let the Galaxy '''BURN!'''|Horus, making his own feelings known and [[A Game of Pretend|totally not projecting ''at all''.]]}}

{{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. [[Derp|Also notice how the Gothic Sector and Port Maw, canonically bordering the Eye of Terror, are positioned a quarter of the galaxy away from it.]] [[Forge World|For some reason.]]]]
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' to make the problem go away". 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 stories [[Alpha Legion|The Serpent Beneath]] and [[The Last Church]].

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 defenses. 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 realizing 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 shenanigans 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 cliché 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 Guilliman</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, as the main framing device is that of the official records of the Ultramarines Legion with a ticking clock, with T=0 marking the begin of the Assault on Calth and the massive confusion that ensues depsite every single Ultramarine being surrounded by more red flags than you could find at a Communist party meeting.
*'''''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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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. When not showing off the two traitor primarchs, the book 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. The guy also resurrects the Word Bearers' waifu, apparently turning her into a perpetual in the process, only for her to be <s>kidnapped</s> rescued by the Cabal soon after. She is never seen again in the rest of the series. 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 millennia, 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. Unmarked 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. John Grammaticus is up to no good (probably), looking for an artifact infused with the Emperor's groovy god juice and there is a Word Bearer who doesn't seem to be buying into the whole "Chaos is so epic and cool" schtick of his legion. 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 realize 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 foresees 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 exterminatus grade phosphex to the face (he survives nonetheless, 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 defenses 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' defenses 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 ritualized 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 millennium, 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 for 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 defense 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. The 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 acolyte 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 never-ending 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 deep-strikes 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 realizes 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, signaling 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. Big-E 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 few minutes 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 when Horus falls, all but confirming that the Chaos Gods expected Horus to lose his duel with the Emperor.
*'''''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 ultimately results their city getting bombed to shit. (Zenobi's story took about a quarter of the book, but its entirety can be summed up in one sentence, and could '''at best''' be described as misguided, inexplicable filler; 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 to a single (armless) man. 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]] (presumably losing his arms in the transfer) despite his own wish for death, as the Chaos Gods already have him in mind as their new Warmaster. 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 feeds Eidolon his own sword and just straight-up kicks him 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 as the result of what can only be described as a fucked up custody battle - 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 it 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 complete withdrawal of all IV Legion assets on Terra and fucks off, abandoning the siege entirely. 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 and in somewhat limited capacity. Princeps Aurum of the Ordo sinister (whom we saw in a previous short story tell Dorn to fuck off because being one of ''The Talons of the Emperor'', they only answer to Big-E himself), 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 daemon titan engines, and thanks to their nature as [[blanks]], they deny the traitors any further resurrections, so anything they kill ''stays'' dead. They also tank damage without even staggering, simply repairing any damage they accumulate on the spot. However, the traitors brought a LOT of titans, so even those few Psi-titans we get to see are eventually overwhelmed, though they take a fuckton of traitors with them.
** 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 yet. 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? The Dark Angels probably could due to their abundance of Dark Age archeotec and The Lion's maybe [[Tuchulcha|Old Ones-creation biological computer Pinnochio macguffin... Thing]], but everyone else? Nonetheless, the plot decrees that Corswain and his Dark Angels must be given something interesting to do I guess. Thus, 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 and secure 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 daemon (as in ''permakill''), but gets a bad nose-bleed. The horror.
* '''''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. 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. The White Scars' frenzy doesn't end until a newly raised khan gets word to Shiban that their primarch yet lives, and manages to remind Shiban that they were supposed to take the port, not destroy it. The Death Guard retreat in shambles, abandoning the Gate and rejoining Typhus, who had once again taken off to do his own thing earlier in the book.
**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 still 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. Incidentally, this book does the seemingly impossible and actually makes us root for Erebus (the quintessential Quizling-Hitler High School Meangirl hybrid in space) of the entire Horus Heresy, due to him dropping some much needed truth-bombs on Erda (humanity's worst mom) and hands her some long overdue comeuppance. Erebus then moves to finish her off and wreck her house, [[A Game of Pretend|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 [Shiban Khan leads the Lion's Gate Spaceport in his absence], Dorn is surrounded at Bhab Bastion, Corswain and his Dark Angels contingent have locked down the Astronomicon but are ordered to stay put, and all other 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 duel Angron as the big climactic fight.
** A lot of this books focuses on the defenders retreat to (and attackers assault on) the Eternity Gate leading to the Sanctum Imperialis, specifically their mustering and battle before the Delphic Battlement. That being said, this is also the point in the siege where things really start to go [[Not as Planned]] for Team Chaos, and as ever, it's often as much due to them getting in their own way, just as much as the efforts of Team Emperor. The Imperial side of things is mostly narrated through the perspectives of Nassir Amit and Zephon of the Blood Angels. Zephon apparently ''wasn't'' killed back in Saturnine and was just taking a nap until Arkhan Land and some Legion serfs fix him up with Dark Age archeotech and send him on his merry way. Meanwhile, the Chaos side of things is told from the POV of the World Eaters Apothecary Kargos from ''Betrayer'' as he tags along with a random Word Bearers Chaplain, reminiscent of Kharne and Argel Tal's previous bro-ship. It doesn't matter though, because Kargos gets curb-stomped by the Flesh Tearer and left for dead by his Word Bearers buddy. After a day of fighting, the defenders begin to retreat to the Sanctum, knowing that whoever is left on the outside after the doors close will be daemon chow. Sanguinius duels Ka'Bandha and wrecks him pretty one-sidedly. Just as the gates are being closed, a Legio Audax (the same guys from ''Betrayer'') titan holds the door open long enough for Angron to swoop in and start fighting the Angel. The two duel, and Angron gets a good sword-stab to Sanguinius' gutmeats, but then Fabulous Hawk Boy rips the Butcher's Nails from daemon Angron's head and drops him to the ground before heading inside and letting the gates close.
** There's a sub-plot about Vulkan going into the shattered remains of the Emperor's Webway project to duel with Magnus, who is on the other side after being ejected in ''Fury of Magnus''. Magnus does a bunch of magic tricks to Vulkan, but Vulkan is an [[Perpetual|unkillable]] primarch with a big fuckoff hammer and eventually Magnus gets tuckered out long enough for them to 'kill' each other. Magnus is banished from the Webway and Vulkan eventually gets up and wanders out. One revelation from these parts is that the Emperor's 'you only perceive me how I want you to perceive me' shtick extends to the Primarchs, as Vulkan remembers the Emperor's offer to Magnus to lead the Grey Knights as a stern 'lol gtfo'. Well that's one interpretation anyway; the other is that the corruption of Chaos wormed its way yet further into Magnus, altering his cognitive function, allowing him to think of himself as the victim, and thus ensuring that Magnus would dance further to their tune.
** We also get a look into how things are going in the fleet and for some of the mortal followers of Chaos. The aforementioned Legio Audax Warhound, the ''Hindarah'', has been on Terra pretty much since the beginning. It's princeps still believes herself to be alive, and frequently hallucinates that the cockpit of her god-engine has become an abattoir of horrors, but then she comes back to it and everything seems normal again. It isn't until we get another character's view on the interior that we see that, yeah, the princeps and moderati have all fused into a ''[[Chaos Spawn|that thing]]''... Yuck. Lotarra Sarrin, everyone's favorite spunky girl-boss captain of the ''Conqueror'', has become a corrupted ''thing'' partly fused with her command throne, while the parts of her that wanted to run away from the horror of it all became a ghost that the rest of the crew just sort of tolerate. This ghost even manages to get in a call to Horus aboard the ''Vengeful Spirit'', who has continued to deteriorate from 'kooky grampa' to 'scary kooky grampa'. It's heavily implied that Argonis is the only one left really running the fleet.
** The book ends with the Lion's Gate Space Port finally opening fire on the traitor fleet, much to the horror of those aboard, who were caught completely unprepared, in close formation while stationary in geosynchronous orbit, and immediately starts getting torn to pieces. They then receive a message from its [[White Scars|new occupants]], who basically just calls to laugh at them. [[Troll|Then he hangs up]]. In the epilogue a few pages later, we get a sweet little note from Guilliman to Sanguinius, saying that he's a couple days from the system's edge and only a solar week from Terra. However, this message is intercepted and blocked by daemon Lotarra Sarrin from reaching the surface.
** A lot of this helps to set up and answer the ultimate question of "why did Horus drop the void shields?" At this point in the siege, the defenders are on their very last legs. Dorn and a lot of forces are cut off at Bhab Bastion, while everyone else who is still alive has fled inside the Sanctum Imperialis, the only exceptions being the White Scars at Lion's Gate and the Dark Angels at the Astronomicon. There are no more walls to get behind, nowhere else to run to. On the Chaos side of things, by book's end, Horus is no longer the smug little shit we've seen throughout the siege, and is instead now shitting his pants, because he has now lost every single one of his generals. Lorgar had already been driven out for plotting to overthrow Horus, Konrad is not even in the correct side of the galaxy, Alpharius/Omegon (it's hard to keep track of which one is which at the best of times) died at Pluto while the other twin remains at large elsewhere, Fulgrim fucked off during ''Saturnine'', Perturabo during ''Mortis'', Mortarion got clapped by the Khan in ''Warhawk'' and shunted off into the warp, and by the end of ''Echoes'', both Magnus and Angron ([[Skub|arguably Horus' two most OP subordinates]] have been reduced to greasy, whiny smears, staining sections of the Webway and Eternity Gates' floors, respectively. To make matters worse for Team Chaos, but Horus especially (as if any more were needed), with the death or absence of their respective primarchs, a significant percentage of the remaining astartes forces under the Warmaster's command (maybe even up to '''HALF''') have lost anything even remotely resembling unit cohesion, and in the case of the Thousand Sons and World Eaters, probably permanently; the former having fully succumbed to the flesh change en masse and the latter evidently now practicing for the upcoming [[Battle of Skalathrax]] by going all-in on the whole Teamkilling Fucktard thing, whereas before they'd only engaged in the occasional Teamkilling dalliance. The board, as they say, is set for the final showdown.
*'''''The End and the Death''''': This is it. 17 years and over 60 books, all leading up to ''the'' main event of the Heresy: the duel of the Emperor and Horus, as written by [[Dan Abnett|the man who started the series]][[Awesome|.]] Will be split into multiple volumes, because there's no way in hell BL wouldn't milk this for all it's worth, and because Abnett belongs to the school of write a shit ton of words (thankfully, unlike [[A Song of Ice and Fire|someone else we can name]] he actually finishes his shit).
*'''''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 has to go into suspended animation, Garuda the mechanical eagle watches over him as he passes out, 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.
* '''''Garro: Knight of Grey''''': The third novella in the series, featuring Nathaniel Garro's final showdown with Mortarion as he fights to protect Euphrati Keeler.

==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. The surviving natives of Morningstar are obliterated in space to stop the meme from spreading, and shortly before the Siege of Terra Magnus Pókeballs the psychic gestalt from its prison in the ruins of Prospero into his book so he can use it to get past the Emperor's psychic shield.

===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. A meeting takes place between Sanguinius, Magnus and the Khan to talk about protecting the Librarius but Magnus is dismissive as ever about it and doesn't seem to take the issue very seriously. The White Scars fight together with the Luna Wolves against Greenskins and the former legion uses their Librarius against the Orc shamans, in order to not miss a conquest deadline set by the Khan, who of course likes to go very fast in all manner of ways. This has a subtle backfire for the Imperium, as the Luna Wolves disapprove of the Librarius. Horus himself is implied to give Jagathai the cold shoulder as a result of this, due to Horus trying to be on his most neutral, goodie good boyscout behavior, in anticipation of winning the title of Warmaster. The Khan thus loses support of Horus regarding the psyker dilemma. 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. Much better book than most in the Primarchs series, as it's basically a Horus Heresy book and not a novel about a no-stakes Crusade campaign (Guilliman's book) nor a deep dive into the Primarch's life before the Emperor (Lorgar's). This is also a companion piece / prequel to Brotherhood of the Storm (this book directly intertwines with Brotherhood near the end) and Scars.

===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 [[Warhammer High|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. [[Slayer|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. To briefly retouch on a previous point though: the book does a good job of fleshing out the role of the I Legion. If the VIth are the Emperor's executioners, and the VIIIth his terror Legion, then the Ist are his exterminators. This, combined with the previously mentioned unparalleled trust Big-E has for his first son is likely why, alone of the rest of the Imperium (probably not including the Custodes) the Dark Angels are trusted with archeotech from the Dark Age of Technology so dangerous that not even the Cog-boys know it exists, including weapons so destructive that they probably outclass anything but Necron-tech, which is really saying something. 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 saw they were too tough a 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 [[Meme|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 be 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 comes across 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 (Alpharius even expresses a foreboding worry that Horus is carrying too much on his shoulders), The Lion to a certain extent (whom Alpharius speculates was the only brother to see through him and sense the truth), 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/foster father, 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 during Mortarion's early days in the Imperium, just after the events of ''The Verdict of the Scythe'' and flashing back to the Conquest of Galaspar, his first campaign as primarch of the Death Guard. As he's settling into command of his legion, Mortarion learns of a noncompliant human empire known as the Order in the Galaspar Cluster. Billions of people are enslaved, kept permanently drugged up, and forced to work themselves to death for the enrichment of the High Comptrollers, a pack of oligarchical assholes who refer to their slaves as "labor units" and have them executed and turned into nutrient sludge because their baking wasn't up to par (no, really). The Order's similarities to the Overlords of Barbarus piss Mortarion off to the point where he rejects the other Imperial commanders' suggestion that they blockade and besiege the cluster and decides to do a Leeroy Jenkins-style decapitation strike instead. He takes his fleet and barges clean through the Cluster's exterior defenses before ramming a cruiser into the side of the largest hive on Galaspar Prime and going out to kick ass the Death Guard way: fistfuls of rad grenades, rivers of phosphex, and power scythes, all topped off with plenty of orbital bombardments. No one who belongs to the Order is allowed to survive; Morty and the legion kill most of the Comptrollers even when they try to surrender and leave a few to be torn to pieces by their former slaves. Mortarion expects to be praised for his work, but the Emperor seems upset and sends Horus and Sanguinius to call him to account. Both primarchs are stunned by the level of destruction Mortarion has wrought, and when he tries to justify himself to his brothers, Horus points out that all he's done is replace one kind of tyranny with another. Mort has a brief moment of clarity and wonders if there is a better path forward for him and his legion. Ultimately, however, he concludes that the examples of Galaspar and Absyrtus justify his way of war and decides to become an embodiment of unstoppable, unrelenting Death, [[Nurgle|and we all know how well that worked out for him.]] Also features [[Typhus|Calas Typhon]] and [[Knights-Errant#Nathaniel Garro|Nathaniel Garro]] in their early days as line legionaries. Typhon falls into a disgusting sewer at one point and runs into a psyker who seems to know what he'll become, while Garro is the sole survivor of a kill team sent to take out the Order's chief asshole, which is probably what set him on the path to becoming battle-captain of the Seventh Grand Company.

===Rogal Dorn: The Emperor's Crusader===

Fafnir Rann and Sigismund are standing around on the walls of the Imperial Palace just before the Siege, wondering why their primarch got the job of fortifying Terra, when Malcador pops out and reminds them of the Night Crusade, whereupon all three of them start reminiscing about it.

Six decades into the Great Crusade, ten years after Dorn was recovered and shortly after Lion el'Jonson was found, Dorn, Fulgrim, Horus, and the Lion are ordered to deploy into the Occluda Noctis, an area of the galaxy obscured by a major Warp storm. Their goal is to bring the area into Imperial compliance and find the source of an unknown threat that’s already destroyed multiple expeditionary fleets. All four of them have their own ideas about how best to prosecute the campaign; the Lion wants to work his way in from the periphery of the Occluda, while Dorn’s plan boils down to “drive my fleet into the heart of the Occluda and get shit done”. He and the Lion disagree about who’s right to the point where Horus and Fulgrim have to try and calm them down, but Dorn insults the Lion, who demands an honor duel. The Lion’s champion wins because Dorn forgot he had Sigismund, and Rogal immediately apologizes to his brother for insulting him. Ultimately, they agree to do both plans. Dorn’s works surprisingly well, though the Fists don’t rack up nearly as many compliances as the Dark Angels and Emperor’s Children since he's insisting on a diplomatic approach and the fleet has to be careful when making Warp jumps in the Occluda. They eventually encounter the unknown enemy, which turns out to be a lost human civilization called the Kapikulu Continuum that uses cloaking tech and special warp gates to get around, requiring Dorn to up his game to counter them. He manages to outsmart and defeat the Continuum's fleet and convinces its leaders to join the Imperium. At the peace negotiations, he learns that the Continuum used to be the slaves of a xenos race that altered their brains to grow a special neural web that lets them use all their nifty technology (and also makes their heads explode if a psyker tries mind-probing them), which means that they’re not technically human anymore. Dorn concludes that he can’t risk letting them join the Imperium and orders them to be wiped out, following the exact letter of the Emperor’s orders: “Remove this hidden threat.” He is genuinely distressed by this outcome, but sucks it up and moves on.

The whole point of the story turns out to be summing up Dorn’s character: he was made the Praetorian of Terra because he can be trusted to do exactly what he is told to do, fulfilling both the word and spirit of the Emperor’s commands, and there’s no one else the Emperor would rather have guarding his capital world. Also a funny sidenote: Perturabo is found during the course of the Night Crusade and Dorn sends him a friendly welcome message, which one character declares will certainly lead to a greater fraternal bond between them in future.

===Sanguinius: The Great Angel===
A disgraced remembrancer joins the IX Legion on campaign and learns more about the early days of the Blood Angels, possibly including some of their more unsavory secrets.

===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."

==Horus Heresy Character Series==

A subseries of novellas and short stories focusing on major characters from the Crusade and Heresy eras. Originally these were part of the Primarchs series until BL finally split them off into their own category.

===Valdor: Birth of the Imperium===
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===
Solomon Voss comes to interview Sigismund for the first time near the end of the Great Crusade, and Sigismund reveals why he believes that there will only be war in the Imperium's <s>grimdark</s> noblebright future.

Most of the novel is concerned with Siggy's backstory: he 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 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 an entire day until Sigismund was about to land the killing blow and Sevatar 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 as a child what he'd become, he'd still have said no. Voss further realizes that Sigismund is hoping to die at some point so he can escape the endless cycle of conflict. The book ends with Voss summarizing what Sigismund believes: there will always be war, because even if the Imperium pacifies the galaxy, it will still have to fight against the cruelty, savagery, and cowardice of human nature. Needless to say, later events proved Sigismund to be absolutely right in every possible way.

==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 mentioned below and more alarmingly, the lead-up to Adepticon 2022 announced that the Horus Heresy wargame was going to see a new edition, now written by the core GW design team. Warhammer Fest 2022 displayed their full intent, with a full box set (filled with plastic Beakies, two new Praetors, a Spartan, and Cataphractii Termies, all in plastic) as well as plenty of other updated models: new support squad weapon kits, reboxed 20-man kits for Mk. III and Mk. IV Marines, plastic Deimos-pattern Rhinos, Sicarans, and Leviathan Dreadnoughts, an updated plastic Contemptor Dread kit, and the brand new [[Kratos Heavy Assault Tank]], a heavy tank placed in between the Sicaran and Fellblade. They've continued to make new models for the game since then (including plans for new models for each of the Primarchs), although it seems Forge World will still be making a bunch of the original models

===First Edition===
'''Book 1: 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.

'''Book 2: 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.

'''Book 3: 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.

'''Book 4: 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.
'''Book 5: 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.

'''Book 6: 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).

'''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.

'''Book 8: 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, two new squads, and an entire slew of relics that interact with Psykers and Daemons.

'''Book 9: 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 proved to be the last of the black books for the first edition of the Heresy tabletop, as GW announced a new edition of the game at Adepticon 2022.

====Condensed Lists====
The Istvaan Campaign Legions (ICL) and Legiones Astartes Crusade Army List (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 LACAL is basically the generic 30k Space Marine "codex", whilst the ICL contains all of the collected rules for the legions from Books 1-3, including their units, characters and wargear. 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 Taghmata 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.

====Exemplary Battles====
Starting in Fall 2021, GW started publishing a series of free PDFs for the Horus Heresy tabletop which contain mini-campaigns based around battles from the Heresy that have been mentioned in the novels or black books but weren't big enough for a book of their own. These PDFs also include fluff and rules for Legion units that haven't been given any yet, along with photos and conversion tips for said units. These tips boil down to "buy tons of Forge World stuff while you still can", 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; GW has confirmed that the PDFs released prior to the launch of the new edition have been written to work with both sets of rules.

*'''''[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]]. 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.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/AmPdr3yMZbvggCND.pdf The Breaking of the Perfect Fortress]''''': Raven Guard storming the III Legion's Perfect Fortress on the world of Narsis, previously mentioned in ''Deliverance Lost''. Includes rules for the Deliverers, Terran-born Raven Guard who were trained under Horus and still prefer to use Terminator armor and shock-assault tactics. They're Stubborn and get teleportation transponders for deep-striking, but their main rule is Corax's Shame, representing the fact that Corax wasn't fond of his brutal Terran sons. They get +1T against attacks that cause Instant Death and cannot be deployed within 18" of Corax, nor can he ever join them. If you take Deliverers as part of a traitor force, they instead gain Hatred against Corax.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/TLbrp4me5GEfL37Q.pdf The Scouring of Gilden's Star]''''': Word Bearers vs Blood Angels fighting over a ''Hamlet'' reference last seen all the way back in 1989. Has rules for the Word Bearers' Procurators, basically assault squads led by evil Apothecaries who [[Blood Ravens|steal gene-seed]] and desecrate corpses to summon daemons. They give boosts to friendly psykers with the Harbinger of Chaos, Diabolism, and Anathemata disciplines and award an extra VP every time they Sweeping Advance an enemy unit.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/6i9CeSwKmbWmzac4.pdf The Battle of Trisolian: Vengeful Spirit]''''': Taking a page from the ''Wolfsbane'' novel, this portrays the part of the [[Battle of Trisolian]] when the Space Wolves broke into Horus' flagship during Russ' attempt to kill Horus before he reached Terra. Introduces the Space Wolves' Jorlund Hunter Pack, assault marines that can temporarily supercharge their flamers, and the Sons of Horus' Chieftains, an elite retinue of junior officers who specialize in hunting down characters.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/3mVvZrTG9XOWeVxv.pdf The Axandria IV Incident]''''': Imperial Fists, Custodes, and Sisters of Silence raid a Thousand Sons repository world not long before the Siege of Terra, and the Thousand Sons actually score a win this time by evacuating their data stacks before the loyalist forces can trash them. Includes rules for Numerologist Cabals of the Order of Ruin, Thousand Sons Techmarines and tacticians who used divination to generate battle plans and predict enemy movements. The Numerologist gains a special psychic power that gives him a geo-locator beacon and boosts the BS of two friendly Thousand Sons squads if he passes a psychic check. He also gets a special bubble-wrap rule that prevents him from taking any wounds no matter what until all his bodyguards are dead, unless he accepts a challenge.

===Second Edition===
The first two books for the new edition of the tabletop were revealed at Warhammer Fest 2022: the '''Liber Astartes''' and the '''Liber Hereticus'''. These are basically updated and combined versions of the LACAL and ICL books. Both books contain the rules for all non-Legion-specific units, while the Liber Astartes has the rules for the loyalist legions and the Liber Hereticus has the rules for the traitor legions, including their Primarchs, unique units and wargear, Rites of War, Warlord Traits, and faction abilities. The '''Legacies of the Age of Darkness''' PDF contains the rules for vehicles, units, and characters who either never had models or whose models are now out of production, including most of the Legion-specific special characters, Castraferrum Dreadnoughts, the [[Crassus Armored Assault Transport|CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT]], and all of the Baneblade variants. Later leaks, which Warhammer Community would confirm, revealed that there would also be books for the Mechanicum ('''Liber Mechanicum''') that would contain rules for the Taghmata, Knights and Titans as well as a book for the Custodes, Sisters of Silence, Solar Auxilia, and Divisio Assassinorum ('''Liber Imperium'''). Daemons of the Ruinstorm and Imperialis Militia/Warp Cults will get downloadable lists, and according to the Legacies PDF the Knights-Errant and Blackshields are being made into full factions. They will also continue to release the Exemplary Battles series; the previously released PDFs got a separate update PDF in order to work with the new edition. The tactics page for the Legions can be found [[Age of Darkness-Warhammer 30k/2.0 Tactics/Legiones Astartes Tactics|here]].

The core rules have been drastically modified with the addition of "Reactions", which make gameplay more dynamic. In addition to basic reactions such as Overwatch that can be taken in response to the opponent's actions, each Legion now has an "Advanced Reaction" that is more powerful but requires more specific conditions to work. Furthermore, USRs have been rewritten to be more granular (e.g. Bulky, Very Bulky, and Extremely Bulky are now Bulky (X), where X is is how many models that unit counts as for the purposes of transport capacity) and the Psychic Phase has been removed in lieu of the pre-7th edition manner of resolving psychic powers.

==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==
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3170/horus-heresy-1993 Horus Heresy (1993)] at BoardGameGeek
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63543/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (2010)] at BoardGameGeek

{{40k-Timeline}}

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

Horus Heresy

2022-10-20T08:06:40Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Mortarion: The Pale King */

[[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|I never wanted this. I never wanted to unleash my legions. Together, we banished the ignorance of old night. But you betrayed me. You betrayed us all. You stole power from the Gods, and lied to your sons! Mankind has only one chance to prosper. If you will not seize it...'''then I will!!''' So let it be war! From the skies of Terra, to the Galactic Rim. Let the seas boil! Let the stars fall! Though it takes, '''the last drop of my blood''', I will see the Galaxy freed once more! And if I cannot save it from your failure, father...then let the Galaxy '''BURN!'''|Horus, making his own feelings known and [[A Game of Pretend|totally not projecting ''at all''.]]}}

{{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. [[Derp|Also notice how the Gothic Sector and Port Maw, canonically bordering the Eye of Terror, are positioned a quarter of the galaxy away from it.]] [[Forge World|For some reason.]]]]
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' to make the problem go away". 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 stories [[Alpha Legion|The Serpent Beneath]] and [[The Last Church]].

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 defenses. 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 realizing 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 shenanigans 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 cliché 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 Guilliman</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, as the main framing device is that of the official records of the Ultramarines Legion with a ticking clock, with T=0 marking the begin of the Assault on Calth and the massive confusion that ensues depsite every single Ultramarine being surrounded by more red flags than you could find at a Communist party meeting.
*'''''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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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. When not showing off the two traitor primarchs, the book 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. The guy also resurrects the Word Bearers' waifu, apparently turning her into a perpetual in the process, only for her to be <s>kidnapped</s> rescued by the Cabal soon after. She is never seen again in the rest of the series. 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 millennia, 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. Unmarked 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. John Grammaticus is up to no good (probably), looking for an artifact infused with the Emperor's groovy god juice and there is a Word Bearer who doesn't seem to be buying into the whole "Chaos is so epic and cool" schtick of his legion. 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 realize 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 foresees 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 exterminatus grade phosphex to the face (he survives nonetheless, 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 defenses 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' defenses 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 ritualized 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 millennium, 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 for 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 defense 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. The 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 acolyte 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 never-ending 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 deep-strikes 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 realizes 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, signaling 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. Big-E 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 few minutes 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 when Horus falls, all but confirming that the Chaos Gods expected Horus to lose his duel with the Emperor.
*'''''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 ultimately results their city getting bombed to shit. (Zenobi's story took about a quarter of the book, but its entirety can be summed up in one sentence, and could '''at best''' be described as misguided, inexplicable filler; 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 to a single (armless) man. 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]] (presumably losing his arms in the transfer) despite his own wish for death, as the Chaos Gods already have him in mind as their new Warmaster. 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 feeds Eidolon his own sword and just straight-up kicks him 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 as the result of what can only be described as a fucked up custody battle - 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 it 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 complete withdrawal of all IV Legion assets on Terra and fucks off, abandoning the siege entirely. 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 and in somewhat limited capacity. Princeps Aurum of the Ordo sinister (whom we saw in a previous short story tell Dorn to fuck off because being one of ''The Talons of the Emperor'', they only answer to Big-E himself), 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 daemon titan engines, and thanks to their nature as [[blanks]], they deny the traitors any further resurrections, so anything they kill ''stays'' dead. They also tank damage without even staggering, simply repairing any damage they accumulate on the spot. However, the traitors brought a LOT of titans, so even those few Psi-titans we get to see are eventually overwhelmed, though they take a fuckton of traitors with them.
** 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 yet. 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? The Dark Angels probably could due to their abundance of Dark Age archeotec and The Lion's maybe [[Tuchulcha|Old Ones-creation biological computer Pinnochio macguffin... Thing]], but everyone else? Nonetheless, the plot decrees that Corswain and his Dark Angels must be given something interesting to do I guess. Thus, 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 and secure 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 daemon (as in ''permakill''), but gets a bad nose-bleed. The horror.
* '''''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. 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. The White Scars' frenzy doesn't end until a newly raised khan gets word to Shiban that their primarch yet lives, and manages to remind Shiban that they were supposed to take the port, not destroy it. The Death Guard retreat in shambles, abandoning the Gate and rejoining Typhus, who had once again taken off to do his own thing earlier in the book.
**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 still 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. Incidentally, this book does the seemingly impossible and actually makes us root for Erebus (the quintessential Quizling-Hitler High School Meangirl hybrid in space) of the entire Horus Heresy, due to him dropping some much needed truth-bombs on Erda (humanity's worst mom) and hands her some long overdue comeuppance. Erebus then moves to finish her off and wreck her house, [[A Game of Pretend|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 [Shiban Khan leads the Lion's Gate Spaceport in his absence], Dorn is surrounded at Bhab Bastion, Corswain and his Dark Angels contingent have locked down the Astronomicon but are ordered to stay put, and all other 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 duel Angron as the big climactic fight.
** A lot of this books focuses on the defenders retreat to (and attackers assault on) the Eternity Gate leading to the Sanctum Imperialis, specifically their mustering and battle before the Delphic Battlement. That being said, this is also the point in the siege where things really start to go [[Not as Planned]] for Team Chaos, and as ever, it's often as much due to them getting in their own way, just as much as the efforts of Team Emperor. The Imperial side of things is mostly narrated through the perspectives of Nassir Amit and Zephon of the Blood Angels. Zephon apparently ''wasn't'' killed back in Saturnine and was just taking a nap until Arkhan Land and some Legion serfs fix him up with Dark Age archeotech and send him on his merry way. Meanwhile, the Chaos side of things is told from the POV of the World Eaters Apothecary Kargos from ''Betrayer'' as he tags along with a random Word Bearers Chaplain, reminiscent of Kharne and Argel Tal's previous bro-ship. It doesn't matter though, because Kargos gets curb-stomped by the Flesh Tearer and left for dead by his Word Bearers buddy. After a day of fighting, the defenders begin to retreat to the Sanctum, knowing that whoever is left on the outside after the doors close will be daemon chow. Sanguinius duels Ka'Bandha and wrecks him pretty one-sidedly. Just as the gates are being closed, a Legio Audax (the same guys from ''Betrayer'') titan holds the door open long enough for Angron to swoop in and start fighting the Angel. The two duel, and Angron gets a good sword-stab to Sanguinius' gutmeats, but then Fabulous Hawk Boy rips the Butcher's Nails from daemon Angron's head and drops him to the ground before heading inside and letting the gates close.
** There's a sub-plot about Vulkan going into the shattered remains of the Emperor's Webway project to duel with Magnus, who is on the other side after being ejected in ''Fury of Magnus''. Magnus does a bunch of magic tricks to Vulkan, but Vulkan is an [[Perpetual|unkillable]] primarch with a big fuckoff hammer and eventually Magnus gets tuckered out long enough for them to 'kill' each other. Magnus is banished from the Webway and Vulkan eventually gets up and wanders out. One revelation from these parts is that the Emperor's 'you only perceive me how I want you to perceive me' shtick extends to the Primarchs, as Vulkan remembers the Emperor's offer to Magnus to lead the Grey Knights as a stern 'lol gtfo'. Well that's one interpretation anyway; the other is that the corruption of Chaos wormed its way yet further into Magnus, altering his cognitive function, allowing him to think of himself as the victim, and thus ensuring that Magnus would dance further to their tune.
** We also get a look into how things are going in the fleet and for some of the mortal followers of Chaos. The aforementioned Legio Audax Warhound, the ''Hindarah'', has been on Terra pretty much since the beginning. It's princeps still believes herself to be alive, and frequently hallucinates that the cockpit of her god-engine has become an abattoir of horrors, but then she comes back to it and everything seems normal again. It isn't until we get another character's view on the interior that we see that, yeah, the princeps and moderati have all fused into a ''[[Chaos Spawn|that thing]]''... Yuck. Lotarra Sarrin, everyone's favorite spunky girl-boss captain of the ''Conqueror'', has become a corrupted ''thing'' partly fused with her command throne, while the parts of her that wanted to run away from the horror of it all became a ghost that the rest of the crew just sort of tolerate. This ghost even manages to get in a call to Horus aboard the ''Vengeful Spirit'', who has continued to deteriorate from 'kooky grampa' to 'scary kooky grampa'. It's heavily implied that Argonis is the only one left really running the fleet.
** The book ends with the Lion's Gate Space Port finally opening fire on the traitor fleet, much to the horror of those aboard, who were caught completely unprepared, in close formation while stationary in geosynchronous orbit, and immediately starts getting torn to pieces. They then receive a message from its [[White Scars|new occupants]], who basically just calls to laugh at them. [[Troll|Then he hangs up]]. In the epilogue a few pages later, we get a sweet little note from Guilliman to Sanguinius, saying that he's a couple days from the system's edge and only a solar week from Terra. However, this message is intercepted and blocked by daemon Lotarra Sarrin from reaching the surface.
** A lot of this helps to set up and answer the ultimate question of "why did Horus drop the void shields?" At this point in the siege, the defenders are on their very last legs. Dorn and a lot of forces are cut off at Bhab Bastion, while everyone else who is still alive has fled inside the Sanctum Imperialis, the only exceptions being the White Scars at Lion's Gate and the Dark Angels at the Astronomicon. There are no more walls to get behind, nowhere else to run to. On the Chaos side of things, by book's end, Horus is no longer the smug little shit we've seen throughout the siege, and is instead now shitting his pants, because he has now lost every single one of his generals. Lorgar had already been driven out for plotting to overthrow Horus, Konrad is not even in the correct side of the galaxy, Alpharius/Omegon (it's hard to keep track of which one is which at the best of times) died at Pluto while the other twin remains at large elsewhere, Fulgrim fucked off during ''Saturnine'', Perturabo during ''Mortis'', Mortarion got clapped by the Khan in ''Warhawk'' and shunted off into the warp, and by the end of ''Echoes'', both Magnus and Angron ([[Skub|arguably Horus' two most OP subordinates]] have been reduced to greasy, whiny smears, staining sections of the Webway and Eternity Gates' floors, respectively. To make matters worse for Team Chaos, but Horus especially (as if any more were needed), with the death or absence of their respective primarchs, a significant percentage of the remaining astartes forces under the Warmaster's command (maybe even up to '''HALF''') have lost anything even remotely resembling unit cohesion, and in the case of the Thousand Sons and World Eaters, probably permanently; the former having fully succumbed to the flesh change en masse and the latter evidently now practicing for the upcoming [[Battle of Skalathrax]] by going all-in on the whole Teamkilling Fucktard thing, whereas before they'd only engaged in the occasional Teamkilling dalliance. The board, as they say, is set for the final showdown.
*'''''The End and the Death''''': This is it. 17 years and over 60 books, all leading up to ''the'' main event of the Heresy: the duel of the Emperor and Horus, as written by [[Dan Abnett|the man who started the series]][[Awesome|.]] Will be split into multiple volumes, because there's no way in hell BL wouldn't milk this for all it's worth, and because Abnett belongs to the school of write a shit ton of words (thankfully, unlike [[A Song of Ice and Fire|someone else we can name]] he actually finishes his shit).
*'''''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 has to go into suspended animation, Garuda the mechanical eagle watches over him as he passes out, 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.
* '''''Garro: Knight of Grey''''': The third novella in the series, featuring Nathaniel Garro's final showdown with Mortarion as he fights to protect Euphrati Keeler.

==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. The surviving natives of Morningstar are obliterated in space to stop the meme from spreading, and shortly before the Siege of Terra Magnus Pókeballs the psychic gestalt from its prison in the ruins of Prospero into his book so he can use it to get past the Emperor's psychic shield.

===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. A meeting takes place between Sanguinius, Magnus and the Khan to talk about protecting the Librarius but Magnus is dismissive as ever about it and doesn't seem to take the issue very seriously. The White Scars fight together with the Luna Wolves against Greenskins and the former legion uses their Librarius against the Orc shamans, in order to not miss a conquest deadline set by the Khan, who of course likes to go very fast in all manner of ways. This has a subtle backfire for the Imperium, as the Luna Wolves disapprove of the Librarius. Horus himself is implied to give Jagathai the cold shoulder as a result of this, due to Horus trying to be on his most neutral, goodie good boyscout behavior, in anticipation of winning the title of Warmaster. The Khan thus loses support of Horus regarding the psyker dilemma. 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. Much better book than most in the Primarchs series, as it's basically a Horus Heresy book and not a novel about a no-stakes Crusade campaign (Guilliman's book) nor a deep dive into the Primarch's life before the Emperor (Lorgar's). This is also a companion piece / prequel to Brotherhood of the Storm (this book directly intertwines with Brotherhood near the end) and Scars.

===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 [[Warhammer High|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. [[Slayer|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 saw they were too tough a 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 [[Meme|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 be 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 comes across 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 (Alpharius even expresses a foreboding worry that Horus is carrying too much on his shoulders), The Lion to a certain extent (whom Alpharius speculates was the only brother to see through him and sense the truth), 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/foster father, 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 during Mortarion's early days in the Imperium, just after the events of ''The Verdict of the Scythe'' and flashing back to the Conquest of Galaspar, his first campaign as primarch of the Death Guard. As he's settling into command of his legion, Mortarion learns of a noncompliant human empire known as the Order in the Galaspar Cluster. Billions of people are enslaved, kept permanently drugged up, and forced to work themselves to death for the enrichment of the High Comptrollers, a pack of oligarchical assholes who refer to their slaves as "labor units" and have them executed and turned into nutrient sludge because their baking wasn't up to par (no, really). The Order's similarities to the Overlords of Barbarus piss Mortarion off to the point where he rejects the other Imperial commanders' suggestion that they blockade and besiege the cluster and decides to do a Leeroy Jenkins-style decapitation strike instead. He takes his fleet and barges clean through the Cluster's exterior defenses before ramming a cruiser into the side of the largest hive on Galaspar Prime and going out to kick ass the Death Guard way: fistfuls of rad grenades, rivers of phosphex, and power scythes, all topped off with plenty of orbital bombardments. No one who belongs to the Order is allowed to survive; Morty and the legion kill most of the Comptrollers even when they try to surrender and leave a few to be torn to pieces by their former slaves. Mortarion expects to be praised for his work, but the Emperor seems upset and sends Horus and Sanguinius to call him to account. Both primarchs are stunned by the level of destruction Mortarion has wrought, and when he tries to justify himself to his brothers, Horus points out that all he's done is replace one kind of tyranny with another. Mort has a brief moment of clarity and wonders if there is a better path forward for him and his legion. Ultimately, however, he concludes that the examples of Galaspar and Absyrtus justify his way of war and decides to become an embodiment of unstoppable, unrelenting Death, [[Nurgle|and we all know how well that worked out for him.]] Also features [[Typhus|Calas Typhon]] and [[Knights-Errant#Nathaniel Garro|Nathaniel Garro]] in their early days as line legionaries. Typhon falls into a disgusting sewer at one point and runs into a psyker who seems to know what he'll become, while Garro is the sole survivor of a kill team sent to take out the Order's chief asshole, which is probably what set him on the path to becoming battle-captain of the Seventh Grand Company.

===Rogal Dorn: The Emperor's Crusader===

Fafnir Rann and Sigismund are standing around on the walls of the Imperial Palace just before the Siege, wondering why their primarch got the job of fortifying Terra, when Malcador pops out and reminds them of the Night Crusade, whereupon all three of them start reminiscing about it.

Six decades into the Great Crusade, ten years after Dorn was recovered and shortly after Lion el'Jonson was found, Dorn, Fulgrim, Horus, and the Lion are ordered to deploy into the Occluda Noctis, an area of the galaxy obscured by a major Warp storm. Their goal is to bring the area into Imperial compliance and find the source of an unknown threat that’s already destroyed multiple expeditionary fleets. All four of them have their own ideas about how best to prosecute the campaign; the Lion wants to work his way in from the periphery of the Occluda, while Dorn’s plan boils down to “drive my fleet into the heart of the Occluda and get shit done”. He and the Lion disagree about who’s right to the point where Horus and Fulgrim have to try and calm them down, but Dorn insults the Lion, who demands an honor duel. The Lion’s champion wins because Dorn forgot he had Sigismund, and Rogal immediately apologizes to his brother for insulting him. Ultimately, they agree to do both plans. Dorn’s works surprisingly well, though the Fists don’t rack up nearly as many compliances as the Dark Angels and Emperor’s Children since he's insisting on a diplomatic approach and the fleet has to be careful when making Warp jumps in the Occluda. They eventually encounter the unknown enemy, which turns out to be a lost human civilization called the Kapikulu Continuum that uses cloaking tech and special warp gates to get around, requiring Dorn to up his game to counter them. He manages to outsmart and defeat the Continuum's fleet and convinces its leaders to join the Imperium. At the peace negotiations, he learns that the Continuum used to be the slaves of a xenos race that altered their brains to grow a special neural web that lets them use all their nifty technology (and also makes their heads explode if a psyker tries mind-probing them), which means that they’re not technically human anymore. Dorn concludes that he can’t risk letting them join the Imperium and orders them to be wiped out, following the exact letter of the Emperor’s orders: “Remove this hidden threat.” He is genuinely distressed by this outcome, but sucks it up and moves on.

The whole point of the story turns out to be summing up Dorn’s character: he was made the Praetorian of Terra because he can be trusted to do exactly what he is told to do, fulfilling both the word and spirit of the Emperor’s commands, and there’s no one else the Emperor would rather have guarding his capital world. Also a funny sidenote: Perturabo is found during the course of the Night Crusade and Dorn sends him a friendly welcome message, which one character declares will certainly lead to a greater fraternal bond between them in future.

===Sanguinius: The Great Angel===
A disgraced remembrancer joins the IX Legion on campaign and learns more about the early days of the Blood Angels, possibly including some of their more unsavory secrets.

===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."

==Horus Heresy Character Series==

A subseries of novellas and short stories focusing on major characters from the Crusade and Heresy eras. Originally these were part of the Primarchs series until BL finally split them off into their own category.

===Valdor: Birth of the Imperium===
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===
Solomon Voss comes to interview Sigismund for the first time near the end of the Great Crusade, and Sigismund reveals why he believes that there will only be war in the Imperium's <s>grimdark</s> noblebright future.

Most of the novel is concerned with Siggy's backstory: he 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 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 an entire day until Sigismund was about to land the killing blow and Sevatar 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 as a child what he'd become, he'd still have said no. Voss further realizes that Sigismund is hoping to die at some point so he can escape the endless cycle of conflict. The book ends with Voss summarizing what Sigismund believes: there will always be war, because even if the Imperium pacifies the galaxy, it will still have to fight against the cruelty, savagery, and cowardice of human nature. Needless to say, later events proved Sigismund to be absolutely right in every possible way.

==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 mentioned below and more alarmingly, the lead-up to Adepticon 2022 announced that the Horus Heresy wargame was going to see a new edition, now written by the core GW design team. Warhammer Fest 2022 displayed their full intent, with a full box set (filled with plastic Beakies, two new Praetors, a Spartan, and Cataphractii Termies, all in plastic) as well as plenty of other updated models: new support squad weapon kits, reboxed 20-man kits for Mk. III and Mk. IV Marines, plastic Deimos-pattern Rhinos, Sicarans, and Leviathan Dreadnoughts, an updated plastic Contemptor Dread kit, and the brand new [[Kratos Heavy Assault Tank]], a heavy tank placed in between the Sicaran and Fellblade. They've continued to make new models for the game since then (including plans for new models for each of the Primarchs), although it seems Forge World will still be making a bunch of the original models

===First Edition===
'''Book 1: 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.

'''Book 2: 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.

'''Book 3: 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.

'''Book 4: 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.
'''Book 5: 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.

'''Book 6: 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).

'''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.

'''Book 8: 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, two new squads, and an entire slew of relics that interact with Psykers and Daemons.

'''Book 9: 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 proved to be the last of the black books for the first edition of the Heresy tabletop, as GW announced a new edition of the game at Adepticon 2022.

====Condensed Lists====
The Istvaan Campaign Legions (ICL) and Legiones Astartes Crusade Army List (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 LACAL is basically the generic 30k Space Marine "codex", whilst the ICL contains all of the collected rules for the legions from Books 1-3, including their units, characters and wargear. 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 Taghmata 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.

====Exemplary Battles====
Starting in Fall 2021, GW started publishing a series of free PDFs for the Horus Heresy tabletop which contain mini-campaigns based around battles from the Heresy that have been mentioned in the novels or black books but weren't big enough for a book of their own. These PDFs also include fluff and rules for Legion units that haven't been given any yet, along with photos and conversion tips for said units. These tips boil down to "buy tons of Forge World stuff while you still can", 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; GW has confirmed that the PDFs released prior to the launch of the new edition have been written to work with both sets of rules.

*'''''[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]]. 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.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/AmPdr3yMZbvggCND.pdf The Breaking of the Perfect Fortress]''''': Raven Guard storming the III Legion's Perfect Fortress on the world of Narsis, previously mentioned in ''Deliverance Lost''. Includes rules for the Deliverers, Terran-born Raven Guard who were trained under Horus and still prefer to use Terminator armor and shock-assault tactics. They're Stubborn and get teleportation transponders for deep-striking, but their main rule is Corax's Shame, representing the fact that Corax wasn't fond of his brutal Terran sons. They get +1T against attacks that cause Instant Death and cannot be deployed within 18" of Corax, nor can he ever join them. If you take Deliverers as part of a traitor force, they instead gain Hatred against Corax.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/TLbrp4me5GEfL37Q.pdf The Scouring of Gilden's Star]''''': Word Bearers vs Blood Angels fighting over a ''Hamlet'' reference last seen all the way back in 1989. Has rules for the Word Bearers' Procurators, basically assault squads led by evil Apothecaries who [[Blood Ravens|steal gene-seed]] and desecrate corpses to summon daemons. They give boosts to friendly psykers with the Harbinger of Chaos, Diabolism, and Anathemata disciplines and award an extra VP every time they Sweeping Advance an enemy unit.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/6i9CeSwKmbWmzac4.pdf The Battle of Trisolian: Vengeful Spirit]''''': Taking a page from the ''Wolfsbane'' novel, this portrays the part of the [[Battle of Trisolian]] when the Space Wolves broke into Horus' flagship during Russ' attempt to kill Horus before he reached Terra. Introduces the Space Wolves' Jorlund Hunter Pack, assault marines that can temporarily supercharge their flamers, and the Sons of Horus' Chieftains, an elite retinue of junior officers who specialize in hunting down characters.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/3mVvZrTG9XOWeVxv.pdf The Axandria IV Incident]''''': Imperial Fists, Custodes, and Sisters of Silence raid a Thousand Sons repository world not long before the Siege of Terra, and the Thousand Sons actually score a win this time by evacuating their data stacks before the loyalist forces can trash them. Includes rules for Numerologist Cabals of the Order of Ruin, Thousand Sons Techmarines and tacticians who used divination to generate battle plans and predict enemy movements. The Numerologist gains a special psychic power that gives him a geo-locator beacon and boosts the BS of two friendly Thousand Sons squads if he passes a psychic check. He also gets a special bubble-wrap rule that prevents him from taking any wounds no matter what until all his bodyguards are dead, unless he accepts a challenge.

===Second Edition===
The first two books for the new edition of the tabletop were revealed at Warhammer Fest 2022: the '''Liber Astartes''' and the '''Liber Hereticus'''. These are basically updated and combined versions of the LACAL and ICL books. Both books contain the rules for all non-Legion-specific units, while the Liber Astartes has the rules for the loyalist legions and the Liber Hereticus has the rules for the traitor legions, including their Primarchs, unique units and wargear, Rites of War, Warlord Traits, and faction abilities. The '''Legacies of the Age of Darkness''' PDF contains the rules for vehicles, units, and characters who either never had models or whose models are now out of production, including most of the Legion-specific special characters, Castraferrum Dreadnoughts, the [[Crassus Armored Assault Transport|CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT]], and all of the Baneblade variants. Later leaks, which Warhammer Community would confirm, revealed that there would also be books for the Mechanicum ('''Liber Mechanicum''') that would contain rules for the Taghmata, Knights and Titans as well as a book for the Custodes, Sisters of Silence, Solar Auxilia, and Divisio Assassinorum ('''Liber Imperium'''). Daemons of the Ruinstorm and Imperialis Militia/Warp Cults will get downloadable lists, and according to the Legacies PDF the Knights-Errant and Blackshields are being made into full factions. They will also continue to release the Exemplary Battles series; the previously released PDFs got a separate update PDF in order to work with the new edition. The tactics page for the Legions can be found [[Age of Darkness-Warhammer 30k/2.0 Tactics/Legiones Astartes Tactics|here]].

The core rules have been drastically modified with the addition of "Reactions", which make gameplay more dynamic. In addition to basic reactions such as Overwatch that can be taken in response to the opponent's actions, each Legion now has an "Advanced Reaction" that is more powerful but requires more specific conditions to work. Furthermore, USRs have been rewritten to be more granular (e.g. Bulky, Very Bulky, and Extremely Bulky are now Bulky (X), where X is is how many models that unit counts as for the purposes of transport capacity) and the Psychic Phase has been removed in lieu of the pre-7th edition manner of resolving psychic powers.

==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==
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3170/horus-heresy-1993 Horus Heresy (1993)] at BoardGameGeek
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63543/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (2010)] at BoardGameGeek

{{40k-Timeline}}

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

The Cabal

2022-10-19T07:02:41Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Assassinating Vulkan */

The '''Cabal''' was a group of xenos races determined to fight Chaos, mentioned in a number of the [[Horus Heresy]] novels, primarily ''Legion''. At least one [[Eldar]] [[Autarch]], at least two [[Kroot]] ("Spavined avian creatures"), two humans (and [[Perpetual]]s to boot), and possibly the [[Watchers in the Dark]] were included, as well as nearly-extinct, intelligent atmospheric layers and a small, not-dickish omniglot insectoid. ''Legion'' also makes references to the "Old Kind," but it seems that the Perpetual saying that was merely calling the Eldar et. al. "older than humanity," not referring to a literal race. They would have invited the Emperor, but <s>he would rather kill all xenos than work with any of them, as he really ''is'' that much of a bloodthirsty bastard.</s> {{BLAM|'''*BLAM!* He was wise enough to realise their plan was deeply flawed and would never bear fruit!'''}}

==The Alpharius Gambit==
They are the group responsible for Alpharius' (and Omegon's) treachery (or LOYALTY?). Using the Acuity, a form of divination based on Eldar [[Farseer|farseeing]], they told them that they had two options:
* 1: The Emperor wins and the galaxy is plunged into 10,000 years of stagnation, during which time Chaos will grow steadily more powerful, eventually consuming the galaxy and all living things in it. Which we know is a blatant lie because the Emperor was obsessed with technological progress and because stagnation only positively effects Nurgle while being antithetical to the other three powers.
**This option suggests that the Emperor's victory would have resulted in it playing out as it did in canon, when it only went that way partly due to the Cabal's interference. If they had helped or done nothing at all, things almost assuredly would have gone a different way and we probably wouldn't have gotten the grimdark galaxy we have today. This lie is partly “justified” in that despite their claims to the contrary, the Cabal are ignorant of the nature of Chaos, and the majority of the Cabal considered humanity under the Emperor's rule a threat to themselves (and their races). They may have chosen not to aid humanity outright due to distrusting their plans for what would happen after Chaos was dealt with, after all it's unlikely any of them were willing to have their races reduced to slave states (assuming the Emperor did not decide they would be better off exterminated). This tells us something about them, though. As the Emperor only purged species that chose to be a threat to humanity. Simply choose not to be and you’ll be ignored/conquered. In short, the Cabal were just unwitting pawns of Chaos.
* 2: The Emperor dies, Horus wins, and the galaxy is plunged into Chaos. However, Horus's guilt over having killed the Emperor would lead him to self-destructively trying to destroy the human race, and the [[Chaos Gods]], having gorged themselves on human emotions, would collapse along with them; non-human life in the galaxy would survive, however. This outcome doesn't look as retarded on face value, but with the benefit of hindsight one could see why this is still retarded on the part of the Cabal. Ignoring for a moment that one of the Chaos Gods exists ''BECAUSE'' of a non-human species, there's absolutely no assurances that the extinction of humanity would kill off the Chaos Gods. Based on existing lore, we know that the Laer worshiped Slaanesh, and the other Chaos Gods can still affect sentient alien races in some way if given the chance (which WILL present itself). There's no reason to assume the Chaos Gods couldn't and wouldn't feed off the emotions of other sentient life forms if humanity isn't available. Besides, the Emperor losing would have resulted in the galaxy being either turned into a giant Eye of Terror (wiping out all non-human life) or the Chaos humans exterminating/torturing/eating/raping all non-human life into extinction. Case in point: all Chaos humans are still shown to utterly hate aliens and seek to purge their existence.

Later events imply that neither Alpharius nor Omegon fully believed these, although they disagreed with what ''would'' happen. Either regarding these visions as false or at least trying to find another option, the twins have started working against each other, and therefore the Cabal consider this endeavor to have been a failed Gambit on their part and move towards other options.

Originally, the Emperor’s victory prediction was that during the Emperor’s victory tour of the Imperium, a human would stab him with a Chaos artifact that would corrupt him. Eventually enough people pointed out that putting Chaos in the physical manifestation of anti-Chaos wouldn’t do jackshit and that Chaos, barring extremely powerful beings, cannot even exist, or are even UNMADE in his presence, and so the artifact would have been rendered inert just being near him. Thus Games Workshop retconned it to treat the canon result as the Emperor’s victory. Even though any retard can tell it was at best mutual destruction, not victory. It can’t even be said he saved the Imperium since the Imperium he built was essentially destroyed by his confinement on the Golden Throne.

==Assassinating Vulkan==
The Cabal's next move was to arrange for [[Perpetual#John Grammaticus|John Grammaticus]] to kill Vulkan using divine cast-off energy from the Emperor. According to the Cabal, only a Primarch was capable of using the fulgurite cast-off, so John was ''supposed'' to pass the artefact off to [[Konrad Curze]] and let him do it, but [[Eldrad]] co-opted Grammaticus and got him to do the stabbing instead. The end result being that Vulkan ''was'' slain after being stabbed by the weapon, but it doesn't kill him permanently as the Cabal had anticipated. Because the Cabal was too retarded to realize that, perpetual or not, you cannot kill a being made of the Emperor’s power using the Emperor’s power, a characteristic that sets Vulkan apart from other perpetuals.

The reason for this is because [[Eldrad|the dick]] had started trying to undermine the Cabal and was attempting to save [[Vulkan]]. Eldrad believes that an actual victory for the Emperor would be bad for the Chaos Gods ([[Derp|a being Chaos is mortally terrified of, and uniformly refer to as “The Anathema” winning against Chaos being a good thing!? What a silly idea!]]), and if Vulkan is at the Siege of Terra, he would affect the outcome of the Heresy in such a way that would be beneficial to the Galaxy as a whole; a theory that has born out to be true multiple times as the ''[[Siege of Terra]]'' series has progressed. Eldrad later appeared within Mount Deathfire on [[Nocturne]] in the guise of an old man, and met a newly-resurrected [[Vulkan]], who had just forged an artefact called the ''Talisman of Seven Hammers'', [[Emperor|his father]] having remotely [[Meme|Assumed Direct Control]] of Vulkan's body while in the process of convalescence. Eldrad directed Vulkan to the [[Webway]] so that he could reach Terra and fulfill his destiny. Apparently Vulkan gave Eldrad a drake tooth as a mark of trust between them.

After a short stop off with the Shattered Legions and destroying the remnants of his brother [[Ferrus Manus]], Vulkan eventually made it through the webway to the Terran portion of it, which was being assailed by countless daemons. Vulkan used the last remnant of the fulgurite's power to permakill much of the army (including a hilarious ''truedeath'' for a [[Greater Daemon]] of Nurgle) and make it through to the Imperial Palace, where he discovered the Talisman of Seven Hammers acted as a kill-switch for the Golden Throne. In the event that Chaos won, the planet would be destroyed in a fiery inferno that would kill all traitors and loyalists alike, but also, according to Big-E, dealing the Great Enemy themselves a blow from which they would never recover, though he did not go into further detail (though with the release of ''Godblight'', we can probably take some educated guesses).

Considering that the Cabal wanted Terra to fall and for Horus to win; it can be understood why the installation of the kill-switch would be an outcome they wished to avoid. Plus having a [[Perpetual|regenerating]] [[Primarch|demigod]] standing in defense of the Eternity Gate against the daemonic hordes in the Webway would probably make it a lot more difficult for the Emperor to lose too.

==Eventual Fates==
According to ''The Beast Arises'', the Cabal were wiped out during the Heresy. Because shortly after sending Vulkan on his way, Eldrad killed them all with help from Barthusa Narek, a member of the [[Word Bearers]] who despised the direction his legion had taken and wanted [[Lorgar]] dead. Eldrad had foreseen a third possibility for the future of the galaxy - an alliance between the Imperium and the Eldar that could stop Chaos without what he considered to be the pointless extinction of humanity - and had come to believe that the Cabal had itself become a pawn of Chaos.

It also reveals that the Cabal had considered the Eldar's destruction an acceptable loss, meaning that the master manipulators had been manipulated despite the aforementioned Autarch insisting that it was Eldrad who was the race traitor. Though due to the Eldar beliefs it could be the Autarch thought sacrificing the Eldar to destroy Chaos was their species’ goal (which is actually true, to be fair) but Eldrad believed defeating Chaos without that was preferred (also true).

Even in death, they still maintained that the Acuity was more accurate than Eldrad could ever hope to be. He finds this sentiment amusing, especially since it didn't let them foresee their own destruction. Not to mention the dumb fucks made the colossal mistake of thinking they could out-predict a group of practically omniscient entities, including the one known for both its interest in precognition AND being [[Skub|''THE'' greatest schemer in the galaxy]]. A being who is, by the way, LITERALLY MADE OF EVERY THOUGHT THAT HAS EXISTED, DOES EXIST, AND WILL EXIST. Basically, it can be said that their attempts at fighting Chaos ultimately made the Ruinous Powers stronger instead (and knowing Tzeentch, that was all part of one of its plans).

TLDR; the Cabal tried to play dice with the gods. It went about as well as you'd expect.

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Luther

2022-10-19T06:07:24Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Back Story */

[[File:LutherZahariel.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Luther, with <s>[[Cypher]]</s> [[Zahariel]] in the background]]
{{Heresy}}
{{Topquote|You were my brother, <s>Anakin</s> Luther! I loved you!|<s>[[Star Wars|Obi-Wan]]</s> Lion El'Johnson}}

Luther was the best bro/father figure of the [[Primarch]] [[Lion El'Jonson]] before the events of the [[Horus Heresy]].

==Back Story==
Luther was a [[Knight]] of [[The Order]] of Caliban, an organisation dedicated to protecting the people of that world from the [[Chaos Spawn|Beasts]] that roamed its forests.

One day when riding through the glen with his merry band of men, he encountered <s>Tarzan</s> a naked wildman who had no business living alone in that environment. So they captured him and brought him back to civilisation, educated him and introduced him to their order, where they called him "[[Lion El'Jonson|Lion, Son of the Forest]]".
*Before the discovery of the Lion, Luther had just recently lost both his young wife and daughter to as of yet unknown cause, though implied to have been during childbirth. He wonders how things would have turned out if the Lion had been raised with both a mother and sister. (All you AU fanfic writers get on this now. I want to see the Lion and his sister braiding each other's hair). Maybe the Lion and brother [[Roboute Guilliman|Roboute]] could've had something in common. More's the pity. What makes this even more somber though is that these ruminations occur to Luther in sadness during the zenith of his Caliban conspiracy tomfuckery, even piercing through his quasi-corrupted fever dream.
*In “Fallen Angels” Luther gives us a first-hand version of the discovery of the Lion. In it he describes how after a long and costly journey into the darkest and most dangerous parts of Caliban he and his fellow knights stopped near the banks of a river. As the other knights filled the water containers a young boy appeared in their midst. The boy showed no fear but simply stared at them coldly. Luther being the only one in a position to do anything raised his gun and aimed at the boy. As the other knights screamed at Luther to kill the child the boy simply looked at Luther silently; Luther met the boy's eyes and he found that he simply could not pull the trigger and simply let the gun drop to the ground.
:*Given the new revelation that he had just lost his wife and daughter his inability to kill the young Lion makes a lot more sense.
:*The Lion in his version is described as a young boy, which is odd as it appears that the Lion did not have the accelerated childhood that many of his other brothers seem to have experienced but aged in the same way as a normal human child would.
:*Out of all the Monsters of Caliban Luther desired to kill a Calibanite Lion. This is interesting because it raises the possibility that it was a Calibanite Lion that was responsible for the death of his family and drove him to venture so deep into the wild depths of Caliban where he discovered Lion El'Jonson; if true then was the Calibanite Lion killed by Jonson the one responsible?

Together the two warriors rose up the ranks of the Order and became living legends, eventually coming up with a plan to rid the whole world of the [[Chaos Spawn|beasts]] and make it safe for everyone. This took some time, and eventually the Lion got promoted to the top job of ''[[Spiritual Liege|Grand Master]]'' and Luther became his assistant. This is where the cracks had started to show, as many had thought that Luther was on track to gain the position if the Lion had not been discovered, and that Luther was one of the greatest men of his time, only to have been overshadowed by an even greater man due to circumstance.
*It turns out that Luther was indeed named Grand master of the order but when the Lion was nominated for the position he stepped aside. Luther claims that he felt no resentment towards the Lion but seeing as you needed to be both nominated and then voted into the position of Grand Master by your fellow knights that’s got to sting.

Luther became essentially the Lion's public relations expert. Whilst the Lion drew up plans and strategy Luther went out to gather support by wining and dining the planets nobility.
*Given that the people of Caliban have a very knightly theme going on and that they are confirmed to have noble houses then it makes sense that there should be at least one or two Calibanite based Imperial Knight Houses hanging around somewhere on Caliban. Heck the Order itself might have had its own Imperial Knights(Come on forge world you know you want to).

At some point Luther gave his word that the Order would not trespass into the territory of the Knights of Lupus; an old and very traditional knightly order that aggressively opposed the Order and the Lion.

The Order declared war upon the knights of Lupus due to a certain incident that saw the Knights of Lupus slaughter a small band of the Orders rangers because they were apparently too close to their lands. Leaving one left alive so that he could return to the Order with the decapitated remains of his friends.

During the final battle against the Knights of Lupus the Lion would lead a diversionary frontal attack whilst Luther was given the honour of leading the actual attack by attacking their blind spot when they were distracted.

In the end Luther and the Lion end up fighting what is essentially a very big Zombified flightless dragon (the badass Chaos version of a [http://www.beyondthepoint.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Dragon-from-Hroaar-dot-com.jpg medieval-style dragon]). The Lion ends up killing the beast and is cheered by his fellow knights whilst Luther ends up drenched in the creatures foul blood and feeling a bit sorry for himself.

Shortly afterwards the Emperor arrived and brought the [[Imperium]] to Caliban and told the Lion of his heritage and his destiny to lead the [[Dark Angels|First Legion]] on the [[Great Crusade]].

===Great Crusade===
The Lion took many of his Knights with him on this quest and although Luther was too old to become a [[Space Marine]] he was still augmented as much as was practical and was brought along as the second in command. Just like [[Kor Phaeron|another geriatric chucklefuck who raised a Primarch]].

This didn't last long though. Luther inwardly admitted his envy of the Lion and his Astartes brethren, and during a mission to [[Sarosh]] contemplated allowing an enemy nuclear bomb to detonate aboard the Dark Angel's flagship so he could take his rightful place in history. However, he did not follow through with this thought and successfully rescued the flagship and exposed the Saroshi plot.

Because of [[derp|(or despite)]] the Lion's knowledge [[skub|(or lack of)]] about Luther's private doubts, he sent him and [[Fallen Angels|select others]] back to Caliban in order to fortify it and train new Dark Angels for the ongoing crusade.

This is the subject of considerable nerdrage, since it was either seen as an exile for some perceived dishonour or it was part of a [[Just as Planned|greater plan]] to protect the [[Imperium]] (or Caliban) from something that the Lion knew was brewing back on his homeworld but decided not to tell his followers about, just like [[Emperor|his own father]] did with his [[Primarch|sons]]. Or maybe it was because Luther was actively plotting to kill the Lion out of nothing but sheer jealousy, and only changed his mind once he was prodded by [[Zahariel]]. So much for ambiguity. If he just took a moment to pour his heart out to his best friend and speak with him on a personal level ''like an adult'' (looking at you Emps) maybe things would have turned out for the better.

==Exile on Caliban==
Back on Caliban, Luther became heavily dependent upon the [[Librarian]] [[Zahariel]] and the [[Cypher|Lord Cypher]].

Sometime after his exile on Caliban Luther was to respond to a call for aid from the primarch of the Luna Wolves, Horus Lupercal himself. Taking his men and ships he disobeyed the orders given to him by the Lion and fought alongside the likes of Abaddon and Typhus ''(Garviel Loken when he was being interrogated by Luther remembers when Luther and Abaddon competed against each other to see who could get to the objective first).''

He would shock Typhus by revealing that he had Laughed in Abaddon’s face when he had suggested that the Luna Wolves had a greater military background to that of the Dark Angels and the Order. Typhus would then introduce Luther to Erebus who suggested the introduction of the warrior lodges to the ranks of the Dark Angels much to Luther’s amusement.

During the victory celebration the Lion managed to do what no enemy had ever done before; catch Horus by surprise. As if summoned there by the will of some vengeful god the Lion marched into the hall. Luther rose to his feet and tried to explain himself but was silenced by the Lion; Horus spoke up in Luther’s defence but was told in no uncertain terms to shut up. The Lion told Horus that if he wanted victory so badly then it should not have been at the expense of his Dark Angels and that he should instead have used his own sons. Luther then has his fleet taken from him as punishment for disobeying orders and for taking the garrisoned forces away from Caliban.

At this point, something had begun to twist inside Luther and his behaviour became erratic.

Lion El'Jonson had allowed the [[Death World]] of Caliban to become a Terran-administrated industrial world, replacing the forest with factory arcologies. Knights and peasants were replaced with workers. Though most of the planet was still heavily forested, only the areas designated for industrial use, farming and inhabitation were cleared of forest.

With the forests gone and mine shafts digging deep into the planet, bad things were waking up. Luther suspected that the Lion knew about these forces, and that he was planning on [[Exterminatus|destroying the planet]] with the Calibanite Dark Angels on it after the world fueled the imperial war machine all that it could ''(he may be becoming a bit paranoid at this point)'' Still, Luther remained loyal to Johnson until a final discovery pushed him over the brink. The then [[Cypher|Lord Cypher]], that the Lion promoted completely out of the blue over more veteran knights, was actually the only survivor of the Knights of Lupus. The very knights that had realized that as bad as the Beasts were they were seemingly keeping the whatever was buried inside of Caliban from awakening fully as their extensive library, again, that the Lion had ordered preserved out of the blue, seemed to indicate. This was the last straw that cemented the idea that Jonson knew more than he let on ''(that at least was true)'' and wanted to get rid of Caliban in Luther's unhinged mind.

Luther needs to take some of the blame here as all the stuff that went wrong happened under his stewardship. He was in charge of the planet in the Lion’s absence and although he puts all the blame on the Lion for how the planet turned out pretty much all of the decisions regarding Caliban would have had his direct permission and authorization. It may seem a bit conspiratorial but it is possible that despite being an honourable man ''(at least at the beginning)'' who would not break an oath without just cause Luther may have actually subconsciously allowed Caliban to go to hell in order to justify his future actions.

Learning from the Knights of Lupus' collection of dusty tomes about [[Chaos|rituals and incantations]], he uncovered a "plot" where Terran colonists were ''apparently'' attempting to summon a [[Daemon|creature]] called the [[Ouroboros]] onto Caliban. With Zahariel's assistance he broke up this coven and attempted to gain power over the creature for himself. After gaining access to the books from the Knights of Lupus that the Lion had hidden away, he started to dabble in the arcane arts; covering himself in runes and learning how to casts spells in the same manner as a chaos sorcerer. How advanced his studies were exactly is unknown but he was far along enough that he was able to nullify Israfael's psychic assault and resurrect Zahariel. He would even try his hand at summoning daemons, being so happy to succeed on his first time (believing he had achieved power enough to challenge even the Lion) he forgot to finish binding it to his will, allowing the daemon to leave the circle, where to Luther's surprise it took a knee and bowed to him.

Zahariel discovered that the Terran "plot" was actually false, that the Terrans were in fact attempting to banish the Ouroboros instead of summoning it, and that Luther was looking to gain power in an attempt to free Caliban from the oppression of the [[Imperium]]. Needless to say, the Dark Ones were intrigued.

===Turning Traitor===
Later, Luther captured one of [[Malcador]]'s [[Knights-Errant]]: [[Garviel Loken]], who was on Caliban to discover where the exiled Dark Angels loyalties lay, since no contact had been made from them in some time. This would prove to be a turning point, as Luther and his allies had no idea that the [[Horus Heresy]] was taking place around them and had been kept ignorant by the [[Watchers in the Dark]] and one of their Astartes allies ''(whose identity is not explicitly stated, but presumed to be [[Cypher]])'' The Knights-Errant killed a Dark Angel during their escape, which would upset the balance of ignorance that had been maintained and set the Dark Angels on the path for the Fall.

With the help of that snake in the grass '''Astelan''', Luther was able to round up all the Dark Angels on Caliban that would have opposed him and imprison them beneath Aldurukh. During the revolt Luther was able to kill a veteran Dark Angel with little more than a letter opener - Badass for a non-Astartes.

As they prepared to openly announce their secession from the Imperium a fleet led by Belath appeared suddenly above Caliban. Belath had been ordered to come and collect the newly trained Dark Angels and bring them back to the fleet in order to continue the fight against the [[Death Guard]]. Luther persuaded Belath to wait prior to departing in order to throw a grand feast to celebrate this grand occasion ''(anyone who has watched Game of Thrones probably has a good idea where this is going)''. Luther had hoped to turn Belath and his Dark Angels to his side and during the feast he gives an impassioned speech about the evils of the Imperium and how the Emperor and the Lion have abandoned them, all the while having Zahariel and his Librarians ''(now called the Mystai)'' reach into the minds of all those listening to make it easier for them to be manipulated. The plan worked almost too well for Zahariel ''(who was now under the influence of the Ouroboros)'' so he killed Belath claiming he was about to attack Luther. What happens next makes the “Red Wedding” look subtle and downplayed, much to Luther’s dismay and anger.

With the disaster of the feast behind them, Luther and Astelan claimed ownership of the Dark Angels fleet and Astelan agreed to do Luther’s dirty work since Luther needed to be seen as beyond reproach. They planned to expand their power base by “'''Liberating'''” nearby systems from the oppression of the Imperium. As they put their plan into practice they stumbled upon Calas Typhon and what remained of his fleet as they retreated from the relentless pursuit of Corswain.

Upon their reunion Luther welcomed Typhon with open arms and offered Typhon and his fleet a place to recuperate and repair their damaged starships in the Zaramund system. Unbeknownst to Luther, it was at this point that Typhon would begin his tranformation, after being confronted by a group of Nurgle worshiping pilgrims who already referred to him as '''"Great Lord Typhus"''' and beginning a sickening ritual where they started to erupt with infection. The Calibanite captain that was sent to spy on the Death Guard flew into a rage and started hacking the cultists to death and then tried to kill Typhon in front of his Grave Wardens, though at that time Typhus what completely oblivious to any change and couldn't figure out what had driven the Dark Angel to get so mad and try and kill him. During the fight although the Calibanite was able to inflict a seeming mortal wound on Typhon, the injuries the Dark Angel inflicted were only the catalyst for ''Typhon's'' final tranformation, then ''Typhus'' was able to defeat his opponent. Afterwards, asking what his own Grave Wardens had seen, they had witnessed nothing other than a Dark Angel hacking apart civilians and then trying to assassinate their Captain. To avoid further incident '''Typhus''' would then quietly leave the Zaramund system, leaving Luther completely nonplussed.

Typhus would present Luther with a weapon, a blade of horrific power, and instruction him that to complete his destiny (that would forever bind him to the ruinous powers) he would need to wield the blade to make a sacrifice. Luther would be tempted to complete the bargain by using it on Corswain when he turned up on Caliban looking for any loyal reinforcements he could bring with him on his way to Terra, but couldn't bring himself to slay such a noble son of Caliban. In a flashback to his duel with the Lion, the blade is shown driven deep into the Lion's midsection; Luther admits that although he used the blade he did "not kill" the Lion.

At some point before the Lion's return, fighting broke out on the surface between those loyal to the Lion and those loyal to Luther. “Angels of Darkness” tells us that apparently (remember this is Astelan here) agents of the Lion retook the fleet above Caliban, which resulted in the ships crashing into the planet’s surface, burning its atmosphere and turning the earth to ash with only the great shields protecting the Order's fortress-monasteries saving them from destruction.

===The Fall of Caliban===
When the Lion returned to Caliban after the Horus Heresy had finished, he found a world that despised him and the Imperium and a war took place which cracked the very core of the planet, leaving nothing but [[The Rock|fragments]].

According to the legend, Luther had been empowered by the Dark Gods and was now an equal for the Lion. This is where the lion is again the Emprahs mini me. The Lion could not bring himself to strike down Luther and that hesitation was monopolised by Luther who psychically struck him down, though in a final moment he realised his error and broke down in tears.

When the Dark Angels descended upon the site of the battle, they could not find the body of their Primarch, the only clue was given by the now-insane Luther, who had said that the [[Watchers in the Dark]] had taken the Lion away.

==41st Millenium==
Luther is still alive 10,000 years later, kept in a cell at the heart of [[The Rock]] known only to the [[Azrael|Supreme Grand Master]] of the Dark Angels and his predecessors. The cell can only be unlocked using the Sword of Secrets and it is the duty of the holder of that blade to coerce Luther to admit to his crimes against their Primarch and the Imperium. Luther is old, especially for a man not blessed with being a full Space Marine. He is older than the fungus growing under your grandfather's toenails. Older than the pill line at a nursing home. Older than the rancid bacon I found in the back of my refrigerator last night. As such when he is not being interrogated by the Dark Angels Supreme Grand Master, he is kept in stasis to preserve what little life he has left. In the Legacy of Caliban novel series, Azrael comments as to the strict time limit he has to question the old coot for fear he'll give up the ghost before he can finish a sentence. He also remarks as to how difficult this is thanks to Ole Luther being nuttier than an unwanted fruitcake on Christmas eve. Did I mention he is old? (they probably should let the guy sleep outside of stasis for a good 8 hours. The lack of sleep is prob what's driven the guy nuts. How many hours of sleep in 10000 years do you think they let him have?)

Suffice to say that no Supreme Grand Master has succeeded in getting Luther to repent. Though during some of his interrogations, Luther has been of great help to his erstwhile kin, leading them to recover lost fragments of lore and technology hidden within the country sized bulk that is The Rock. Examples being the recovery of the STC for the Nephilim Jet Fighter. Luther's "help" can be fickle at best as most of what he utters are the lunatic ravings and riddles of a man off his ass on ether. He is convinced that the [[Advancing the Storyline|time is nigh]] when The Lion will return to forgive him of his sins and is quite adamant about this to his jailers. A point which causes no small amount of consternation to his attending Supreme Grand Master.

Luther's personal 'The First of the Fallen' novel reveals that Luther is not really in a stasis field, but is halted in time by the Watchers in the Dark. The maddening effects of his dealings with Chaos forces have left his mind in a less than ideal state (sometimes voicing "other" voices, threats, promises, bargains or other unearthly sounds, including demonic laughter), with himself admitting, in his more lucid moments, that his words should be treated as a unreliable source, as even his memory's are confused and sometimes conflict with each other. The one thing that stands out crystal clear is his observation at the gradual degradation of the Dark Angels, with each encounter with new Masters becoming harsher and more extreme (he straight up tells them that the Lion would be ashamed of them). Only Azrael has surprised Luther; Luther even suspects that it was Azrael himself who left Luther unfrozen, and with the door left wide open for him to leave; what Azrael is planning is yet to be revealed, but he has long desired to bring the hunt to an end, and get the Dark Angels back on track.

As of 8th Edition, an attack by the Fallen led by the Fallen daemon prince Marbas has allowed Luther to disappear from his cell. Azrael is naturally very concerned about what this might mean but has to keep the information to himself, considering that no-one else knew Luther was alive. Now reports are coming in that a gathering of the Fallen is massing in the Nihilus Sector, assembling in ''"numbers enough to bring the entire galaxy to heel"'' and Azrael is the only one who suspects the truth of who is leading them. It will be fun to see whether Luther is even sane enough to lead ten thousand Fallen in the first place, whether Chaos will let his marked soul walk around, and what the Lion will say to him when GeeDubs is finally ready to make his model and rules.

There is, however, a notable discrepancy in Luther's apparent break-out. According to pg. 25 of the Dark Angels' 9E Codex Supplement, Azrael found that Luther's cell had been blasted into and visibly damaged during Marbas' invasion. But in ''First of the Fallen'', Luther saw that the door had simply been left open and walked out on his own, sounds of fighting in the distance but no one waiting outside the cell. And the book ends right there, with nary a daemon-prince or hooded traitor in sight. So either Luther completely imagined his "escape", Thorpe wasn't talking to the writers at GW, or there's something else going on here. Given that Luther's final memory/prophecy (the "Tale of the Heart") was about him venturing into the foundations of Aldurukh as a child, there's a possible implication that somebody let him out... and he never left the fortress-monastery at all.

Despite Azrael's suspicions of what awaits the Dark Angels in the Sommnium Stars, Luther might even now be wandering around in the deepest, darkest levels of the Rock, slowly coming closer and closer to the chamber at its very heart...

==Trivia==
"Luther" is probably named for the monk '''Martin Luther''' (Not Martin Luther King Jr., who was himself named after the monk), who was one of the founders of the Protestant denomination. This is very significant to the Dark Angels' themes of Forgiveness and Repentance, as Martin Luther advocated that salvation was earned through faith alone and not through penitence or confession and decried the Catholic Church as corrupt. Though well-intentioned, the Reformation resulted in the splintering of Christianity on a scale not seen since the schism between the Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and some very messy conflicts.

When applied to 40k, many of the Fallen find justification for what they do and will not repent willingly, thus making it ever more difficult to make them see the error of their ways. Likewise, the conflict between the Fallen and the Loyalists often mimics the past conflict between Catholic and Protestants (real-life being less prone to Grimdark, Catholics and Protestants don't actively kill each other these days, though there are plenty of members of either side who cheerfully despise their opposite numbers), being that both were nominally of the same faith, yet of different minds about it.

{{Marines-Characters}}
{{Template:Chaos-Marines}}

[[Category:Chaos]]
[[Category:Dark Angels]]
[[Category:Fallen Angels]]

Luther

2022-10-19T06:01:00Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

[[File:LutherZahariel.jpg|300px|right|thumb|Luther, with <s>[[Cypher]]</s> [[Zahariel]] in the background]]
{{Heresy}}
{{Topquote|You were my brother, <s>Anakin</s> Luther! I loved you!|<s>[[Star Wars|Obi-Wan]]</s> Lion El'Johnson}}

Luther was the best bro/father figure of the [[Primarch]] [[Lion El'Jonson]] before the events of the [[Horus Heresy]].

==Back Story==
Luther was a [[Knight]] of [[The Order]] of Caliban, an organisation dedicated to protecting the people of that world from the [[Chaos Spawn|Beasts]] that roamed its forests.

One day when riding through the glen with his merry band of men, he encountered <s>Tarzan</s> a naked wildman who had no business living alone in that environment. So they captured him and brought him back to civilisation, educated him and introduced him to their order, where they called him "[[Lion El'Jonson|Lion, Son of the Forest]]".
*Before the discovery of the Lion, Luther had just recently lost both his young wife and daughter to as of yet unknown cause, though implied to have been during childbirth. He wonders how things would have turned out if the Lion had been raised with both a mother and sister. (All you AU fanfic writers get on this now. I want to see the Lion and his sister braiding each other's hair). Maybe the Lion and brother [[Roboute Guilliman|Roboute]] could've had something in common. More's the pity.
*In “Fallen Angels” Luther gives us a first-hand version of the discovery of the Lion. In it he describes how after a long and costly journey into the darkest and most dangerous parts of Caliban he and his fellow knights stopped near the banks of a river. As the other knights filled the water containers a young boy appeared in their midst. The boy showed no fear but simply stared at them coldly. Luther being the only one in a position to do anything raised his gun and aimed at the boy. As the other knights screamed at Luther to kill the child the boy simply looked at Luther silently; Luther met the boy's eyes and he found that he simply could not pull the trigger and simply let the gun drop to the ground.
:*Given the new revelation that he had just lost his wife and daughter his inability to kill the young Lion makes a lot more sense.
:*The Lion in his version is described as a young boy, which is odd as it appears that the Lion did not have the accelerated childhood that many of his other brothers seem to have experienced but aged in the same way as a normal human child would.
:*Out of all the Monsters of Caliban Luther desired to kill a Calibanite Lion. This is interesting because it raises the possibility that it was a Calibanite Lion that was responsible for the death of his family and drove him to venture so deep into the wild depths of Caliban where he discovered Lion El'Jonson; if true then was the Calibanite Lion killed by Jonson the one responsible?

Together the two warriors rose up the ranks of the Order and became living legends, eventually coming up with a plan to rid the whole world of the [[Chaos Spawn|beasts]] and make it safe for everyone. This took some time, and eventually the Lion got promoted to the top job of ''[[Spiritual Liege|Grand Master]]'' and Luther became his assistant. This is where the cracks had started to show, as many had thought that Luther was on track to gain the position if the Lion had not been discovered, and that Luther was one of the greatest men of his time, only to have been overshadowed by an even greater man due to circumstance.
*It turns out that Luther was indeed named Grand master of the order but when the Lion was nominated for the position he stepped aside. Luther claims that he felt no resentment towards the Lion but seeing as you needed to be both nominated and then voted into the position of Grand Master by your fellow knights that’s got to sting.

Luther became essentially the Lion's public relations expert. Whilst the Lion drew up plans and strategy Luther went out to gather support by wining and dining the planets nobility.
*Given that the people of Caliban have a very knightly theme going on and that they are confirmed to have noble houses then it makes sense that there should be at least one or two Calibanite based Imperial Knight Houses hanging around somewhere on Caliban. Heck the Order itself might have had its own Imperial Knights(Come on forge world you know you want to).

At some point Luther gave his word that the Order would not trespass into the territory of the Knights of Lupus; an old and very traditional knightly order that aggressively opposed the Order and the Lion.

The Order declared war upon the knights of Lupus due to a certain incident that saw the Knights of Lupus slaughter a small band of the Orders rangers because they were apparently too close to their lands. Leaving one left alive so that he could return to the Order with the decapitated remains of his friends.

During the final battle against the Knights of Lupus the Lion would lead a diversionary frontal attack whilst Luther was given the honour of leading the actual attack by attacking their blind spot when they were distracted.

In the end Luther and the Lion end up fighting what is essentially a very big Zombified flightless dragon (the badass Chaos version of a [http://www.beyondthepoint.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Dragon-from-Hroaar-dot-com.jpg medieval-style dragon]). The Lion ends up killing the beast and is cheered by his fellow knights whilst Luther ends up drenched in the creatures foul blood and feeling a bit sorry for himself.

Shortly afterwards the Emperor arrived and brought the [[Imperium]] to Caliban and told the Lion of his heritage and his destiny to lead the [[Dark Angels|First Legion]] on the [[Great Crusade]].

===Great Crusade===
The Lion took many of his Knights with him on this quest and although Luther was too old to become a [[Space Marine]] he was still augmented as much as was practical and was brought along as the second in command. Just like [[Kor Phaeron|another geriatric chucklefuck who raised a Primarch]].

This didn't last long though. Luther inwardly admitted his envy of the Lion and his Astartes brethren, and during a mission to [[Sarosh]] contemplated allowing an enemy nuclear bomb to detonate aboard the Dark Angel's flagship so he could take his rightful place in history. However, he did not follow through with this thought and successfully rescued the flagship and exposed the Saroshi plot.

Because of [[derp|(or despite)]] the Lion's knowledge [[skub|(or lack of)]] about Luther's private doubts, he sent him and [[Fallen Angels|select others]] back to Caliban in order to fortify it and train new Dark Angels for the ongoing crusade.

This is the subject of considerable nerdrage, since it was either seen as an exile for some perceived dishonour or it was part of a [[Just as Planned|greater plan]] to protect the [[Imperium]] (or Caliban) from something that the Lion knew was brewing back on his homeworld but decided not to tell his followers about, just like [[Emperor|his own father]] did with his [[Primarch|sons]]. Or maybe it was because Luther was actively plotting to kill the Lion out of nothing but sheer jealousy, and only changed his mind once he was prodded by [[Zahariel]]. So much for ambiguity. If he just took a moment to pour his heart out to his best friend and speak with him on a personal level ''like an adult'' (looking at you Emps) maybe things would have turned out for the better.

==Exile on Caliban==
Back on Caliban, Luther became heavily dependent upon the [[Librarian]] [[Zahariel]] and the [[Cypher|Lord Cypher]].

Sometime after his exile on Caliban Luther was to respond to a call for aid from the primarch of the Luna Wolves, Horus Lupercal himself. Taking his men and ships he disobeyed the orders given to him by the Lion and fought alongside the likes of Abaddon and Typhus ''(Garviel Loken when he was being interrogated by Luther remembers when Luther and Abaddon competed against each other to see who could get to the objective first).''

He would shock Typhus by revealing that he had Laughed in Abaddon’s face when he had suggested that the Luna Wolves had a greater military background to that of the Dark Angels and the Order. Typhus would then introduce Luther to Erebus who suggested the introduction of the warrior lodges to the ranks of the Dark Angels much to Luther’s amusement.

During the victory celebration the Lion managed to do what no enemy had ever done before; catch Horus by surprise. As if summoned there by the will of some vengeful god the Lion marched into the hall. Luther rose to his feet and tried to explain himself but was silenced by the Lion; Horus spoke up in Luther’s defence but was told in no uncertain terms to shut up. The Lion told Horus that if he wanted victory so badly then it should not have been at the expense of his Dark Angels and that he should instead have used his own sons. Luther then has his fleet taken from him as punishment for disobeying orders and for taking the garrisoned forces away from Caliban.

At this point, something had begun to twist inside Luther and his behaviour became erratic.

Lion El'Jonson had allowed the [[Death World]] of Caliban to become a Terran-administrated industrial world, replacing the forest with factory arcologies. Knights and peasants were replaced with workers. Though most of the planet was still heavily forested, only the areas designated for industrial use, farming and inhabitation were cleared of forest.

With the forests gone and mine shafts digging deep into the planet, bad things were waking up. Luther suspected that the Lion knew about these forces, and that he was planning on [[Exterminatus|destroying the planet]] with the Calibanite Dark Angels on it after the world fueled the imperial war machine all that it could ''(he may be becoming a bit paranoid at this point)'' Still, Luther remained loyal to Johnson until a final discovery pushed him over the brink. The then [[Cypher|Lord Cypher]], that the Lion promoted completely out of the blue over more veteran knights, was actually the only survivor of the Knights of Lupus. The very knights that had realized that as bad as the Beasts were they were seemingly keeping the whatever was buried inside of Caliban from awakening fully as their extensive library, again, that the Lion had ordered preserved out of the blue, seemed to indicate. This was the last straw that cemented the idea that Jonson knew more than he let on ''(that at least was true)'' and wanted to get rid of Caliban in Luther's unhinged mind.

Luther needs to take some of the blame here as all the stuff that went wrong happened under his stewardship. He was in charge of the planet in the Lion’s absence and although he puts all the blame on the Lion for how the planet turned out pretty much all of the decisions regarding Caliban would have had his direct permission and authorization. It may seem a bit conspiratorial but it is possible that despite being an honourable man ''(at least at the beginning)'' who would not break an oath without just cause Luther may have actually subconsciously allowed Caliban to go to hell in order to justify his future actions.

Learning from the Knights of Lupus' collection of dusty tomes about [[Chaos|rituals and incantations]], he uncovered a "plot" where Terran colonists were ''apparently'' attempting to summon a [[Daemon|creature]] called the [[Ouroboros]] onto Caliban. With Zahariel's assistance he broke up this coven and attempted to gain power over the creature for himself. After gaining access to the books from the Knights of Lupus that the Lion had hidden away, he started to dabble in the arcane arts; covering himself in runes and learning how to casts spells in the same manner as a chaos sorcerer. How advanced his studies were exactly is unknown but he was far along enough that he was able to nullify Israfael's psychic assault and resurrect Zahariel. He would even try his hand at summoning daemons, being so happy to succeed on his first time (believing he had achieved power enough to challenge even the Lion) he forgot to finish binding it to his will, allowing the daemon to leave the circle, where to Luther's surprise it took a knee and bowed to him.

Zahariel discovered that the Terran "plot" was actually false, that the Terrans were in fact attempting to banish the Ouroboros instead of summoning it, and that Luther was looking to gain power in an attempt to free Caliban from the oppression of the [[Imperium]]. Needless to say, the Dark Ones were intrigued.

===Turning Traitor===
Later, Luther captured one of [[Malcador]]'s [[Knights-Errant]]: [[Garviel Loken]], who was on Caliban to discover where the exiled Dark Angels loyalties lay, since no contact had been made from them in some time. This would prove to be a turning point, as Luther and his allies had no idea that the [[Horus Heresy]] was taking place around them and had been kept ignorant by the [[Watchers in the Dark]] and one of their Astartes allies ''(whose identity is not explicitly stated, but presumed to be [[Cypher]])'' The Knights-Errant killed a Dark Angel during their escape, which would upset the balance of ignorance that had been maintained and set the Dark Angels on the path for the Fall.

With the help of that snake in the grass '''Astelan''', Luther was able to round up all the Dark Angels on Caliban that would have opposed him and imprison them beneath Aldurukh. During the revolt Luther was able to kill a veteran Dark Angel with little more than a letter opener - Badass for a non-Astartes.

As they prepared to openly announce their secession from the Imperium a fleet led by Belath appeared suddenly above Caliban. Belath had been ordered to come and collect the newly trained Dark Angels and bring them back to the fleet in order to continue the fight against the [[Death Guard]]. Luther persuaded Belath to wait prior to departing in order to throw a grand feast to celebrate this grand occasion ''(anyone who has watched Game of Thrones probably has a good idea where this is going)''. Luther had hoped to turn Belath and his Dark Angels to his side and during the feast he gives an impassioned speech about the evils of the Imperium and how the Emperor and the Lion have abandoned them, all the while having Zahariel and his Librarians ''(now called the Mystai)'' reach into the minds of all those listening to make it easier for them to be manipulated. The plan worked almost too well for Zahariel ''(who was now under the influence of the Ouroboros)'' so he killed Belath claiming he was about to attack Luther. What happens next makes the “Red Wedding” look subtle and downplayed, much to Luther’s dismay and anger.

With the disaster of the feast behind them, Luther and Astelan claimed ownership of the Dark Angels fleet and Astelan agreed to do Luther’s dirty work since Luther needed to be seen as beyond reproach. They planned to expand their power base by “'''Liberating'''” nearby systems from the oppression of the Imperium. As they put their plan into practice they stumbled upon Calas Typhon and what remained of his fleet as they retreated from the relentless pursuit of Corswain.

Upon their reunion Luther welcomed Typhon with open arms and offered Typhon and his fleet a place to recuperate and repair their damaged starships in the Zaramund system. Unbeknownst to Luther, it was at this point that Typhon would begin his tranformation, after being confronted by a group of Nurgle worshiping pilgrims who already referred to him as '''"Great Lord Typhus"''' and beginning a sickening ritual where they started to erupt with infection. The Calibanite captain that was sent to spy on the Death Guard flew into a rage and started hacking the cultists to death and then tried to kill Typhon in front of his Grave Wardens, though at that time Typhus what completely oblivious to any change and couldn't figure out what had driven the Dark Angel to get so mad and try and kill him. During the fight although the Calibanite was able to inflict a seeming mortal wound on Typhon, the injuries the Dark Angel inflicted were only the catalyst for ''Typhon's'' final tranformation, then ''Typhus'' was able to defeat his opponent. Afterwards, asking what his own Grave Wardens had seen, they had witnessed nothing other than a Dark Angel hacking apart civilians and then trying to assassinate their Captain. To avoid further incident '''Typhus''' would then quietly leave the Zaramund system, leaving Luther completely nonplussed.

Typhus would present Luther with a weapon, a blade of horrific power, and instruction him that to complete his destiny (that would forever bind him to the ruinous powers) he would need to wield the blade to make a sacrifice. Luther would be tempted to complete the bargain by using it on Corswain when he turned up on Caliban looking for any loyal reinforcements he could bring with him on his way to Terra, but couldn't bring himself to slay such a noble son of Caliban. In a flashback to his duel with the Lion, the blade is shown driven deep into the Lion's midsection; Luther admits that although he used the blade he did "not kill" the Lion.

At some point before the Lion's return, fighting broke out on the surface between those loyal to the Lion and those loyal to Luther. “Angels of Darkness” tells us that apparently (remember this is Astelan here) agents of the Lion retook the fleet above Caliban, which resulted in the ships crashing into the planet’s surface, burning its atmosphere and turning the earth to ash with only the great shields protecting the Order's fortress-monasteries saving them from destruction.

===The Fall of Caliban===
When the Lion returned to Caliban after the Horus Heresy had finished, he found a world that despised him and the Imperium and a war took place which cracked the very core of the planet, leaving nothing but [[The Rock|fragments]].

According to the legend, Luther had been empowered by the Dark Gods and was now an equal for the Lion. This is where the lion is again the Emprahs mini me. The Lion could not bring himself to strike down Luther and that hesitation was monopolised by Luther who psychically struck him down, though in a final moment he realised his error and broke down in tears.

When the Dark Angels descended upon the site of the battle, they could not find the body of their Primarch, the only clue was given by the now-insane Luther, who had said that the [[Watchers in the Dark]] had taken the Lion away.

==41st Millenium==
Luther is still alive 10,000 years later, kept in a cell at the heart of [[The Rock]] known only to the [[Azrael|Supreme Grand Master]] of the Dark Angels and his predecessors. The cell can only be unlocked using the Sword of Secrets and it is the duty of the holder of that blade to coerce Luther to admit to his crimes against their Primarch and the Imperium. Luther is old, especially for a man not blessed with being a full Space Marine. He is older than the fungus growing under your grandfather's toenails. Older than the pill line at a nursing home. Older than the rancid bacon I found in the back of my refrigerator last night. As such when he is not being interrogated by the Dark Angels Supreme Grand Master, he is kept in stasis to preserve what little life he has left. In the Legacy of Caliban novel series, Azrael comments as to the strict time limit he has to question the old coot for fear he'll give up the ghost before he can finish a sentence. He also remarks as to how difficult this is thanks to Ole Luther being nuttier than an unwanted fruitcake on Christmas eve. Did I mention he is old? (they probably should let the guy sleep outside of stasis for a good 8 hours. The lack of sleep is prob what's driven the guy nuts. How many hours of sleep in 10000 years do you think they let him have?)

Suffice to say that no Supreme Grand Master has succeeded in getting Luther to repent. Though during some of his interrogations, Luther has been of great help to his erstwhile kin, leading them to recover lost fragments of lore and technology hidden within the country sized bulk that is The Rock. Examples being the recovery of the STC for the Nephilim Jet Fighter. Luther's "help" can be fickle at best as most of what he utters are the lunatic ravings and riddles of a man off his ass on ether. He is convinced that the [[Advancing the Storyline|time is nigh]] when The Lion will return to forgive him of his sins and is quite adamant about this to his jailers. A point which causes no small amount of consternation to his attending Supreme Grand Master.

Luther's personal 'The First of the Fallen' novel reveals that Luther is not really in a stasis field, but is halted in time by the Watchers in the Dark. The maddening effects of his dealings with Chaos forces have left his mind in a less than ideal state (sometimes voicing "other" voices, threats, promises, bargains or other unearthly sounds, including demonic laughter), with himself admitting, in his more lucid moments, that his words should be treated as a unreliable source, as even his memory's are confused and sometimes conflict with each other. The one thing that stands out crystal clear is his observation at the gradual degradation of the Dark Angels, with each encounter with new Masters becoming harsher and more extreme (he straight up tells them that the Lion would be ashamed of them). Only Azrael has surprised Luther; Luther even suspects that it was Azrael himself who left Luther unfrozen, and with the door left wide open for him to leave; what Azrael is planning is yet to be revealed, but he has long desired to bring the hunt to an end, and get the Dark Angels back on track.

As of 8th Edition, an attack by the Fallen led by the Fallen daemon prince Marbas has allowed Luther to disappear from his cell. Azrael is naturally very concerned about what this might mean but has to keep the information to himself, considering that no-one else knew Luther was alive. Now reports are coming in that a gathering of the Fallen is massing in the Nihilus Sector, assembling in ''"numbers enough to bring the entire galaxy to heel"'' and Azrael is the only one who suspects the truth of who is leading them. It will be fun to see whether Luther is even sane enough to lead ten thousand Fallen in the first place, whether Chaos will let his marked soul walk around, and what the Lion will say to him when GeeDubs is finally ready to make his model and rules.

There is, however, a notable discrepancy in Luther's apparent break-out. According to pg. 25 of the Dark Angels' 9E Codex Supplement, Azrael found that Luther's cell had been blasted into and visibly damaged during Marbas' invasion. But in ''First of the Fallen'', Luther saw that the door had simply been left open and walked out on his own, sounds of fighting in the distance but no one waiting outside the cell. And the book ends right there, with nary a daemon-prince or hooded traitor in sight. So either Luther completely imagined his "escape", Thorpe wasn't talking to the writers at GW, or there's something else going on here. Given that Luther's final memory/prophecy (the "Tale of the Heart") was about him venturing into the foundations of Aldurukh as a child, there's a possible implication that somebody let him out... and he never left the fortress-monastery at all.

Despite Azrael's suspicions of what awaits the Dark Angels in the Sommnium Stars, Luther might even now be wandering around in the deepest, darkest levels of the Rock, slowly coming closer and closer to the chamber at its very heart...

==Trivia==
"Luther" is probably named for the monk '''Martin Luther''' (Not Martin Luther King Jr., who was himself named after the monk), who was one of the founders of the Protestant denomination. This is very significant to the Dark Angels' themes of Forgiveness and Repentance, as Martin Luther advocated that salvation was earned through faith alone and not through penitence or confession and decried the Catholic Church as corrupt. Though well-intentioned, the Reformation resulted in the splintering of Christianity on a scale not seen since the schism between the Western Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, and some very messy conflicts.

When applied to 40k, many of the Fallen find justification for what they do and will not repent willingly, thus making it ever more difficult to make them see the error of their ways. Likewise, the conflict between the Fallen and the Loyalists often mimics the past conflict between Catholic and Protestants (real-life being less prone to Grimdark, Catholics and Protestants don't actively kill each other these days, though there are plenty of members of either side who cheerfully despise their opposite numbers), being that both were nominally of the same faith, yet of different minds about it.

{{Marines-Characters}}
{{Template:Chaos-Marines}}

[[Category:Chaos]]
[[Category:Dark Angels]]
[[Category:Fallen Angels]]

Tarasha Euten

2022-10-19T05:56:37Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

[[File:Tumblr_p8wow2RRoU1s422e6o1_640.png|300px|right|thumb|The lady herself, with her charge.]]{{Topquote|'As the little emperor he pretends to be, he does so chronicle himself. I have heard of you. Tarasha Euten, Chamberlain Principal, and to all intents a mother to him. A mother.' Curze sighed. 'Thanks to the genius of my father, my kind does not enjoy the luxury of mothers. You are rare. You are a rare and obscene thing, you ragged witch. I wish Roboute had been alive to suffer the damage of your death.'
''Euten rose to her full height and looked the monster in the eye. 'Go to hell, you bastard,' she said.''|Tarasha Euten, being the absolute baddest of asses.}}

'''Tarasha Euten''', also known as '''Guillimom''', was one of Konor Guilliman's chief retainers during his time as Consul of Macragge, and continued to serve [[Roboute Guilliman]] as he became Lord of Ultramar and then Primarch of the Ultramarines. She is notable for being the only known mother figure any of the primarchs ever had (leaving aside [[Erda|the careless deadbeat Sphess Karen]]) and is therefore [[awesome]], since this means that she managed to raise a Primarch without going nuts or causing him irreparable psychological harm. An interesting little note is that sadly, the Lion very nearly also could've had this experience as well, as apparently [[Luther]]'s wife and daughter died shortly before the discovery of the first primarch. Some interesting food for thought.

==Early History==

As a young woman, Tarasha served as seneschal to Consul Konor Guilliman. The two were personally close, though whether their relationship was more than platonic is unclear. When a strange pod crashed into a forest on Macragge, the nobles who found it brought its contents--an infant surrounded by a glowing aura--to Konor, who adopted the child and named him Roboute. Tarasha helped raise the boy, watching as he grew rapidly into a military genius, brilliant scholar, and wise leader. Perhaps her proudest moment as his adoptive mother was his peaceful resolution of a rebellion among the tribespeople of the Illyrian Mountains; rather than crushing the Illyrians, he had instead presented their chieftain with a sacred artifact which the consuls of Macragge had stolen generations before, causing the Illyrian chieftain to end his campaign and resolve to become a wise and just leader in Roboute's mold. It was at this moment that Tarasha knew he was ready to become a true leader and king of Macragge.

After Konor's assassination and Roboute's ascension to the office of consul, he kept Tarasha on as his seneschal and chamberlain. When the [[The God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor]] arrived at Macragge, Guilliman left her to govern the planet in his stead while he went out to help his father unite the galaxy under the aegis of the Imperium. Guilliman also made sure to secure regular juvenat treatments for her, meaning that she would have a much longer lifespan than a typical human.

==Horus Heresy==

When Guilliman retreated to Macragge in the aftermath of the [[Battle of Calth]] and began laying the foundations of [[Imperium Secundus|his "Imperium 2.0" backup plan]], he often turned to Tarasha for advice. Though she was now elderly, she had lost none of her fiery, boisterous spirit, and continued to speak to the Primarch as if he were the same child she'd raised to manhood. She still referred to him as "boy", a form of address unthinkable to anyone else in the galaxy, while Guilliman called her "mam" and treated her with great respect and affection, frequently confiding in her about his doubts and fears. In turn, Tarasha was one of the few who could accept and verbalize that Guilliman was not infallible, and sought to remind him of that fact. She was also not above sassing him, as proven when he spent a night getting drunk with his Space Wolves watch pack and she told him off for it the following morning.

Her finest moment, however, came when Konrad Curze invaded the Fortress of Hera. After wreaking havoc and (apparently) assassinating Guilliman and [[Lion El'Jonson]], Curze made his way to Tarasha's quarters, killing her personal aide and demolishing the Space Wolves when they tried to intervene before threatening Tarasha herself. Notably, Curze actually seemed kind of jealous of her relationship with Guilliman, which leads one to wonder how well Space Marine Batman Who Laughs might have done if he'd had a mother of his own (or, you know, any positive influence in his childhood). Despite her sheer terror at being confronted by the Night Haunter himself, Tarasha steeled herself and told him to fuck off, which cements her as one of the bravest people in all of 40K. She was saved at the last moment by [[Vulkan]], freshly resurrected after having burned up in Macragge's atmosphere and out for Konrad's blood. Later on, Tarasha was present when it was revealed that Guilliman and the Lion had survived Curze's attack thanks to the Pharos, which had sensed Barabas Dantioch and Alexis Polux's desperation to save the loyal Primarchs and allowed them to pull the two through to Sotha. When Guilliman learned that Curze had attacked Tarasha, he immediately stepped back through the portal without even noticing, [[Dawww|because he was that worried about his mom]].

==Post-Heresy==

It is unclear what happened to Tarasha after the end of the Heresy. One audio drama puts her aboard ''Macragge's Honour'' while it's under attack by Chaos forces, during which she tells an Ultramarines sergeant about Guilliman's pacification of the Illyrians while they're slowly dying from smoke inhalation. By the timeline this would have had to occur after Guilliman's ship returned from its grudge match with the ''Infidus Imperator'', which would mean Tarasha was old as dirt by the time this happened.

She is of course quite dead by the beginning of the 42nd Millennium, but Guilliman still misses her and wishes he had her counsel. And, really, who ''wouldn't'' want their mom when they'd woken up after ten millennia to find out that the galaxy was worse than ever and their dad's [[noblebright|Imperium of Reason and Enlightenment]] had collapsed into a [[grimdark|superstitious, oppressive, theocratic nightmare]]?

Tarasha Euten

2022-10-19T05:55:34Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

[[File:Tumblr_p8wow2RRoU1s422e6o1_640.png|300px|right|thumb|The lady herself, with her charge.]]{{Topquote|'As the little emperor he pretends to be, he does so chronicle himself. I have heard of you. Tarasha Euten, Chamberlain Principal, and to all intents a mother to him. A mother.' Curze sighed. 'Thanks to the genius of my father, my kind does not enjoy the luxury of mothers. You are rare. You are a rare and obscene thing, you ragged witch. I wish Roboute had been alive to suffer the damage of your death.'
''Euten rose to her full height and looked the monster in the eye. 'Go to hell, you bastard,' she said.''|Tarasha Euten, being the absolute baddest of asses.}}

'''Tarasha Euten''', also known as '''Guillimom''', was one of Konor Guilliman's chief retainers during his time as Consul of Macragge, and continued to serve [[Roboute Guilliman]] as he became Lord of Ultramar and then Primarch of the Ultramarines. She is notable for being the only known mother figure any of the primarchs ever had (leaving aside [[Erda|the careless deadbeat Sphess Karen]]) and is therefore [[awesome]], since this means that she managed to raise a Primarch without going nuts or causing him irreparable psychological harm. An interesting little note is that sadly, the Lion very nearly also could've had this experience as well, as apparently [[Luther]]'s wife died shortly before the discovery of the first primarch. Some interesting food for thought.

==Early History==

As a young woman, Tarasha served as seneschal to Consul Konor Guilliman. The two were personally close, though whether their relationship was more than platonic is unclear. When a strange pod crashed into a forest on Macragge, the nobles who found it brought its contents--an infant surrounded by a glowing aura--to Konor, who adopted the child and named him Roboute. Tarasha helped raise the boy, watching as he grew rapidly into a military genius, brilliant scholar, and wise leader. Perhaps her proudest moment as his adoptive mother was his peaceful resolution of a rebellion among the tribespeople of the Illyrian Mountains; rather than crushing the Illyrians, he had instead presented their chieftain with a sacred artifact which the consuls of Macragge had stolen generations before, causing the Illyrian chieftain to end his campaign and resolve to become a wise and just leader in Roboute's mold. It was at this moment that Tarasha knew he was ready to become a true leader and king of Macragge.

After Konor's assassination and Roboute's ascension to the office of consul, he kept Tarasha on as his seneschal and chamberlain. When the [[The God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor]] arrived at Macragge, Guilliman left her to govern the planet in his stead while he went out to help his father unite the galaxy under the aegis of the Imperium. Guilliman also made sure to secure regular juvenat treatments for her, meaning that she would have a much longer lifespan than a typical human.

==Horus Heresy==

When Guilliman retreated to Macragge in the aftermath of the [[Battle of Calth]] and began laying the foundations of [[Imperium Secundus|his "Imperium 2.0" backup plan]], he often turned to Tarasha for advice. Though she was now elderly, she had lost none of her fiery, boisterous spirit, and continued to speak to the Primarch as if he were the same child she'd raised to manhood. She still referred to him as "boy", a form of address unthinkable to anyone else in the galaxy, while Guilliman called her "mam" and treated her with great respect and affection, frequently confiding in her about his doubts and fears. In turn, Tarasha was one of the few who could accept and verbalize that Guilliman was not infallible, and sought to remind him of that fact. She was also not above sassing him, as proven when he spent a night getting drunk with his Space Wolves watch pack and she told him off for it the following morning.

Her finest moment, however, came when Konrad Curze invaded the Fortress of Hera. After wreaking havoc and (apparently) assassinating Guilliman and [[Lion El'Jonson]], Curze made his way to Tarasha's quarters, killing her personal aide and demolishing the Space Wolves when they tried to intervene before threatening Tarasha herself. Notably, Curze actually seemed kind of jealous of her relationship with Guilliman, which leads one to wonder how well Space Marine Batman Who Laughs might have done if he'd had a mother of his own (or, you know, any positive influence in his childhood). Despite her sheer terror at being confronted by the Night Haunter himself, Tarasha steeled herself and told him to fuck off, which cements her as one of the bravest people in all of 40K. She was saved at the last moment by [[Vulkan]], freshly resurrected after having burned up in Macragge's atmosphere and out for Konrad's blood. Later on, Tarasha was present when it was revealed that Guilliman and the Lion had survived Curze's attack thanks to the Pharos, which had sensed Barabas Dantioch and Alexis Polux's desperation to save the loyal Primarchs and allowed them to pull the two through to Sotha. When Guilliman learned that Curze had attacked Tarasha, he immediately stepped back through the portal without even noticing, [[Dawww|because he was that worried about his mom]].

==Post-Heresy==

It is unclear what happened to Tarasha after the end of the Heresy. One audio drama puts her aboard ''Macragge's Honour'' while it's under attack by Chaos forces, during which she tells an Ultramarines sergeant about Guilliman's pacification of the Illyrians while they're slowly dying from smoke inhalation. By the timeline this would have had to occur after Guilliman's ship returned from its grudge match with the ''Infidus Imperator'', which would mean Tarasha was old as dirt by the time this happened.

She is of course quite dead by the beginning of the 42nd Millennium, but Guilliman still misses her and wishes he had her counsel. And, really, who ''wouldn't'' want their mom when they'd woken up after ten millennia to find out that the galaxy was worse than ever and their dad's [[noblebright|Imperium of Reason and Enlightenment]] had collapsed into a [[grimdark|superstitious, oppressive, theocratic nightmare]]?

Fall of the Eldar

2022-10-19T05:39:26Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied */

{{heresy}}
{{Fail}}
{{sick|The xenololi futanari BDSM orgy-genocide that birthed [[Slaanesh|the Great Mistake]].}}
[[Image:FalloftheEldar.jpg|600px|thumb|right|"[[Derp|So, uh... did nobody happen to think of making a time machine while we were fucking? Anyone...?]]"]]

{{topquote|Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.|Proverbs 16-18}}

{{topquote|Welp, we're boned.|Eldar after the birth of Slaanesh, can be viewed metaphorically or quite literally in some cases...}}

The '''Fall of the Eldar''' is an event which has the dubious honour of setting the scene for the fucked up, [[grimdark]] galaxy of [[Warhammer 40,000]] that we all know and love. Despite this, [[Games Workshop]] has released almost no [[lore]] from that time, mostly because the [[Eldar]] aren't [[Space Marines]] and therefore won't sell quite as much as another entry in the [[Horus Heresy]] series or something. The remaining, actually forgivable, excuse is that Fall of the Eldar [[fluff]] may be seen as too deep and too risqué for the child fans Games Workshop wants to appeal to, as [[Grimdark|the nature]] [[Rape|of the]] [[Rule 34|few facts]] that are known about it are how the Eldar were so hedonistic their debauchery accidentally created the Chaos God of hedonism.

==History==
The Fall was set in motion by the [[War in Heaven]] between the makers of the [[Eldar]], the [[Old Ones]], and the [[Necrons]] and their [[C'tan]] overlords. The war fucked everyone over and everyone that didn't go to sleep got nom-nomed by psychic space terrors.

In the aftermath, the Eldar found the galaxy was theirs for the taking (the Necrons having spent themselves and gone into hibernation) and so became its rulers. Through a combination of their advanced technology, the remnants of the Old Ones' [[Webway]], domination over their psychic powers, and long life spans, they had little to no opposition (any [[Ork]] [[WAAAGH]] too stupid to start up most likely got dropped down a black hole or something, and it's hinted Dark Age humanity either never discovered them or purposefully kept its distance).

After many millennia of galactic dominance, the Eldar started to lose interest in menial tasks and concentrated purely on pleasurable acts. Given the depths of their emotions and sensations, these acts soon descended into depravity that would make human snuff films look like Saturday morning cartoons. And then, there were some Eldar who set up private realms in the Webway so that they could commit depraved acts that went too far even for most Eldar. The Empire's collective debauchery, amplified by their psychic prowess, started churning the [[Warp]] itself, making Warp travel nearly impossible.

Some Eldar became uncomfortable with the direction that their society was headed, and settled worlds on the fringe of the galaxy, away from the advanced technologies of the Eldar Empire, and returned to a simpler lifestyle. These were known as [[Exodite]]s. Others dwelled on massive [[Craftworld]]s that traveled the whole Empire, and from their outsider's perspective, could see where things were going. Unfortunately, most of their brothers and sisters didn't believe them. And even more unfortunately, some of their brethren did believe it but actually wanted a god of pleasure to manifest because it's not like such a being would be evil, right? So they kept right on fucking away, until they went and made a new [[Chaos God]]—[[Slaanesh]].

The birth scream of the great pervert tore a great [[Anal circumference|orifice in spacetime]], later known as the [[Eye of Terror]], that consumed most of the Eldar race instantly, even the ones who hadn't wanted to join in with the whole decadence thing but were too close to the epicenter. The only ones who escaped were the Craftworld and Exodite Eldar who were near the rim of the galaxy, and the Eldar who were living in the Webway. The consumed worlds became known as [[Eldar World#Crone Worlds|Crone Worlds]], a particular variety of [[Daemon World]]. To make things even worse (for Eldar at least), the birth of Slaanesh consumed most of the energy that caused massive Warp storms all over the galaxy, and thus allowed humans to launch their [[Great Crusade|massive xenocidal campaign]] during which many of the still young craftworlds were destroyed, and even more Maiden and Exodite worlds were colonized by humans.

==Aftermath==
The Eldar are now a fractured people. The ones who lived in the Webway found their souls slowly draining away over time, and discovered that they could drink the pain of other sentient beings to replenish themselves. They re-organized themselves to gain victims more efficiently, joining their private realms into what became [[Commorragh]], and came to be called the [[Dark Eldar]]. The [[Exodite]]s continue to survive on the rim of the galaxy, and the [[Craftworld]]s still intact drift through space, their inhabitants doing everything they can to atone for the excesses of their ancestors. A few of the Webway-dwellers were rescued by and pledged themselves to [[Cegorach]], becoming the [[Harlequin]]s.

Even the Eldar's gods were affected. When Slaanesh was born, he/she/shklee went on an orgy (because Slaanesh goes on orgies, not sprees) of murder that devoured most of the gods of the Eldar pantheon. The only survivors were [[Khaine]] (who could not be defeated by a god of something other than war, but was shattered into a million pieces), [[Cegorach]] (who escaped into the Webway), and [[Isha]] (who was "rescued" by [[Nurgle]] from being raped and eaten by Slaanesh at his birth, but is now kept as Nurgle's prisoner guinea pig. [[/tg/|Alternate theories]] suggest that Isha isn't actually held captive, but is staying with Nurgle willingly).

The birth of Slaanesh had the positive side effect of providing an outlet for the pent-up Warp energy that had impeded Warp travel for so long (well, the outlet was tearing a great orifice in spacetime and obliterating the Eldar Empire, but at least it was cleared up once the event was over). Warp travel became possible again, which allowed the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to launch his fleets and begin the [[Great Crusade]], and without the mighty Eldar Empire to contend with, his new [[Imperium of Man]] could grow virtually uncontested.

Hilariously, the [[Imperium]] seems vaguely aware the Eldar had a big old space empire at one point but ignores this fact because (a) the Imperium won't keep their hands off their guns long enough for any Eldar to tell them about it, (b) most non-Harlequin Eldar are so arrogant that they think the Imperium, or humanity in general, are unworthy of being taught Eldar history, (c) most Harlequin Eldar can't tell a straight story without layering it first in twelve layers of cryptic bullshit and telling it in the form of an interpretive dance, and (d) the few Imperials who do know the whole story of the Fall interpret it entirely the wrong way and consider it a well-deserved end for the xenos who claimed themselves the rightful lords of the galaxy when that position belonged to humanity alone and (e) any human high-ranking enough to piece together the story is too busy maintaining their own power base to give out status quo shaking revelations or (f) too busy holding the Imperial war machine barely holding back roving Chaos hordes and various monstrous aliens and the incredible levels of oppression that this perpetuates to really dive into the deeper implications of such things.

Fortunately however, there are now some important and powerful imperials who do know, like Guilliman and Cawl.

Given that the [[Chaos Gods]] specifically stated that their interest in humanity is because they are easily manipulated buffoons [[tau|with much tastier and bigger souls than others]], it shows that humanity in 40k has at least one thing in common with the Eldar: high levels of arrogance. Though humanity has the guidance of Big-E to help them to avoid such a a fate, and while he's hardly a flawless strategist, he succeeds more than he fails. There's a reason why the Ruinous Powers feared him even before the Heresy and are terrified of him now.

==Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied==

The Ynnari encounter Ancient Daemons of Slaanesh that have many Eldar-like features. They also encountered a Necron Dynasty that guards a Sealed Warp Gate to prevent said Daemons. They once fought with the old Eldar Empire against Daemons back

The bottom-line is that the revelations (''if'' credible) has some troubling implications for the Eldar and perhaps even the rest of the Universe:

-Not all Eldar consumed by the Warp during their Fall were killed but a very small minority have one way or another turned into powerful Slaanesh Daemons that are much more dangerous than the majority of present-day Daemons

-The theory that Daemons of Slaanesh existed back in the WiH is troubling for the Eldar. The proposition that the Eldar at the peak of of their power could not defeat these powerful Daemons on their own has caused great concern for the Ynnari

-The hypothesis that the trend of Eldar becoming Daemons started during the War in Heaven does not help either

-However, how much (if any) of this can actually be taken at face value remains to be seen. There's probably a sprinkling of truth of course, but then how much? Chaos and daemons do so love their lies and selective truths after all. Just ask Horus. That being said, the notion that the ruinous powers were still somehow pulling the strings behind the scenes during the War In Heaven is balls-deep nonsense. Firstly, the Old Ones would not have allowed this if it were so, and make no mistake, they were more than capable of that level of power over the warp back in the day. Nor for that matter would the [[C'tan]] have allowed this to be so, who for their part, even in their current diminished, sharded state have proven to be more than capable of shutting down and counteracting the interference of any warpfuckery once it begins to annoy them, and who have uniformly been shown to loath the warp as a whole, but Chaos in particular, more than Nurgle hates soap. More importantly though, while the warp has indeed existed as long as the start of the materium, chaos however was born of the conflict between the Old Ones and C'tan/Necrons, which eventually spilled out into the material realm with the onset of the [[Enslavers|enslaver]] plague. The neverborn can claim all they want that they are timeless, eternal, and were always there, and while there is ''some'' truth in that (because warp), it is also true that they are reliant on and rooted to certain points in the materium and certain points in time, which rather takes the wind out of their sails. A point which causes chaos no small amount of [[butthurt]], especially considering some of their precursors (arguably even their ''progenitors''), are '''still''' around, albeit mostly still sleeping. Not even the gods of chaos are above some comforting, revisionist history. [[Emperor|Big-E]] himself can attest to that; no matter how much they whine and try to downplay him, the Ruinous Powers didn't name Big-E "The Anathema" for nothing.

==Links==
* In case of extinction events involving the reaping of souls, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIscL-Bjsq4| break glass.]

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Eldar]]

Fall of the Eldar

2022-10-19T05:17:45Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied */

{{heresy}}
{{Fail}}
{{sick|The xenololi futanari BDSM orgy-genocide that birthed [[Slaanesh|the Great Mistake]].}}
[[Image:FalloftheEldar.jpg|600px|thumb|right|"[[Derp|So, uh... did nobody happen to think of making a time machine while we were fucking? Anyone...?]]"]]

{{topquote|Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.|Proverbs 16-18}}

{{topquote|Welp, we're boned.|Eldar after the birth of Slaanesh, can be viewed metaphorically or quite literally in some cases...}}

The '''Fall of the Eldar''' is an event which has the dubious honour of setting the scene for the fucked up, [[grimdark]] galaxy of [[Warhammer 40,000]] that we all know and love. Despite this, [[Games Workshop]] has released almost no [[lore]] from that time, mostly because the [[Eldar]] aren't [[Space Marines]] and therefore won't sell quite as much as another entry in the [[Horus Heresy]] series or something. The remaining, actually forgivable, excuse is that Fall of the Eldar [[fluff]] may be seen as too deep and too risqué for the child fans Games Workshop wants to appeal to, as [[Grimdark|the nature]] [[Rape|of the]] [[Rule 34|few facts]] that are known about it are how the Eldar were so hedonistic their debauchery accidentally created the Chaos God of hedonism.

==History==
The Fall was set in motion by the [[War in Heaven]] between the makers of the [[Eldar]], the [[Old Ones]], and the [[Necrons]] and their [[C'tan]] overlords. The war fucked everyone over and everyone that didn't go to sleep got nom-nomed by psychic space terrors.

In the aftermath, the Eldar found the galaxy was theirs for the taking (the Necrons having spent themselves and gone into hibernation) and so became its rulers. Through a combination of their advanced technology, the remnants of the Old Ones' [[Webway]], domination over their psychic powers, and long life spans, they had little to no opposition (any [[Ork]] [[WAAAGH]] too stupid to start up most likely got dropped down a black hole or something, and it's hinted Dark Age humanity either never discovered them or purposefully kept its distance).

After many millennia of galactic dominance, the Eldar started to lose interest in menial tasks and concentrated purely on pleasurable acts. Given the depths of their emotions and sensations, these acts soon descended into depravity that would make human snuff films look like Saturday morning cartoons. And then, there were some Eldar who set up private realms in the Webway so that they could commit depraved acts that went too far even for most Eldar. The Empire's collective debauchery, amplified by their psychic prowess, started churning the [[Warp]] itself, making Warp travel nearly impossible.

Some Eldar became uncomfortable with the direction that their society was headed, and settled worlds on the fringe of the galaxy, away from the advanced technologies of the Eldar Empire, and returned to a simpler lifestyle. These were known as [[Exodite]]s. Others dwelled on massive [[Craftworld]]s that traveled the whole Empire, and from their outsider's perspective, could see where things were going. Unfortunately, most of their brothers and sisters didn't believe them. And even more unfortunately, some of their brethren did believe it but actually wanted a god of pleasure to manifest because it's not like such a being would be evil, right? So they kept right on fucking away, until they went and made a new [[Chaos God]]—[[Slaanesh]].

The birth scream of the great pervert tore a great [[Anal circumference|orifice in spacetime]], later known as the [[Eye of Terror]], that consumed most of the Eldar race instantly, even the ones who hadn't wanted to join in with the whole decadence thing but were too close to the epicenter. The only ones who escaped were the Craftworld and Exodite Eldar who were near the rim of the galaxy, and the Eldar who were living in the Webway. The consumed worlds became known as [[Eldar World#Crone Worlds|Crone Worlds]], a particular variety of [[Daemon World]]. To make things even worse (for Eldar at least), the birth of Slaanesh consumed most of the energy that caused massive Warp storms all over the galaxy, and thus allowed humans to launch their [[Great Crusade|massive xenocidal campaign]] during which many of the still young craftworlds were destroyed, and even more Maiden and Exodite worlds were colonized by humans.

==Aftermath==
The Eldar are now a fractured people. The ones who lived in the Webway found their souls slowly draining away over time, and discovered that they could drink the pain of other sentient beings to replenish themselves. They re-organized themselves to gain victims more efficiently, joining their private realms into what became [[Commorragh]], and came to be called the [[Dark Eldar]]. The [[Exodite]]s continue to survive on the rim of the galaxy, and the [[Craftworld]]s still intact drift through space, their inhabitants doing everything they can to atone for the excesses of their ancestors. A few of the Webway-dwellers were rescued by and pledged themselves to [[Cegorach]], becoming the [[Harlequin]]s.

Even the Eldar's gods were affected. When Slaanesh was born, he/she/shklee went on an orgy (because Slaanesh goes on orgies, not sprees) of murder that devoured most of the gods of the Eldar pantheon. The only survivors were [[Khaine]] (who could not be defeated by a god of something other than war, but was shattered into a million pieces), [[Cegorach]] (who escaped into the Webway), and [[Isha]] (who was "rescued" by [[Nurgle]] from being raped and eaten by Slaanesh at his birth, but is now kept as Nurgle's prisoner guinea pig. [[/tg/|Alternate theories]] suggest that Isha isn't actually held captive, but is staying with Nurgle willingly).

The birth of Slaanesh had the positive side effect of providing an outlet for the pent-up Warp energy that had impeded Warp travel for so long (well, the outlet was tearing a great orifice in spacetime and obliterating the Eldar Empire, but at least it was cleared up once the event was over). Warp travel became possible again, which allowed the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to launch his fleets and begin the [[Great Crusade]], and without the mighty Eldar Empire to contend with, his new [[Imperium of Man]] could grow virtually uncontested.

Hilariously, the [[Imperium]] seems vaguely aware the Eldar had a big old space empire at one point but ignores this fact because (a) the Imperium won't keep their hands off their guns long enough for any Eldar to tell them about it, (b) most non-Harlequin Eldar are so arrogant that they think the Imperium, or humanity in general, are unworthy of being taught Eldar history, (c) most Harlequin Eldar can't tell a straight story without layering it first in twelve layers of cryptic bullshit and telling it in the form of an interpretive dance, and (d) the few Imperials who do know the whole story of the Fall interpret it entirely the wrong way and consider it a well-deserved end for the xenos who claimed themselves the rightful lords of the galaxy when that position belonged to humanity alone and (e) any human high-ranking enough to piece together the story is too busy maintaining their own power base to give out status quo shaking revelations or (f) too busy holding the Imperial war machine barely holding back roving Chaos hordes and various monstrous aliens and the incredible levels of oppression that this perpetuates to really dive into the deeper implications of such things.

Fortunately however, there are now some important and powerful imperials who do know, like Guilliman and Cawl.

Given that the [[Chaos Gods]] specifically stated that their interest in humanity is because they are easily manipulated buffoons [[tau|with much tastier and bigger souls than others]], it shows that humanity in 40k has at least one thing in common with the Eldar: high levels of arrogance. Though humanity has the guidance of Big-E to help them to avoid such a a fate, and while he's hardly a flawless strategist, he succeeds more than he fails. There's a reason why the Ruinous Powers feared him even before the Heresy and are terrified of him now.

==Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied==

The Ynnari encounter Ancient Daemons of Slaanesh that have many Eldar-like features. They also encountered a Necron Dynasty that guards a Sealed Warp Gate to prevent said Daemons. They once fought with the old Eldar Empire against Daemons back

The bottom-line is that the revelations has some troubling implications for the Eldar and the rest of the Universe:

-Not all Eldar consumed by the Warp during their Fall were killed but a very small minority have one way or another turned into powerful Slaanesh Daemons that are much more dangerous than the majority of present-day Daemons

-The fact that Daemons of Slaanesh existed back in the WiH is troubling for the Eldar. The fact that the Eldar at the peak of of their power could not defeat these powerful Daemons on their own has caused great concern for the Ynnari

-The fact that the trend of Eldar becoming Daemons started during the War in Heaven does not help either

-However, how much of this can actually be taken at face value remains to be seen. There's probably a sprinkling of truth of course, but then how much? Chaos and daemons do so love their lies and selective truths after all. Just ask Horus. That being said, the notion that the ruinous powers were still somehow pulling the strings behind the scenes during the War In Heaven is balls-deep nonsense. Firstly, the Old Ones would not have allowed this if it were so, and make no mistake, they were more than capable of that level of power over the warp back in the day. Nor for that matter would the C'tan have allowed this to be so, who for their part, even in their current diminished, sharded state have proven to be more than capable of shutting down and counteracting the interference of any warpfuckery once it begins to annoy them, and who have uniformly been shown to loath the warp as a whole, but Chaos in particular, more than Nurgle hates soap. More importantly though, while the warp has existed as long as the start of the materium, chaos however was born of the conflict between the Old Ones and C'tan/Necrons, which eventually spilled out into the material realm with the onset of the [[Enslavers|enslaver]] plague. The neverborn can claim all they want that they are timeless, eternal, and were always there, and while there is ''some'' truth in that (because warp), it is also true that they are reliant on and rooted to certain points in the materium and certain points in time, which rather takes the wind out of their sails. A point which causes chaos no small amount of [[butthurt]], especially considering some of their precursors (arguably even their ''progenitors''), are '''still''' around, albeit mostly still sleeping. Not even the gods of chaos are above some comforting, revisionist history.

==Links==
* In case of extinction events involving the reaping of souls, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIscL-Bjsq4| break glass.]

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Eldar]]

Eye of Terror

2022-10-19T05:13:52Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

[[Image:Warhammer40k_galaxy_map.jpg|right|thumb|250px|The Eye of Terror is the swirling purple vortex of doom...?]]

{{Topquote|All hope abandon, ye who enter here.|Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy}}
{{Topquote|So named as those inside are all terrified to turn their eyes towards the Imperium and Cadia|[https://regimental-standard.com/2016/12/21/cadi-a-ok/ The Regimental Standard]}}

The '''Eye of Terror''' or '''Occularis Malifica''' is the light years-wide black hole of chaotic psychic energy that is also the largest dimensional vortex between the [[Warp]] to the Materium and the birthplace of [[Slaanesh]], created from the entire [[Eldar]] race's collective unconscious [[Fall of the Eldar|when they participated in a]] [[Not as Planned|mass psychic resonance of galactic proportions]]. In layman's terms: [[Anal Circumference|they fuck-orgied-murdered each other so much all their orgasms merged into a living God Of Rape that ripped open a massive asshole into the very fabric of spacetime itself.]] The Eldar race had become decadent, depraved, horrifying, hedonistic, and indulgent in every possible sin and sexual vice imaginable. Yes, it is as <s>hot</s> sick as it sounds.

The creation of this galactic laceration killed off the vast majority of the species in its boundaries, with any planets that remain being utterly [[Rape|fucked beyond comprehension]] after the Birth of Slaanesh. As a result the rest of the Eldar are living on [[Craftworld|Craftworlds]] or faraway planets, save for the [[Dark Eldar|BDSM addicts]] who are living inside the [[Webway]]. Currently, the Eye of Terror is home to the [[Chaos Space Marines|legions of traitor astartes]], most of the surviving [[Primarchs]], the greatest concentration of [[heresy]] in the materium and some unlucky Eldar who still live despite the fall (but more often than not in eternal rape.) According to the [[Warhammer Fantasy]] 8th Edition Daemons of Chaos army book, the Eye of Terror connects to the same Warp as Fantasy.

It seems in certain fluff, the Eye of Terror was named Cygnus x-1 which is an IRL black hole candidate (in fact, the first such identified) in the Cygnus Constellation. This makes absolutely no sense even by GW's standards, as the Eye was only created after the Fall, which occurred thousands of years after the real life modern date.

==[[What it's like]] in there==
Inside the Eye of Terror, nearly all is subject to the nutty whims of the [[Chaos Gods]] and their daemons. What this means is ANYTHING is possible inside this weird vortex. (And not possible, hey it's chaos after all!) So you have worlds in constant fluxes of change; worlds of decay where everything is kept horribly alive somehow; worlds of crystal lit from within by [[witchfire|witchfires]]; and worlds made entirely from the bodies of slaves all merged and molded together... and again, somehow kept alive! It is literally a living physical hell, and any normal person going in without [[Call of Cthulhu|sanity checks]] will have their brains imploded. There are no maps or regions in this place - just the constant shifting battle-lines as the gods, daemons and their mortal followers battle to claim the worlds for their own.

As mentioned above, a lot of the worlds in the Eye of Terror were the old Eldar homeworlds, now referred to as the Crone worlds. There are lots of goodies still stashed away on these worlds and up for grabs, if you don't mind risking your eternal soul. Despite this, the Eldar (and other individuals cough [[inquisitor|inquisitors]] cough) make the risky journey into the eye to acquire some loot, but most end up being corrupted or [[Chaos Spawn|usually much worse]].

The scariest part? The closer you get to the centre of the Eye (referred to as the [[Byysos]]), the weirder things get - even by the standards of Chaos. Daemons and Traitor Marines will avoid getting close to it as things going near it don't tend to come back. Just as bad, if not indeed worse however are the areas hit by the so-called Firetide, which daemons themselves are actively terrified of; something that generally only the [[Necrons]]/[[C'tan]], [[Sisters of Silence]], or [[Emperor|Big-E]] himself (and his own [[Primarch|totally]] [[Living Saint|not]] [[Legion of the Damned|daemons]]) are capable of making the neverborn feel, and within the Eye of Terror, which of those 3 do you think it is? The Byysos and Firetide probably need their own respective articles at some point in future, but fluff on them is currently somewhat scarce, so this will have to suffice in the interim. In short, places in the Eye (and maybe the [[Maelstrom]]) particularly hard hit by the light of the [[Astronomican]] cause an effect known as Firetide, which engulfs any planets it touches and scours any beings it comes into contact with in holy fire, [[Grimdark|nearly instantly turning them to ash]] (think that scene in Game of Thrones where the Lannister soldiers are hit by dragonfire near the lake), and which tellingly cannot be counteracted by the Four. This has a whole host of interesting possible implications, not the least of which being that this may suggest that though comparably small, the God Emperor has gained his own presence within the Eye; effectively [[Awesome|muscling the Ruinous Powers out of parts of their own preferred playground]] and simultaneously pissing in the sandbox, thus ensuring that [[Troll|no one else will ever be able to play there again]]. Part of why this is such a scary prospect for daemons is because that A, barring some very rare exceptions, a daemon being killed in the Eye of Terror is tantamount to being killed in the Warp, and B, it's the power of Big-E himself causing it; either of which on their own would mean a ''true death'' for the unlucky daemon. Also, the Eye of Terror, for all its shittiness, is a refuge for the servants of chaos that reside there, so to be pursued even there by the vengeful, burning light of the leader many of them personally betrayed, a leader who at the time probably wasn't a god, but now very much is... Well, that's probably disconcerting to the nogoodniks residing there.

Despite it being an endless tempest of raw Eldritch power in the very fabric of physical creation, home to some of the most powerful and brutal warriors in the [[41st millennium|setting]], it still does not deter or even frighten the [[Ollanius Pius|Balls-of-Steel]] [[Imperial Guard|Imperial Guardsmen]]. This is because of the [[Cadian Pylons|Cadian Gate]].

==The Cadian Gate?==
Yes, the Cadian Gate.

Y'know how in those war movies, there's that one part where the soldiers are all hanging out partying before the shit hits the fan and they're pressed into service? That's kinda what the Cadian Gate is like to the Eye of Terror. Named after the [[Cadia|planet]] nearest to it, the Cadian Gate is the most stable region around the Eye of Terror owing to the fact that [[Necron|large, strange artifacts of ancient alien design]] are found all over Cadia and its neighbouring planets. Because of its location in the Eye and because it's the only place not constantly fucked with Warp storms, Cadia (and indeed the entire Cadian Gate) is an enormous flash wherein the Chaos Legions raid the [[Imperium of Man|Imperium]] from their Daemon worlds - [[Creed|only to be completely and utterly WTFPWN3D in an ambush by 100 Baneblades and 75 Imperator Titans hiding behind a lamppost]], the biggest of which happened during the Black Crusades.

===The Black Crusades===

As one might imagine, the Eye of Terror is both prison ''and'' safe harbor for [[Abaddon the Despoiler]] and his [[Black Legion]]. It is from here that the Warmaster musters his forces for the infamous [[Black Crusade]]s, of which there have been thirteen over the last ten millennia. Barring a few (and we mean countable on 1 hand) suicidely difficult-to-navigate gaps, most of the Eye is kept bottled up by both the raging warpstorms permanently edging it, and the crashing waves of psychic force from the [[Astronomicon]], creating an effect called the Firetide. Ships can't even get near the edge of the Eye without getting destroyed.

Ask any long-term fan of the franchise, and eventually you'd get jokes about how much an utter joke Abaddon was given how he's tried ''thirteen times'' and yet failed to even get close to destroying [[Terra]], but as the end of 7th Edition showed, it seems that old Zeke has gotten the last laugh. As they say, thirteenth time is a charm...

==The [[Gathering Storm]]==

During the events of the Gathering Storm, the Eye of Terror changed dramatically. Here, Abaddon is attempting to besiege and control Cadia to force the Eye to expand, hoping to turn it into a giant eldritch laser cannon that would cut a swath through the galaxy and consume Terra itself in the process.

The launch of the 13th Black Crusade coincided with [[Belisarius Cawl]] realizing what the [[Cadian Pylons]] actually did, rushing to Cadia to help. [[Trazyn the Infinite]] then rocked up, and helped Cawl try and close it, because he was bored and wanted to participate in some galactic historical event. Their efforts did work and managed to slowly close the Eye of Terror to weaken the traitors (and [[Saint Celestine]] and the [[Legion of the Damned]], consequently), but Abby finally had enough of being a [[Meme]] and decided to flip the table by crashing a [[Blackstone Fortress]] onto Cadia, which destroyed the planet plus the pylons, [[Just as Planned|and caused the intended effect of having the Eye of Terror expand]]......[[Not as Planned|but we can only imagine Abaddon wide-eyed and mouth agape when he saw that the Eye expanded in the wrong direction, before promptly losing his collective shit at this point]].

Rather than cutting a swath straight through Terra, the Eye instead cut the galaxy in half by creating an almost-impassable wall of warp storms that stretched from Cadia to the [[Maelstrom]], which is now called the [[Great Rift]]. There's only two corridors on this rift that can be safely traversed by mortals and they're all heavily contested by the Imperium and Chaos.

The other side of this region that isn't on Terra's side is called the Dark Imperium, named so because they're cut off from the Astronomican, and by extension the Emperor's Light. As you can imagine, life in what can only be described as being trapped alone in a room full of serial killers is bad, but the Imperium perseveres, while Chaos is having a blast right now.

==Known worlds in the Eye of Terror==

* Belial IV: An Eldar crone world, it was one of the capital worlds of the old Eldar empire. Now it is a ghostly shell but rumoured to still house countless Eldar treasures... which of course is the perfect line to have a constant string of the elf-y bastards trying to loot the place without getting their [[Anal Circumference|assholes ripped apart in 11 dimensions by Slaanesh]].

* Medrengard: The [[Iron Warriors]] homeworld in the Eye of Terror. It is basically one big city in constant industrial motion. It is here [[Perturabo]] sulks eternally, annoyed his playmate [[Rogal Dorn|Rogal]] was silly enough to get himself MIA.

* Bubonicus: A daemon world owned by a [[Daemon Prince|daemon prince]] of the same name in service to [[Nurgle]]. Visions of this place give psykers across the Imperium terrible <strike>taco-shits</strike> nightmares that probably have some sort of plague mixed in as a bonus. This plague-ridden planet is notable for its equator-spanning line-dance in the name of Nurgle, the dancers eventually mutating into [[Plaguebearer]]s and breaking off so new mortals can endlessly take their place.

* Sortiarius, the Planet of the Sorcerers: The world given by [[Tzeentch]] to [[Magnus the Red]] and the [[Thousand Sons]] as their new homeworld after the end of the [[Horus Heresy]]. It is a world wrecked by warp storms and with towers thrusting out of the crust of the planet. Magnus mostly stays on the planet in his tower with a big eye on it, which is totally not ripping off Sauron, and plans his legion's campaigns <s>against the Imperium</s> for getting more books to nerd out. UPDATE: No longer in the Eye, because Magnus pulled it into real space. [[Just As Planned | JUST AS PLANNED!]]

* Plague Planet: The generically named world of [[Mortarion]]. He modeled it after a dark reflection of his homeworld, [[Barbarus]], much to [[Typhus]]'s displeasure.

* Oliensis: Devoted to Slaanesh, the entire planet is actually a [[neckbeard|colossal, morbidly obese man curled into a fetal position]] ([[what|yes seriously]]), [[/d/|who will eat you like a Dorito (and corrupt and regurgitate you)]] if you try to start shit there, as an [[Judged|unfortunate Space Marine chapter]] found out during a [[Abyssal Crusade|totally fun company-sponsored vacation trip]]. Home of the [[Noise Marines]]. There isn't much info on who Oliensis is or how he came to be so huge.

* Xana: the first and the biggest of the [[Dark Mechanicus]] Hellforges, and the primary place where traitors go to get new ships, tanks, daemon engines, armor, [[Dakka | and guns and ammo to shoot]] at loyalist scum and each other. Unlike most other Hellforges that were normal daemon-worlds until DarkMechs colonized them, Xana used to be a Forgeworld before the Heresy, and got teleported into the Eye after the Heresy failed in what was pretty much a reverse version of the ritual that Magnus used later to teleport Sortiarius out.

* [[Fulgrim]]'s [[PROMOTIONS|Pleasure Planet]]: No one knows where it is and [[Emperor's Children|many]] have tried to find it, but since no one's succeeded yet it's safe to assume it's either located [[Anal Circumference|inaccessibly deep ]] in the Eye or no one who actually located it bothered to leave and tell the others (Lorgar used the Webways to travel to the planet just before the [[Siege of Terra]] to pull Fulgrim back into command of his legion). Knowing the Emperor's Children, it's probably the latter.

* Sicarus: Homeworld of the [[Word Bearers]], and where [[Lorgar]] sits on his sorry ass meditating all day. [[Kor Phaeron]] established his colony on this planet after the [[Battle of Calth]], and the Word Bearers moved in later during the [[Great Scouring]]. The planet is basically a [[Chaos|Chaotic]] version of [[Terra]], right down to its [[Extra Heresy|"planet sized temple"]] status, and it's ruled over by a [[Dark Apostle|Dark]] [[High Lords of Terra|Council]] rather than Lorgar himself. The largest cathedral, the Templum Inficio, is reserved for Lorgar and his heresy-fueled meditations.

* Drakaasi: One of the few [[Khorne|Khornate]] daemon worlds (that we know about), this paradise features everything you'd expect from the Blood God: vast oceans of blood turning it into a red version of Venice, arenas and fighting pits around every block, a massive graveyard filled with [[Awesome|huge-ass weapons converted into residencies]], and of course a battlefield to add skulls to the skull throne. A rather interesting feature is a massive crystalline structure, which plays [[Sonic Weaponry|music]] dedicated to Khorne himself. Huh, guess he is a man (god?) of culture after all.

* Harmony: A major base for the [[Emperor's Children]], this is the planet where [[Fabius Bile]] created his homemade, collector's edition [[Horus]] clone. It was later attacked by [[Abaddon]] during his [[RAGE|big temper tantrum]] against the III Legion, and he had the planet's fortress, Canticle City, [[Awesome|blown up by a falling Cruiser]].

* Maeleum: The [[Extra Heresy|other "Chaotic Terra"]] in the Eye, this is where the [[Sons of Horus]] stored and worshiped their [[Primarch]]'s corpse after he got his ass kicked by Emperor, until it was stolen by the [[Emperor's Children]]. Some time after the planet's abandonment, Abaddon discovered a destroyed [[Black Templars]] strike cruiser on the planet's surface, [[FAIL|which provided him with information on the current status of the Imperium]]. Still later a [[Death Guard]] Sorceror Lord named Thagus Daravek used pieces of the planet's crust as ammunition against the Black Legion, [[FAIL|though he basically missed every shot]].

* Logans World: A barren place where humans and [[Ork]]s fight for survival in the planet's hostile environment. [[Derp|We still don't know who the eponymous Logan is though.]] It's worth mentioning that this planet seems to be one of the few "mundane" worlds in the Eye that we know about, as well as one of the few that is firmly under Imperial control.

* Temporia: A [[Tzeentch]]-aligned Hellforge overflowing with [[GW|factories]], [[Daemon Engines]], and other horrible contraptions. The [[Dark Mechanicus]] stationed here managed to [[Awesome|yank the planet out of orbit from the Eye of Terror]], using said depraved machinery to assault the Cadian Gate during the 13th [[Black Crusade]]. The Dark Mechanicus's rule is currently being contested by the [[Adeptus Mechanicus]] from the [[Forge World]] of Agripinaa. So far they seem to be in a stalemate.

* Urum: A Crone World that serves as the main base of Fabius Bile and his Consortium. [[/d/|Don't even ask]] [[FATAL|what goes on in here]] (Hint* it is good, wholesome, pure fun).

* [[/tg/|World of Immortal Sorrows]]: A Crone World ruled over by Elyssar'sirath, a [[Daemon Prince]] of [[Slaanesh]]. Basically the absolute worst place to be in realspace if you're an Eldar, though it might be best to avoid it if you're a [[Imperium|human]] as well.

*Eidolon: At one point the location of the Blood Angels relic Encarmine, before it was recovered by Captain Leonatos on his Blood Quest. It was a semi-medieval world controlled by four Daemon Princes, as well as a [[Fallen|MEMBER OF A TRAITOR LEGION THAT SOMEHOW STOLE DARK ANGEL ARMOR TO DISGUISE HIMSELF]].

==Important Personages in the Eye of Terror==

* [[Chaos Gods]] - You can't get higher than the arch-dukes of evil themselves. They each claim the worlds of the Eye as their own and spend every second warring to gain control of them, like supervillains trying to outdo each other in world-conquering plots. Khorne's plots focus on [[Exterminatus|slaughtering everyone off each planet]]. Slaanesh tries to recreate his/her/its super dick move orgasm attack to take over worlds by [[Anal Circumference|overloading the inhabitants' very own metaphysical assholes into impossible geometries that would make Euclid's brain asplode]]. Tzeentch tries to use his [[Just As Planned|clever plots]] and [[Tomb of Horrors|elaborate deathtraps]] to take over, even if [[Abaddon|Failbaddon the Armless]] is the most frequent victim of such elaborate superdickery. Nurgle just prefers to wait patiently for everything to wear out and rot everything away - good for him, not for anyone else.
* Daemon Primarchs - Each a legendary or at least major player in the Eye, some of the traitor Primarchs have their own worlds while others head the efforts of the different Chaos Gods to claim more for themselves. Because each traitor Primarch is nuttier than a fruitcake by now, they each have different, diverse reasons for warring in the Eye for control.
** [[Angron]] - He just wants to kill and rage, as the nails in his daemon-brain make him ever crazier with each passing aeon and his only relief from the rage is MOAR RAGE. Giving worlds to Khorne is just a bonus.
** [[Fulgrim]] - No one knows where the fuck he OR his ultimate pleasure world/palace is, but it gives relentless [[Promotions|incentive]] for other traitors to find it. Abaddon met with him on a different planet, so he does get out sometimes, but it's probably pretty rare. After all, with a planet that's supposedly the ultimate pleasure planet, why would anyone want to leave it? Confirmed to have responded to Roboute getting back up by ''pouting''. Fucking '''weak''' man.
** [[Magnus]] the Red - He rarely leaves his private tower, but he theoretically constantly aids in Tzeentch's vast plans to conquer everything and sometimes comes out to beat up [[Space Wolves]]. /tg/ likes to joke that he spends most of the time screaming [[Just As Planned]] every time he manages to accomplish common household tasks like dusting the blinds or pouring hellmilk over his daemon-cereal, just to massage his fragile ego after the monumental fuckups his plans seem to keep running into. He's still very much active, though. Apart from [[Furry|fursecuting the Wolves]], he fought and chased [[Roboute Guilliman]] when he escaped from Kairos' clutches, but was stopped after he was banished by a contingent of [[Adeptus Custodes|Custodes]] and [[Sisters of Silence]], when he managed to corner Big G at Luna.
** [[Mortarion]] - Has his own sweet planet, which he made into a home from home. Like most of the others, he rarely leaves his private quarters, in case his presence makes the plot edge forward. Oh, and the last time he left his planet, a [[Kaldor Draigo|certain someone]] graffiti'd his heart. Change, after all, is anathema to a Nurglite. Plus, well... would ''you'' invite someone whose B.O. could devastate an entire world without him lifting a finger to your [[Black Crusade|little party]]? [[Typhus]] canonically despises Mortarion for just sitting in his planet and never doing anything and also for his insufferable sentimentality. He's now up-and-about though, he invaded [[Ultramar]], but was stopped by Guilliman, and the Chaos Gods who decided to get into the action and annex some of Nurgle's territory, forcing him to abandon the Ultramar campaign and go back.
** [[Lorgar]] - Has been meditating since the end of the Horus Heresy, and has literally done diddly squat since then. Infact his most noteworthy action for gods know how long is teaching Abby how to summon daemons for his Black Crusades. He doesn't even lead his legion anymore, and he assigned that role to his Dark Apostles instead. He's basically the biggest [[Neckbeards|NEET]] amongst the primarchs. He did fight against a Warp-mutated [[Corvus Corax|Corax]] in the 41st Millennium, and absolutely had his ass handed to him. Lorgar responded by bravely running the fuck away, evidently having taken some inspiration from his wayward son [[Erebus]], when the latter was getting roflstomped by [[Kharn]] and so decided to make like France and get the fuck out.
** [[Perturabo]] - The guy who named the place. Mostly splits his time sulking or [[neckbeard|building models]] on his private planet because his sore mood prevents him from getting down to the hard and heavy of fighting. Occasionally he gets off his couch to devastate a Forge World or two. Launched a massive offensive to take many Imperial Worlds after the Great Rift.

* [[Abaddon the Despoiler]] - Jokes about his incompetence and lack of arms aside, Abaddon didn't get to be the Warmaster of the Black Legion for nothing. If your force runs into his in the Eye, it's probably in your best interest to either submit to the Legion and be subsumed, or run for the hills and pray to your evil gods he's got [[Cadia|something better to do]].

* [[Fabius Bile]] - A key player in the Eye, as he produces clone warriors for the traitor legions to boost their ranks and seeks ways to further improve on their genes. Such biological evil pleases Slaanesh immensely, even if Bile himself has no love for Chaos in general, seeing that they no longer have anything to offer him. The definition of Vetinari Job Security, the guy is hated and despised by even other heretics, but he is needed by them all so they can't afford to kill him.

==See Also==
*[[Chaos]]
*[[Chaos Space Marines]]
*[[Pit of Raukos]]

[[Category:Chaos]] [[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]

Chaos Space Marines

2022-10-19T05:09:57Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

{{heresy}}
{{Topquote|And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say: "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with [[Black Legion|sword]], and with [[World Eaters|hunger]], and with [[Death Guard|death]], and with [[Chaos Spawn|the beasts of the earth.]]|Revelation 6:8}}

{{Topquote|The treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel.|Brenna Yovanoff}}
[[File:Crimson Slaughter Chaos Marine ukitakumuki.jpg|thumb|500px|right|Chaos up in this motherfucker.]]

'''Chaos Space Marines''' (also known as '''Heretic Astartes''' and '''Astartes Traitoris''') are, simply enough, [[Space Marines]] that have fallen to, or were inducted to, [[Chaos]]. They are also one of the main factions in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. The first Chaos Marines were born during the [[Horus Heresy]] from the nine [[Traitor Legion]]s. Since then, many Space Marines (and even a few full [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapters]]) have gone rogue, becoming Renegades. However, this is mostly a [[fluff]] distinction, as the [[Codex]] (or the models for that matter) does not differentiate between the two.

CSM supplement their lack of more easily available loyalist resources (recruits, tech, supplies, etc.) by way of daemons and Warp energy from the dark Gods, plundered weapons from whoever is unlucky enough to lose an engagement to them, and renegades from the Imperium, which are always available because the Imperium [[Grimdark|treats its subjects like steampunk condoms]].

==Overview==
[[File:Black crusade by yogh art-d5bqzea.jpg|thumb|450px|left|Birds have not been so scary for 66 million years.]]
Chaos Space Marines are basically Imperial Space Marines who have forsaken their oath to the Imperium of Man to serve the Ruinous Powers, which is [[Heresy]]. Marines do this for a number of reasons, although the cause of this is usually finding that the ways of Chaos suit them more than the Imperium, or the classic case of the Imperium dicking them over (largely the case for post-heresy chapters).

The origins of Chaos Space Marines go back to [[Erebus]] of the Word Bearers, the first Chaos Marine, who then corrupted the recently-emotionally-discouraged Primarch [[Lorgar]] to Chaos. Erebus would then set into motion the events that would lead to Warmaster Horus being wounded on Davin's moon, where he would fall to the corruptions of Chaos. Horus, supreme Warmaster of the Imperium, would then gather [[Mortarion|<s>7</s>]] [[Omegon|8]] [[Konrad Curze|more]] [[Alpharius|of]] [[Angron|his]] [[Magnus the Red|distraught]] [[Perturabo|brother]] [[Fulgrim|Primarchs]] to his cause, along with a good fraction of Imperial forces and the Adeptus Mechanicus in full-scale rebellion, resulting in the Horus Heresy. [[Not as Planned|That didn't go so well]]. When Horus got roflstomped by the Emprah during their duel (at which point he was the only remaining traitor primarch that hadn't been [[Mortarion|banished]] [[Magnus the Red|into the]] [[Angron|warp]] [[Konrad Curze|or else]] [[Lorgar|simply]] [[Fulgrim|fucked off]] [[Perturabo|and went AWOL]]), most of the Traitors fled to the Eye of Terror because of the loss of leadership, resulting in what would be known as "Chaos Space Marines".

Naturally, they fight just like Space Marines except <s>on average they are stronger, more experienced, and older, given that the majority stood with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade</s> only worse because Mary Sues need punching bags. They keep using shit they were equipped with prior to the Horus Heresy such as [[bolter]]s and the ever useful Space Marine [[plot armor|plot]] [[pauldrons|armor]], which would explain why they didn't fistfuck each other to death before reaching the Eye of Terror, or why they would follow the lead of a particular [[Saturday]] [[Abaddon|morning cartoon villain]].

Chaos Marines are also commonly known to compensate their aging weapons (which didn't really age much, considering how fucktarded Imperium tech support is) by using demon magic for that extra edge in combat. Naturally they lack some of the weapons and [[Standard Template Construct|equipment Imperium "invented" (or rather dug up) for the last 10,000 years]], such as [[Razorback Transport|Razorbacks]], [[Centurion Squad|Centurion suits]], [[Autogun|assault cannons]] or [[Grav-Weaponry|grav guns]], and although they often get their hands on such pieces of tech (mostly by killing corpse-worshipers who own them), their Dark Mechanicum allies have few to zero spare parts and/or ammo for them, those trophies rarely last in use for a long time. The latter reason is also why Chaos Marines no longer use some of them more delicate and advanced tech like Land Speeder variants or Whirlwinds, which they definitely HAD before the Heresy - those things require just too much maintenance to fit into their more independent and chaotic combat doctrines.
[[File:1286933675792.jpg|400px|right|thumb|The eternal war rages on.]]

For all their powers from Chaos, however, most of them are nowhere nearly as organized as their loyalist counterparts. Turning to Chaos tends to drive Marines insane, usually causing them to lose much of the tactical prowess they had as loyalists. That said, organized legions like the Word Bearers, Thousand Sons, Iron Warriors, Death Guard (once they got their shit together), and Black Legion still remain much more of a competent military force than one might think. This is emphasized in the Black Legion novels, where the narrator has to explain to the freaking Inquisition, of all people, that the Chaos Legions don't have any dedicated supply lines, logistics, infrastructure, shipyards, independent manufacturing, or even the ability to feed their own forces. And since the Imperium can't effectively garrison every world (at least not without sacrificing the initiative on all fronts) the Chaos Space Marines still remain a great threat despite their shortcomings...

...though many of those problems were eventually solved as the Traitor Legions regained their Heresy-era numbers (or even more in some cases), and various industries were built or captured from the Imperium; the Idolator ship and two Planet Killers were made 100% from Chaos factories.

After all, the tree of heresy can grow from the smallest seed.

Different warbands of Chaos Space Marines are every bit as prone to fighting each other as they are anything else for any number of reasons; evil doesn't get along with evil, they're all nuts and just want to fight something, or the other warband worships a different Chaos god. Yeah, these guys are nuts. The phrase "the devil is not mocked", comes to mind, as was aptly conveyed by [[Alpharius]] during the height of the Horus Heresy. Infighting inside individual warbands is not unheard of, and their leaders always have to watch their back because every single Marine has hopes of killing their superiors and taking over. So yeah, if they didn't have the [[Eye of Terror]] to hide in and the Imperium wasn't so idiot-ball prone, it probably would have killed them by now. However, when they DO get their shit together, they fuck up the Imperium on a scale undreamed of by [[War of the Beast|almost]] every other race in Warhammer. See the Dominion of Fire or the Cholercaust Blood Crusade. '''GODDAMN IT, KHORNATE BERZERKERS ARE AWESOME.'''

They ''were'' the oldest fogies (or at least the ones from traitor legions are anyway) in the setting, barring the [[Eldar|space elves]], [[Bjorn the Fell Handed|that one angry viking dreadnought]] (who's about their age), the [[Necrons|Tomb King expys]] and maybe a few of the [[Tyranid|Omnivorous Space Bug Lizards things]] but now they've been retconned. CSM today may be some of the veterans from the Heresy or they could just be newfags that decided they were too cool for the Imperium. Fucking hell this is depressing.

Many Chaos Marines eventually dedicate themselves to one of the four [[Chaos Gods]], becoming little more than an extension of the god's will. This path has great risk and great reward, as the Chaos Gods are quite capricious; between two equally-dedicated champions, one will become a [[Chaos Spawn|horrific beast that should not be named]], whereas the other will achieve apotheosis and become a [[Daemon Prince]].

*'''[[Khorne|Khornate Champions]]:''' Those who worship Khorne (such as the [[World Eaters]] Traitor Legion) become close quarters badasses full of [[rage|RAAAAAAAAAGGGEEEE]]!. Khornate champions are among the best dedicated melee fighters in the setting. They are insane, ruthless, and barbaric, and continually lust after BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! Marines dedicated to Khorne are usually called [[Khorne Berzerkers]], after the Berzerkers of the World Eaters Legion, of whom [[Kharn]] (swell guy by the way) is the most famous. They are famed for their use of the [[chainaxe]] and their fucktastically fearless charges. They also get the best speeches. Although do note that Khornate followers are not all pure-CQC fighters, any weapon that spills blood in honorable combat like heavy weapons or vehicles is welcomed by Khorne. '''"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!! BUTTER FOR THE POP KHORNE!!"'''

*'''[[Nurgle|Nurglic Champions]]:''' These guys are rotting, diseased, decaying sacks of flesh who can take hits that would kill a squad of Terminators. They're something of a meat shield as far as Chaos is concerned (although not as much as [[Cornholio the Cultist|Chaos Cultists]]). They've contracted every disease in creation and then some. Despite looking like a bag of things best not described, Nurgle's followers won't hesitate to give you a big, long, family hug. D'awww. The [[Death Guard]] fell to Nurgle, but it wasn't really their fault.

*'''[[Slaanesh|Slaaneshi Champions]]:''' The followers of Slaanesh simply want to experience pleasure to the highest degree, most of which usually involves the euphoria gained from killing another person. Thus, Slaaneshi followers typically hype themselves up on drugs in order to intensify the sensations they experience, whether from sex or from slaughter. Slaaneshi Marines have taken so many drugs their bodies ''start to produce them normally.'' And yes, this is really canon. They also get penis fingers to give them the extra edge in combat (somehow) and hyperactive awareness, meaning that Slaaneshi followers typically move so fast that they're at par with Eldar reflexes. [[Doomrider]] is one of the most famous Slaaneshi champions (at least on /tg/), although he isn't from the [[Emperor's Children]], the Chaos Legion that fell to Slaanesh; [[Lucius the Eternal]], on the other hand, is.

*'''[[Tzeentch|Tzeentchian Champions]]:''' All followers of Tzeentch are tricky and conniving, and many of them are also powerful [[psyker]]s (as Tzeentch is the god of magic). Warriors under Tzeentch tend to rape anything in ranged combat with either enhanced weapons or SPACE MAGIC that would turn heroes into [[Chaos Spawn]], squa-'''GRAABBRLBLLRBLRLRBLR'''{{*BLAM*}}
**Ahem. To continue where the previous writer left off... squads of infantry into ash, and vehicles into puddles of molten goo. The [[Thousand Sons]] Legion is dedicated to Tzeentch; their (former) chief diviner, [[Ahriman]], is one of the better-known Tzeentchian sorcerers.

*'''[[Chaos Undivided|Undivided]]:''' Back in the good ol' days, Chaos Undivided was the concept of worshiping Chaos as a combined entity or pantheon. The [[Word Bearers]] were probably the most well-known worshippers of Chaos Undivided. Since then, it has been largely retconned; instead, Chaos Undivided refers to Chaos Marines with the support of all four Chaos gods... because apparently that's different somehow (the former is monotheistic worship of Chaos as though Chaos itself was a god, the latter is the worship of aspects of Chaos as separate deities). This has left the Word Bearers in something of a weird spot, as their core concept has been badly mangled. Although, this is not completely out of place: Undivided followers ''do'' have the support of all four Chaos Gods due to their doctrine, but because they don't swear complete servitude to one like what the [[Death Guard]] and [[World Eaters]] did, they don't receive the full power of each Chaos God either. This isn't a bad thing, though, as even at a glance it's easy to see how the gods of Chaos compliment each other when undivided. And undivided worshipers are usually not insane. Plus, the more you do to prove yourself to each god, the more benefits you get from each. It's a longer game than swearing yourself to just one, but the end benefits are larger as well. If you can survive long enough to reap your rewards. Most importantly, perhaps, is that the critical flaws of each of the four is balanced out by the others, so while you'll be a jack of all trades you aren't going to be a one-trick pony most of your enemies know how to counter. And you'll still have Chaos empowerment and the sanity to use it intelligently.

Note that many bands of Undivided Marines exploit Chaos for their own gain and feel little devotion to the Ruinous Powers, seeing it as no more than a tool for their goals. The [[Alpha Legion]], for instance, are closet loyalists (or double heretics, or triple heretics, or brothas doin' it for themselves, nobody knows), whereas the [[Night Lords]] Legion only cares about spreading terror, which Chaos is undoubtedly useful for, but they look down upon the religious. Similarly, the [[Soul Drinkers]], a Renegade Chapter with an entire book series, are enemies of both Chaos and the [[Imperium of Man]] (though they fight for the [[Emperor]]'s ideals; it's complicated, but likely has roots in the current Imperium being the antithesis or something akin to the [[Imperial Truth]]), although most in the Imperium would consider them "Chaos Marines."

*'''[[Malal|Malice]]:''' Way back when, [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] had a [[Chaos Gods#The_Other_Ones|minor Chaos God]] named Malal. Malal was a paradox, in that he is the embodiment of Chaos' chaotic behavior. His main goal was the spread of chaos (not the Warp energies, but actual chaos like anarchy and disruption) by screwing up the plans of the other Ruinous Powers, so he had dedicated Champions that hunted down other Chaos Champions and generally dicked over the Chaos Gods. However, [[Games Workshop]] had to remove him from the setting due to a trademark dispute with the author that invented him. In 40k, meanwhile, there's a warband called the [[Sons of Malice]] that hunt down other Chaos Marines and seem to worship a minor Chaos power named "Malice." This has led /tg/ to believe that Malal/Malice exists in 40k and can be invoked upon for power, although this is of dubious canonicity at best.

==The Traitor Legions==
[[File:Word Bearers by Chingonman.jpg|500px|right|thumb|When Space Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking, don't answer the door.]]
When the [[Horus Heresy]] struck, nine of the original twenty Legions turned against the [[Emprah]]. These guys are basically the original and the best. All of these survived the Siege of Terra and escaped into the [[Eye of Terror]] with a very large number of bodies (Space Marine legions frequently numbered up to 100,000 members by the time of the Heresy). Over time, they have become widely scattered, generally working in mixed warbands combining a variety of Traitor Legionnaires, Renegade Marines, and lesser humans (frequently rebellious Imperial Guard). However, it should be noted that quite a few Chaos Marines still fight as a Legion (generally drastically reduced in size) led by their original (now-Daemon) Primarch (if they're still alive, anyway). It's very rare to see more than a Grand Company (roughly equal in size to a Chapter of loyalist Marines) in any given battle unless it's an organized invasion (of which the most notable examples are the Black Crusades led by a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]]), the Legion's Primarch himself calls them to fuck some shit up, or you're dealing with the Word Bearers or Iron Warriors, who are generally more organized than anybody else. The following are the nine Traitor Legions:

*[[Emperor's Children]]: Also known as pretty marines, their Primarch is [[Fulgrim]], who is now <s>a painting</s> getting his serpentine dick sucked by a swarm of daemonettes on his pleasure planet. <s>possibly still a painting</s> They don't operate as a Legion at all anymore, mostly because [[Kharn]] and the slave wars kinda fucked all their shit up. Anyway, they were basically OCD hyper-perfectionists that also really liked to party. They got ever-more hedonistic, attracted the attention of [[Slaanesh]], and the rest is history. Their Cult unit is the [[Noise Marines]], which are (as their name implies) Chaos Marines that like to kill people with noise. This used to mean sweet heavy-metal guitars, but GW retconned that, so now they have less-impressive (but still cool) <s>bass cannons</s> sonic cannons.

*[[Iron Warriors]]: The evil twins of the [[Imperial Fists]], they really like to build shit and then tear (somebody else's) shit down. In other words, they are masters of siege warfare (basically, rooting out cover-camping bitches). Their Primarch is [[Perturabo]]. They're generally the second most coherent of the Traitor Legions, retaining most of their pre-Heresy organization and numbers, although their great companies are generally independent and only answer to Perturabo himself, who on his part doesn't give a fuck and let them fight each other just for lulz. Also, they probably created the [[Obliterator|Obliterator Virus]], seeing as how they seem to have special connections with the Obliterator Cult. Sadly, they can no longer take [[Basilisk|Basilisks]] and don't have any special rules or Cult units (seeing as how that was quite broken back in 3rd), but GW did throw them a bone in the new book with the [[Warpsmith]] (not to be confused with a [[Warsmith]], which is also Iron Warriors-related). One of their noted leaders is [[Honsou]], a Warsmith in the running for "evilest villain."

*[[Night Lords]]: Their Primarch was [[Konrad Curze]] (also known as the Night Haunter). They're basically space-terrorists, which (unsurprisingly) means they created Raptors, the sociopathic, predatory answer to the loyalists' Assault Marines. They prefer ambush tactics, which is quite difficult when you're walking around in Power Amour and wearing stupid bat-wing helmets. They also like screaming like maniacs to cause terror. They are one of the few legions (in fact, pretty much the only one) who refuse to employ Daemons or live in the Eye of Terror. (Well, at least the warbands that remained loyal to Kurze's vision. The biggest extant warband worships Chaos and is lead by a Daemon Prince.) They're one of the few Traitor Legion that has a dead Primarch, on account of Curze's desire to go down in a fucked up version of suicide by cop to vindicate his obsessive belief that monsters and criminals should be put down like rabid dogs.

*[[World Eaters]]: [[Angron]]- Dissolved after [[Kharn]] turned the legion against themselves, what a guy. Now acting as roaming warbands and mercenaries. They still unite every now and then when Angron wants to fuck something's shit up, such as [[Cadia]]. The <s>only</s> legion known to get shit done when called up to do so.

*[[Death Guard]]: [[Mortarion]] - Didn't show up much in the fluff until the release of the Death Guard codex, though plague marines and champions can be found in many other warbands and, next to world-eater berserkers, are the most common cult unit. Also before Thirteenth Black Crusade Typhus's Plague Fleet kicked major ass in systems all around the Eye of Terror, turning entire planetary populations into zombies. As of 8th edition, they are now their own separate army. Oh, and Mortarion has returned, and his model is [[skub|controversial in terms of appearance]]. They also possess a planet known as the "Plague Planet".

*[[Thousand Sons]]: [[Magnus the Red]] - Another legion that doesn't show up much at all in fluff after the Horus Heresy and [[Rubric Marines|rubric marines]] don't show up much in other legions' warbands and most warbands use their own sorcerers. Except for [[Ahriman]]; Ahriman goes out trolling the Harlequins and those few [[Inquisitor]]s. Ahriman also does this because Tzeentch likes dicking Magnus over in his passive-aggressive way. Fluff-wise, Thousand Sons walk through the Universe, searching for knowledge like ancient books and artifacts to research and nerd out in their libraries, and magicking the shit out of anyone stupid or bold enough to stand on their way. Being smart and cunning motherfuckers they fight only where it really needed and only on their own terms (read: very rarely). Have recently succeeded in fucking up the Fenris furries with Big-Red leading them. And are now their own army and range of models, including a giant daemon version of Magnus with wings.

*[[Black Legion]]: [[Horus]] (kind of) - Originally called the Luna Wolves and then the Sons of Horus, though Abaddon formally disbanded the Legion and used its assets and whatever ragtag allies he had as the foundation of the Black Legion. Unites every now and then when Abaddon wants to launch another Black Crusade. It's honestly a miracle they survived this long, seriously if you look at their battles and losses it really makes no sense how they managed to live long enough to become the Black Legion, let alone the wars after. Known for calling black crusades, massive chaos invasions that consist untold numbers of chaos space marines (provided there's an ass to pull them out of), daemons, and general renegades and heretics all working together to try and tear the Imperium a new asshole. They are the largest legion by far, stated to outnumber the Word Bearers ten to one, namely because Abaddon preys on the other Legions and lures their troops into his own. Unfortunately, they have no real central command structure outside of a Black Crusade, and even then Abaddon can't keep the Legion's shit together for very long before they start breaking off every which way in search of a fight, usually getting slaughtered not long afterward.

*[[Word Bearers]]: [[Lorgar]] - The only Traitor Legion to have retained its Chaplains, who would later become the first [[Dark Apostle]]s, who can often lead a Word Bearers' Warband in the place of a Chaos Lord or Champion. They're one of the more organized and complete legions as they have a central daemon world of their own named "Sicarus". Sicarus is covered in dozens of temples and cathedrals devoted to Chaos. The Word Bearers are still united under the banner of their Primarch: Lorgar (even if the lazy bastard never does anything these days but sit around doing nothing). The most coherent after the Iron Warriors, seen as their great companies (or Hosts, as they call them) are still working together under the watchful eye of the Dark Council.

*<s>[[Alpha Legion]]: [[Alpharius]]/[[Omegon]]</s>- No such Legion or Primarchs exists, further speculation on this issue is [[heresy]] and will result in execution. Said non-existent Legion has never trolled the Imperium for the last 10,000 years by faking the death of every member, any idea to the contrary is [[HERESY]]. Also, masters of <s>sneaking around undetected</s> fucking their enemies' brains with multi-step Just As Planned schemes, that aren't overly complicated or lack the fallback plans (unlike Thousand Sons ones). In fact, their fallback-fallback plans usually have their own fallback plans just in case. Pretty much everything Imperium knows about them is a lie, suspected to be one, or a truth no one believes in since it looks like a lie.

Naturally, [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists|not everyone turned traitors]].

=== Renegades ===
The legions of old are not the only source of Chaos Space Marines, with the fluff no longer being clear on whether they even are the largest source anymore. It's either the traitor legions or the Ultramarines who have produced the most Chaos Marines and renegade Chapters. Loyalist marines get turned to Chaos like all the time (well, okay, it's actually pretty rare considering the limited numbers of Space Marines, but significant enough). Most often it's just a few individual marines or squads, sometimes going as far as entire companies, and rarely (but not rarely enough) entire chapters turn to Chaos. Sometimes it's the Imperium's own fault for turning initially loyal marines against the system due to a misunderstanding or an overzealous Inquisitor declaring them heretics and the new 'renegades' then realize that since no matter what they do they'll be viewed as traitors by the Imperium, they may as well become traitors in reality. Sometimes, like with the [[Abyssal Crusade]], it's a case of [[just as planned]] succeeding so hard Tzeentch isn't even miffed that particular plot gets tied up. Other times, marines "caught" some Chaos taint due to fighting Chaos too much without proper Librarian control (bonus points if Librarians themselves get corrupted), committing terrible crimes in their fights against Ruinous Powers, or trying to fight Chaos with Chaos, like the [[Relictors]]. And finally, a Chapters' own flaws in temperament may leave them all too easily manipulated into bringing their damnation upon themselves.

What is the most surprising, is that shit still happens despite loyalist marines being heavily brainwashed, even more than Death Korps of Krieg or Sisters of Battle (both of which are famous for having close to zero Chaos corruption rate). More so, marines even have a specific organ, to make them even more brainwashable. Some speculate the reason behind this is just Astartes longevity - after all SoBs and Kriegers didn't get continuously exposed to Ruinous Powers for hundreds of years. Others say that marines are just naturally susceptible to corruption, which makes sense if you believe the story daemons tell: that Primarchs were made with the help of The Four, and were given their power to make them something more than just genetically engineered humans. A theory from 30k states that the reason Marines are more easily turned to Chaos is that Marines naturally are fanatical in almost anything they do, and when feeling scolded by the very thing they are fanatical about it makes them do a full 180" to worship something else instead. This is what happened to the [[Word Bearers]], and most modern-day Marines are <s>at least as religious as the Word Bearers were before the Horus Heresy</s> either atheist or view the Emperor as a sort of Living Saint. Marines that worship anything are rare and looked upon as oddballs by the rest of the Adeptus Astartes. Usually it's whole Chapters rather than individuals that do it. Being Space Marines are highly valued by Chaos, they might simply be singled out for dedicated attempts to corrupt them whereas even Sisters of Battle are basically ignored and either get corrupted the same way as Guardsmen or not at all because Chaos doesn't care about them. It does care about Astartes.

ADB once said that Abaddon embodies the old Biblical thing about Satan refusing to bow down to man, and this might be applied to most Chaos Space Marines. Space Marines are expected to give their whole lives - centuries (if not millennia) and sometimes even [[Dreadnought|beyond that]] - to war, so that ordinary humans, most of whom will never have to fight for their lives, can live in relative comfort. Unsurprisingly many Space Marines do resent this on some level, although regular indoctrination helps them cope with that particular feeling by redirecting it toward xenos/heretics in [[rip and tear|a more productive way]]. It has been suggested that Marines genuinely treating mortals with respect are probably in the minority, though, and then along comes a Word Bearer talking about these gods who will set them free, who'll make them the masters instead of the servants... Despite the nigh-constant indoctrination, these words don't always fall on deaf ears. Which is still really weird since the Astartes voluntarily ''chose'' their life barring the rare Chapter that conscripts/kidnaps aspirants. Sure, they might change their mind over time, but they didn't go through all those trials and hardships and training just to decide it wasn't worthwhile after all.

Renegades also have rather divergent attitudes to the Traitor Primarchs. Some venerate them as the Daemonic overlords that they are. Others wonder why everyone seems to fanboy themselves over beings who "lived" thousands of years ago and even then only for a few verifiable centuries before vanishing up their own arses to sit out the wars that the renegade has potentially been fighting for far longer than the Primarchs were ever alive for.

No matter the true reason behind, this shit happens, and from one retcon to another after-Heresy chapter renegades become more and more prevalent to the point that they could actually outnumber the old Legions, even if the Black Legion isn't shy about inducting any who is willing to join and swear fealty to [[Abaddon]] amongst their ranks.

Although, "Renegade" is also used to refer to non-Chaos aligned Astartes and other rogue but non-Chaos forces. They aren't generally against the Imperium, either. At worst just pirating as needed to survive and little else but it isn’t uncommon for them to (futilely) trying to find absolution or [[Soul Drinkers|just ignoring their own expulsion and continuing to serve as usual]]. Which is hilarious.

==A "Meta-History" of Sorts==
I suppose we should [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|start at the beginning]]? So, back in the day, Chaos introduced in the tome Slaves To Darkness, which was effectively an expansion to Rogue Trader. That's right,
the original 40k didn't have Chaos, although it did have Warp Demons. In the original Rogue Trader narrative, the Emperor was encased in the Golden Throne because he was thousands of years old and he needed life force from psykers in order to survive. Once Slaves to Darkness and its sister book Lost and the Damned were introduced, it was revealed that there was this event called the Horus Heresy, and Horus was a primarch that rebelled and nearly killed the Emperor. Talk about a pretty hefty background update!

Crunchwise, the CSM were just marines with some different wargear selection, as well as the ability to get Chaos mutations. It gets really confusing from there (Can you say, D1000 chart with 100+ mutations?) so the less said about the First Edition days, the better. The first, most important thing to remember is that Chaos was effectively a WHFB expy, so it included beastmen, daemons and renegades [[Awesome|all rolled into one]].

===2nd Ed: First Age of Whoop-Ass===
Hoo-boy... I want you to picture it, if you can, a codex wherein Chaos Lords had no stats under 5, daemons could be freely taken in any FO slot (or the equivalent for 2nd Ed) and everything, ''everything'' could push a loyalist's shit in. The CSM received a promotion in the fluff to primary antagonists after getting retconned into the reason as to why the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne (via Horus traitorous ways and that mortal wound). Those were the days of 2nd edition; that's when Chaos was a unified front led by an interesting character on a 10,000 year quest for bloody vengeance. These were the days when a [[Bloodthirster]] would use an [[Avatar]] as a speedbump, and yet the only trump against CSM were the Eldar (And to a lesser extent the Tyranids when they evolved beyond Genestealer cults). Your characters could equip a Bloodletter's sword if you so chose to do so, as well as Chaos Terminator armour that could save on a 2d6 roll of 2+. Noise Marines, Thousand Sons, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines all got their start here, and they started out as ''Troops'' (or rather, their second ed equivalent). You could also take [[Foulspawn]], a special character Nurgle [[Chaos Spawn|Thing]]/[[Daemon Prince]] with 19 wounds (!) that stole wounds from his kills and could regenerate lost wounds every turn. And guess what? You could field beasts, renegades and daemons in your army. It was also possible to give Chaos Marines equipment and vehicles that only their loyalist equivalents get nowadays (including [[Dude, Where's my Land Speeder?|assault cannons, storm bolters, cyclone missile launchers, and various support vehicles]]), in order to accurately represent the equipment used by Renegades from later Foundings. However, they had to pay an extra 50% traitor tax in order to take them.

Yeah, it sounds fucking insane and the coolest thing ever, and it was. Arguably, things were a bit nascent because in spite of all the other extras, they were still very much just space marines with other armies rolled into it. They had the same stats and many of the same rules and wargear as their loyalist counterparts.

===3rd Ed: Roller Coaster into [[Awesome]]===
Third edition started by screwing everyone: the rules were fucked up to try and shift the balance of power towards infantry and away from characters (so sayeth GW, anyway). Regardless, this is one of a few times that GW actually dialed back the power creep inherent in their game systems to such a degree that all existing armies got hosed (worst of all, Eldar) and CSM were no exception. The Codex pumped out was a hackneyed shadow of its former self that needed constant reference checks to the main rules because all the rules for your stuff got printed there instead of your codex. This first release however brought about the much-loved [[Obliterators]], [[Possessed]] and [[Raptors]] and GW did make rules for entire cult armies available for download on their website at the time, which was a thing GW used to do.

Halfway through its life-cycle, GW introduced [[Tau]] and [[Necrons]], breaking the game with [[Fish of Fury]] and just simply existing, respectively. [[List of 40K Cheese|In the midst of this renewed cheese surge, the CSM got a second lease on life]], cranking their competitiveness to second place behind the dreaded third ed 'crons. These were the days of the 200+ point CSM lord that could out-punch fucking ANYTHING! We're talking about a wargear sheet noticeably larger than any other faction, which also included the curious ability to make your aspiring champions psykers. You could load up a squad with stacks of veteran skills, sneaking them into position, moving through cover and then finishing with a furious charge. [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets its big introduction as a monstrous creature AND a walker! These were the days when you ''bought'' as opposed to rolled for the powers your Possessed had; where you could dedicate vehicles to the Gods, and that gave you certain options (thus creating the Sonic Dreadnought... and Predator). You could take a Slaaneshi psyker and give him and his unit immunity from shooting attacks with a well rolled minor psychic power. Best of all, these were the days of fielding Traitor Legions - ridiculously unbalanced lists that would either fall flat on their faces and cost way too much (Thousand Sons) or tear the fucking table in half (Iron Warriors).

Games Workshop tried valiantly to dial back the cheese by releasing Imperial Assassins, Daemonhunters and Witchhunters but once the Eye of Terror campaign hit and the official (and also cheesy) Lost and the Damned rules were out, third ed was firmly [[Cultist-chan|captoored by chaoz.]]

===4th Ed: The Sudden Betrayal===
That rat-bastard, pointy-eared fuck! In 4th ed, [[Gav Thorpe]] raped Chaos and left her to die in a fucking gutter. Those broken-as-hell traitor legions lists? Instead of fixing them for players that liked the other legions, they were removed. Veteran skills? Gone. Wargear? Toast. Lost and the Damned? More like "lost-a la vista," amirite. Daemons? Worst of all, Thorpe figured they needed their own, super-shitty codex. CSM players were ''pissed'' at the "streamlining" their armies got, but they endured it because at the time there were a few nifty silver linings. You could still technically have your cult army/legion/whatever and they were all not bad; that is to say the codex was at least internally balanced. During this time, the Eldar got pumped from worse than last place to playable, Tyranids got an update that was fair as well, Fish of Fury got pulled from the Tau Codex and the loyalists got a decent buff in the 4th ed SM codices. Nothing spectacular, but everything felt fair; it felt like we could have fun with each other and save our bitter sniping for the rightly-deserving Necron players and their totes OP 3E rules. For a brief period of time, the rules system was stable and there was hope that this trend might continue...

===5th Ed: Abandon (the Despoiler) Ship!===
[[Matt Ward|And then this happened.]] GW, in a moment of clarity and business acumen, summoned Matt Ward from the pit to turn the 40K metagame on its larynx through its asshole to promote sales of their most popular line, Space Marines. [[Dawn of War]] had just come out and Relic/THQ made the Space Marines really good (and Imperial Guard, and Eldar, [[Dawn of Eldar|especially the Eldar]] but they would have to wait until 6E to get their cheese on). CSM didn't get a release in this edition because GW decided instead to dedicate their time to fanboy service while throwing a bone to the Dark Eldar and Orks. This was when the 4th ed. rules were used to create the well-known CSM mono-build for 5th ed (Lash Prince, Plague Marines, Termicide, Obliterators and ''maybe'' a Chosen squad for guiding deep strikes). However, once the 5th ed Grey Knights landed, Chaos was truly on its ass. These were the days all the jokes made against Chaos finally made it to the internets and the forces of Chaos shifted from that terrifying adversary feared across the galaxy to the Imperium's punching bag ''du jour''. Many were the veteran players who simply left in disgust.

===6th Ed: A New NOPE!===
Rumours started pouring in furiously when 6th ed was nearing release. Close combat will have AP values? Oooo! What's this - CSM will be the first codex out the gate? Hot damn! New models? BITCHIN'! Revamped rules to finally reclaim some of the fucking glory we lost in the last two goddamn editions? Hallelujah!

So, 2013 has come and gone along with that release and I think we can all say how disappointing that truly was. Of the few bright spots was [[Helldrake|a new flyer with a *AHEM* ''gigantic exhaust port'']]. ("Gaze into the Eye of Terror!" and "Glory to the Goatse of Chaos!" were only some of the reactions.) Many lulz were enjoyed by /tg/ of its... ahem, questionable design aesthetics. This however says nothing of the fact that crunch-wise it is arguably the cheesiest flyer in all of 6th ed - praise the dark gods, indeed?

Aside from the Heldrakes however, the codex had a lot of questionable design choices. Well, not really because there was a lot of dead weight and questionable mechanic design in that book; unlike their loyalist counterparts, the Chaos Army could not properly run MSU builds, since "all its shooting" was in the Heavy Support section, and "all of its speed" was in the Fast Attack section; this contrasted drastically with Marines being able to do ranged threats in their entire FOC via Rifleman Dreadnoughts, Sternguard, Land Speeders and Razorbacks, or their ability to apply pressure via Bike Troops & Drop Pods. In theory, 6th edition was supposed to compensate for this overspecialization by doubling FOCs at 2000 points, [[Rage|but most tournaments ran at either 1850 points or "1999+1 points"]].

Speaking to questionable design, [[Mutilators]] and [[Warp Talons]] reeked of lazy design, while mathhammer and an emphasis on "disembarked troops" holding objectives meant that many tournament armies became little more than a tide of Cultists and Heldrakes, leading to a paradoxical consensus that the [[fail|best way to with with Chaos Space Marines was to not actually take any Chaos Space Marines]]. [[Rage|Needless to say, this did not go well with many players]].

When it comes to the traitor marines themselves, /tg/'s opinions were divided. Some praised the new design for its focus on intricate trims and warp-induced mutations (eyes, tentacles), whereas others disliked it for its lack of [[Grimdark]], claiming it looked too cartoonish and too playful. Crunchwise, as if we haven't said it enough, this book was well and truly fucked. We really tried to like it, but any list that requires supplements and/or Forgeworld models/books to fill strategic gaps in the codex is a pretty bad list.

===7th Ed: What the Fuck is this even===
Chaos Space Marines played similar to their loyalist counterparts, having access to most of the same wargear and vehicles, plus some unique stuff at the expense of all the stuff that makes loyalists remotely useful in a (completely vain) attempt to play up the [[RIP AND TEAR]] side in an edition favouring shooting. They have some of the same strengths and amplified weaknesses, expensive-to-overpriced units, are easily often outnumbered, but overall, they tend to play too aggressively to the point of carelessness. Thanks to all this nerf-slapping, their ranking amongst armies has tanked from the notably OP 3.5 days; the codex and army have since fallen into decline due to progressively weaker books in favour of the worst kind of fan-service for a handful of factions. CSM did get a release in the form of Khorne Daemonkin, but it just blended two books together with some new rules and wargear instead of fixing glaring problems with the units in them; they ''were'' weak due to their garbled 6E codex. Fortunately, 7E has been putting the screws to every single Codex released in 5th Ed while GW releases an unrelenting tide of half-assed pseudo-codices that don't even cover an FOC while adding bullshit mechanics like grav-spam, decurions or buffing the Eldar sky-high.

That lasted until the release of the Traitor Legions supplement. With the release of the supplement, CSM got legion specific buffs and abilites, for Fluffy builds. For example, Alpha Legion armies can't have any marks, but they get to pass on their warlord trait to a friendly character if the current warlord dies. Night Lords get Raptors as core, Iron Warriors get [[Derp|Mutilators]] and [[Awesome|Obliterators]], Word Bearers get Possessed, and so on. Ironically, it's now better to take Khorne CSM over berserkers, because they're basically the same unit, but one is cheaper. Overall, Death Guard and Emperor's Children seem to be the best options at the moment, followed by the Alpha Legion. Basic Emperor's Children marines with Icon of excess are 190 pts for a 10 man squad of initiative 5 marines, with 4+ FNP, Fearless, and a roll on the combat drug table, which can give them +1 WS, BS, S, T, A, I. Death Guard Marines, meanwhile, are incredible also (Likely even better than the EC ones), 170 pts for a 10 man squad of toughness 5 marines with 5+ FNP and fearless but with a -1 to initiative. Iron Warriors, while initially derided, can bring three pairs of Tank Hunter Obliterators and three Twinlinked Vindicators at 1850 points, with a team or two of fortification-camping, Fearless, Tank Hunter, ObSec Autocannon Havocs.

For the second half of 7th ed, it was safe to say that CSM were solid again. Could every Legion deal with Scatbike spam, Crisis/Markerlight shenanigans, or free DTs easily? Not exactly. But World Eaters could get to melee faster than anyone else. Black Legion could pull crazy alpha strikes and use 13-point marines with Rage, Counter-Attack, +1 strength if the charge roll is 8+, Ld9 (10 on the champ), Crusader, Fear, and Hatred (with permanent re-rolls to hit against Imperium). So we might not be quite as good as [[Cheese|Craftworld Eldar]], grav-spamming [[Smashfucker]] Loyalists or Guard and their absurd amounts of ordnance but CSM could fuck up the mid-tier Tau, Mechanicum and Necrons with ease again (the less said about the benighted Nids, Deldar and Orks the better; don't ask about the Sisters). We're calling that a result! It seems someone understood the risk-reward paradigm of the CSM (the risk in putting your eggs in a basket that would either collapse or rip and tear your opponent).

... and then 7th ed. ended. A minor loss but thank god that's over!

===8th Ed: Time to hope once again?===
The Traitor Legions book was a decent step forward in the era of 7th edition and 8th edition was certainly full of changes. Traitor lists largely remained although they were nowhere near as wild as the last edition. Thankfully, a lot of the garbage from 6th and 7th has been thrown out with them. No more "randomness because Chaos, guys!" as pretty much ''all'' the random tables from all over 7th are scrapped as are the Decurions. This is a big step forward although a curious step into the mists of time, harkening back to 2nd.

For a moment, CSM could still ally seamlessly with Daemons and Renegades until GW patched out soup lists. There were some issues with the index but Vigilius Ablaze brought us new units and models, which then found their way into the Codex. Said book not only patched the problems with the index, but added Legion Traits that help the Traitor Legions excel in their fluff-based specialties. The Thousand Sons and Death Guard also received their own Codexes with their own special flavor of nastiness.

===9th Ed: The Galaxy Ablaze Once Again===
Things are getting HOT! There's a new codex around the corner with updates to Death Guard and Thousand Sons. CSM are slated for a release in early 2022. Which is good because our book is old and NOT doing well. In fact [[RAGE|GW has failed to FAQ Chaos Marines to 2 Wounds yet]] (They are waiting for the codex). However their new previewed datasheet points to them having better stats than [[Awesome|Primaris Marines.]] They are slated for a new range of models including a variety of cultists and chaos marine models. Shit, it looks like Renegades and Heretics got rolled into the CSM book, so that's interesting.

==See Also==
*[[Warriors of Chaos]]: The much <s>more competent</s> <s>useful</s> less punching bag counterparts to the Chaos Marines in Warhammer Fantasy, at least until the Age of Sigmar took hold.
**[[Chaos Warrior|Chaos Warriors]]: each member of this parade of ruin.
*[[Chaos Space Marine Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Chaos Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (9E)|Tactics on how to play them.]]
*[[What it's like]]: A short story meant to place emphasis the uncertainty of the life of a chaos space marine.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:1227181112539.jpg|The Typical Chaos Space Marine
File:1174923365695wq1vj1.png|The dreaded [[Night Lords]] preparing an ambush
File:Emperor s Children by megalaros.jpg|Slaaneshi noise marine. Because words can kill.
File:Lcw.jpg|[[Imperium|They]] think that corpse on a throne is a god!
File:Firstkeeper.jpg|Change we can believe in!
</gallery>

{{Chaos-Official}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{WH40k-Factions}}

Chaos Space Marines

2022-10-19T05:06:09Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Overview */

{{heresy}}
{{Topquote|And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say: "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with [[Black Legion|sword]], and with [[World Eaters|hunger]], and with [[Death Guard|death]], and with [[Chaos Spawn|the beasts of the earth.]]|Revelation 6:8}}

{{Topquote|The treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel.|Brenna Yovanoff}}
[[File:Crimson Slaughter Chaos Marine ukitakumuki.jpg|thumb|500px|right|Chaos up in this motherfucker.]]

'''Chaos Space Marines''' (also known as '''Heretic Astartes''' and '''Astartes Traitoris''') are, simply enough, [[Space Marines]] that have fallen to, or were inducted to, [[Chaos]]. They are also one of the main factions in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. The first Chaos Marines were born during the [[Horus Heresy]] from the nine [[Traitor Legion]]s. Since then, many Space Marines (and even a few full [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapters]]) have gone rogue, becoming Renegades. However, this is mostly a [[fluff]] distinction, as the [[Codex]] (or the models for that matter) does not differentiate between the two.

CSM supplement their lack of more easily available loyalist resources (recruits, tech, supplies, etc.) by way of daemons and Warp energy from the dark Gods, plundered weapons from whoever is unlucky enough to lose an engagement to them, and renegades from the Imperium, which are always available because the Imperium [[Grimdark|treats its subjects like steampunk condoms]].

==Overview==
[[File:Black crusade by yogh art-d5bqzea.jpg|thumb|450px|left|Birds have not been so scary for 66 million years.]]
Chaos Space Marines are basically Imperial Space Marines who have forsaken their oath to the Imperium of Man to serve the Ruinous Powers, which is [[Heresy]]. Marines do this for a number of reasons, although the cause of this is usually finding that the ways of Chaos suit them more than the Imperium, or the classic case of the Imperium dicking them over (largely the case for post-heresy chapters).

The origins of Chaos Space Marines go back to [[Erebus]] of the Word Bearers, the first Chaos Marine, who then corrupted the recently-emotionally-discouraged Primarch [[Lorgar]] to Chaos. Erebus would then set into motion the events that would lead to Warmaster Horus being wounded on Davin's moon, where he would fall to the corruptions of Chaos. Horus, supreme Warmaster of the Imperium, would then gather [[Mortarion|<s>7</s>]] [[Omegon|8]] [[Konrad Curze|more]] [[Alpharius|of]] [[Angron|his]] [[Magnus the Red|distraught]] [[Perturabo|brother]] [[Fulgrim|Primarchs]] to his cause, along with a good fraction of Imperial forces and the Adeptus Mechanicus in full-scale rebellion, resulting in the Horus Heresy. [[Not as Planned|That didn't go so well]]. When Horus got roflstomped by the Emprah during their duel (at which point he was the only remaining traitor primarch that hadn't been [[Mortarian|banished]] [[Magnus the Red|into the]] [[Angron|warp]] [[Konrad Curze|or else]] [[Lorgar|simply]] [[Fulgrim|fucked off]] [[Perturabo|and went AWOL]]), most of the Traitors fled to the Eye of Terror because of the loss of leadership, resulting in what would be known as "Chaos Space Marines".

Naturally, they fight just like Space Marines except <s>on average they are stronger, more experienced, and older, given that the majority stood with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade</s> only worse because Mary Sues need punching bags. They keep using shit they were equipped with prior to the Horus Heresy such as [[bolter]]s and the ever useful Space Marine [[plot armor|plot]] [[pauldrons|armor]], which would explain why they didn't fistfuck each other to death before reaching the Eye of Terror, or why they would follow the lead of a particular [[Saturday]] [[Abaddon|morning cartoon villain]].

Chaos Marines are also commonly known to compensate their aging weapons (which didn't really age much, considering how fucktarded Imperium tech support is) by using demon magic for that extra edge in combat. Naturally they lack some of the weapons and [[Standard Template Construct|equipment Imperium "invented" (or rather dug up) for the last 10,000 years]], such as [[Razorback Transport|Razorbacks]], [[Centurion Squad|Centurion suits]], [[Autogun|assault cannons]] or [[Grav-Weaponry|grav guns]], and although they often get their hands on such pieces of tech (mostly by killing corpse-worshipers who own them), their Dark Mechanicum allies have few to zero spare parts and/or ammo for them, those trophies rarely last in use for a long time. The latter reason is also why Chaos Marines no longer use some of them more delicate and advanced tech like Land Speeder variants or Whirlwinds, which they definitely HAD before the Heresy - those things require just too much maintenance to fit into their more independent and chaotic combat doctrines.
[[File:1286933675792.jpg|400px|right|thumb|The eternal war rages on.]]

For all their powers from Chaos, however, most of them are nowhere nearly as organized as their loyalist counterparts. Turning to Chaos tends to drive Marines insane, usually causing them to lose much of the tactical prowess they had as loyalists. That said, organized legions like the Word Bearers, Thousand Sons, Iron Warriors, Death Guard (once they got their shit together), and Black Legion still remain much more of a competent military force than one might think. This is emphasized in the Black Legion novels, where the narrator has to explain to the freaking Inquisition, of all people, that the Chaos Legions don't have any dedicated supply lines, logistics, infrastructure, shipyards, independent manufacturing, or even the ability to feed their own forces. And since the Imperium can't effectively garrison every world (at least not without sacrificing the initiative on all fronts) the Chaos Space Marines still remain a great threat despite their shortcomings...

...though many of those problems were eventually solved as the Traitor Legions regained their Heresy-era numbers (or even more in some cases), and various industries were built or captured from the Imperium; the Idolator ship and two Planet Killers were made 100% from Chaos factories.

After all, the tree of heresy can grow from the smallest seed.

Different warbands of Chaos Space Marines are every bit as prone to fighting each other as they are anything else for any number of reasons; evil doesn't get along with evil, they're all nuts and just want to fight something, or the other warband worships a different Chaos god. Yeah, these guys are nuts. The phrase "the devil is not mocked", comes to mind, as was aptly conveyed by [[Alpharius]] during the height of the Horus Heresy. Infighting inside individual warbands is not unheard of, and their leaders always have to watch their back because every single Marine has hopes of killing their superiors and taking over. So yeah, if they didn't have the [[Eye of Terror]] to hide in and the Imperium wasn't so idiot-ball prone, it probably would have killed them by now. However, when they DO get their shit together, they fuck up the Imperium on a scale undreamed of by [[War of the Beast|almost]] every other race in Warhammer. See the Dominion of Fire or the Cholercaust Blood Crusade. '''GODDAMN IT, KHORNATE BERZERKERS ARE AWESOME.'''

They ''were'' the oldest fogies (or at least the ones from traitor legions are anyway) in the setting, barring the [[Eldar|space elves]], [[Bjorn the Fell Handed|that one angry viking dreadnought]] (who's about their age), the [[Necrons|Tomb King expys]] and maybe a few of the [[Tyranid|Omnivorous Space Bug Lizards things]] but now they've been retconned. CSM today may be some of the veterans from the Heresy or they could just be newfags that decided they were too cool for the Imperium. Fucking hell this is depressing.

Many Chaos Marines eventually dedicate themselves to one of the four [[Chaos Gods]], becoming little more than an extension of the god's will. This path has great risk and great reward, as the Chaos Gods are quite capricious; between two equally-dedicated champions, one will become a [[Chaos Spawn|horrific beast that should not be named]], whereas the other will achieve apotheosis and become a [[Daemon Prince]].

*'''[[Khorne|Khornate Champions]]:''' Those who worship Khorne (such as the [[World Eaters]] Traitor Legion) become close quarters badasses full of [[rage|RAAAAAAAAAGGGEEEE]]!. Khornate champions are among the best dedicated melee fighters in the setting. They are insane, ruthless, and barbaric, and continually lust after BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! Marines dedicated to Khorne are usually called [[Khorne Berzerkers]], after the Berzerkers of the World Eaters Legion, of whom [[Kharn]] (swell guy by the way) is the most famous. They are famed for their use of the [[chainaxe]] and their fucktastically fearless charges. They also get the best speeches. Although do note that Khornate followers are not all pure-CQC fighters, any weapon that spills blood in honorable combat like heavy weapons or vehicles is welcomed by Khorne. '''"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!! BUTTER FOR THE POP KHORNE!!"'''

*'''[[Nurgle|Nurglic Champions]]:''' These guys are rotting, diseased, decaying sacks of flesh who can take hits that would kill a squad of Terminators. They're something of a meat shield as far as Chaos is concerned (although not as much as [[Cornholio the Cultist|Chaos Cultists]]). They've contracted every disease in creation and then some. Despite looking like a bag of things best not described, Nurgle's followers won't hesitate to give you a big, long, family hug. D'awww. The [[Death Guard]] fell to Nurgle, but it wasn't really their fault.

*'''[[Slaanesh|Slaaneshi Champions]]:''' The followers of Slaanesh simply want to experience pleasure to the highest degree, most of which usually involves the euphoria gained from killing another person. Thus, Slaaneshi followers typically hype themselves up on drugs in order to intensify the sensations they experience, whether from sex or from slaughter. Slaaneshi Marines have taken so many drugs their bodies ''start to produce them normally.'' And yes, this is really canon. They also get penis fingers to give them the extra edge in combat (somehow) and hyperactive awareness, meaning that Slaaneshi followers typically move so fast that they're at par with Eldar reflexes. [[Doomrider]] is one of the most famous Slaaneshi champions (at least on /tg/), although he isn't from the [[Emperor's Children]], the Chaos Legion that fell to Slaanesh; [[Lucius the Eternal]], on the other hand, is.

*'''[[Tzeentch|Tzeentchian Champions]]:''' All followers of Tzeentch are tricky and conniving, and many of them are also powerful [[psyker]]s (as Tzeentch is the god of magic). Warriors under Tzeentch tend to rape anything in ranged combat with either enhanced weapons or SPACE MAGIC that would turn heroes into [[Chaos Spawn]], squa-'''GRAABBRLBLLRBLRLRBLR'''{{*BLAM*}}
**Ahem. To continue where the previous writer left off... squads of infantry into ash, and vehicles into puddles of molten goo. The [[Thousand Sons]] Legion is dedicated to Tzeentch; their (former) chief diviner, [[Ahriman]], is one of the better-known Tzeentchian sorcerers.

*'''[[Chaos Undivided|Undivided]]:''' Back in the good ol' days, Chaos Undivided was the concept of worshiping Chaos as a combined entity or pantheon. The [[Word Bearers]] were probably the most well-known worshippers of Chaos Undivided. Since then, it has been largely retconned; instead, Chaos Undivided refers to Chaos Marines with the support of all four Chaos gods... because apparently that's different somehow (the former is monotheistic worship of Chaos as though Chaos itself was a god, the latter is the worship of aspects of Chaos as separate deities). This has left the Word Bearers in something of a weird spot, as their core concept has been badly mangled. Although, this is not completely out of place: Undivided followers ''do'' have the support of all four Chaos Gods due to their doctrine, but because they don't swear complete servitude to one like what the [[Death Guard]] and [[World Eaters]] did, they don't receive the full power of each Chaos God either. This isn't a bad thing, though, as even at a glance it's easy to see how the gods of Chaos compliment each other when undivided. And undivided worshipers are usually not insane. Plus, the more you do to prove yourself to each god, the more benefits you get from each. It's a longer game than swearing yourself to just one, but the end benefits are larger as well. If you can survive long enough to reap your rewards. Most importantly, perhaps, is that the critical flaws of each of the four is balanced out by the others, so while you'll be a jack of all trades you aren't going to be a one-trick pony most of your enemies know how to counter. And you'll still have Chaos empowerment and the sanity to use it intelligently.

Note that many bands of Undivided Marines exploit Chaos for their own gain and feel little devotion to the Ruinous Powers, seeing it as no more than a tool for their goals. The [[Alpha Legion]], for instance, are closet loyalists (or double heretics, or triple heretics, or brothas doin' it for themselves, nobody knows), whereas the [[Night Lords]] Legion only cares about spreading terror, which Chaos is undoubtedly useful for, but they look down upon the religious. Similarly, the [[Soul Drinkers]], a Renegade Chapter with an entire book series, are enemies of both Chaos and the [[Imperium of Man]] (though they fight for the [[Emperor]]'s ideals; it's complicated, but likely has roots in the current Imperium being the antithesis or something akin to the [[Imperial Truth]]), although most in the Imperium would consider them "Chaos Marines."

*'''[[Malal|Malice]]:''' Way back when, [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] had a [[Chaos Gods#The_Other_Ones|minor Chaos God]] named Malal. Malal was a paradox, in that he is the embodiment of Chaos' chaotic behavior. His main goal was the spread of chaos (not the Warp energies, but actual chaos like anarchy and disruption) by screwing up the plans of the other Ruinous Powers, so he had dedicated Champions that hunted down other Chaos Champions and generally dicked over the Chaos Gods. However, [[Games Workshop]] had to remove him from the setting due to a trademark dispute with the author that invented him. In 40k, meanwhile, there's a warband called the [[Sons of Malice]] that hunt down other Chaos Marines and seem to worship a minor Chaos power named "Malice." This has led /tg/ to believe that Malal/Malice exists in 40k and can be invoked upon for power, although this is of dubious canonicity at best.

==The Traitor Legions==
[[File:Word Bearers by Chingonman.jpg|500px|right|thumb|When Space Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking, don't answer the door.]]
When the [[Horus Heresy]] struck, nine of the original twenty Legions turned against the [[Emprah]]. These guys are basically the original and the best. All of these survived the Siege of Terra and escaped into the [[Eye of Terror]] with a very large number of bodies (Space Marine legions frequently numbered up to 100,000 members by the time of the Heresy). Over time, they have become widely scattered, generally working in mixed warbands combining a variety of Traitor Legionnaires, Renegade Marines, and lesser humans (frequently rebellious Imperial Guard). However, it should be noted that quite a few Chaos Marines still fight as a Legion (generally drastically reduced in size) led by their original (now-Daemon) Primarch (if they're still alive, anyway). It's very rare to see more than a Grand Company (roughly equal in size to a Chapter of loyalist Marines) in any given battle unless it's an organized invasion (of which the most notable examples are the Black Crusades led by a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]]), the Legion's Primarch himself calls them to fuck some shit up, or you're dealing with the Word Bearers or Iron Warriors, who are generally more organized than anybody else. The following are the nine Traitor Legions:

*[[Emperor's Children]]: Also known as pretty marines, their Primarch is [[Fulgrim]], who is now <s>a painting</s> getting his serpentine dick sucked by a swarm of daemonettes on his pleasure planet. <s>possibly still a painting</s> They don't operate as a Legion at all anymore, mostly because [[Kharn]] and the slave wars kinda fucked all their shit up. Anyway, they were basically OCD hyper-perfectionists that also really liked to party. They got ever-more hedonistic, attracted the attention of [[Slaanesh]], and the rest is history. Their Cult unit is the [[Noise Marines]], which are (as their name implies) Chaos Marines that like to kill people with noise. This used to mean sweet heavy-metal guitars, but GW retconned that, so now they have less-impressive (but still cool) <s>bass cannons</s> sonic cannons.

*[[Iron Warriors]]: The evil twins of the [[Imperial Fists]], they really like to build shit and then tear (somebody else's) shit down. In other words, they are masters of siege warfare (basically, rooting out cover-camping bitches). Their Primarch is [[Perturabo]]. They're generally the second most coherent of the Traitor Legions, retaining most of their pre-Heresy organization and numbers, although their great companies are generally independent and only answer to Perturabo himself, who on his part doesn't give a fuck and let them fight each other just for lulz. Also, they probably created the [[Obliterator|Obliterator Virus]], seeing as how they seem to have special connections with the Obliterator Cult. Sadly, they can no longer take [[Basilisk|Basilisks]] and don't have any special rules or Cult units (seeing as how that was quite broken back in 3rd), but GW did throw them a bone in the new book with the [[Warpsmith]] (not to be confused with a [[Warsmith]], which is also Iron Warriors-related). One of their noted leaders is [[Honsou]], a Warsmith in the running for "evilest villain."

*[[Night Lords]]: Their Primarch was [[Konrad Curze]] (also known as the Night Haunter). They're basically space-terrorists, which (unsurprisingly) means they created Raptors, the sociopathic, predatory answer to the loyalists' Assault Marines. They prefer ambush tactics, which is quite difficult when you're walking around in Power Amour and wearing stupid bat-wing helmets. They also like screaming like maniacs to cause terror. They are one of the few legions (in fact, pretty much the only one) who refuse to employ Daemons or live in the Eye of Terror. (Well, at least the warbands that remained loyal to Kurze's vision. The biggest extant warband worships Chaos and is lead by a Daemon Prince.) They're one of the few Traitor Legion that has a dead Primarch, on account of Curze's desire to go down in a fucked up version of suicide by cop to vindicate his obsessive belief that monsters and criminals should be put down like rabid dogs.

*[[World Eaters]]: [[Angron]]- Dissolved after [[Kharn]] turned the legion against themselves, what a guy. Now acting as roaming warbands and mercenaries. They still unite every now and then when Angron wants to fuck something's shit up, such as [[Cadia]]. The <s>only</s> legion known to get shit done when called up to do so.

*[[Death Guard]]: [[Mortarion]] - Didn't show up much in the fluff until the release of the Death Guard codex, though plague marines and champions can be found in many other warbands and, next to world-eater berserkers, are the most common cult unit. Also before Thirteenth Black Crusade Typhus's Plague Fleet kicked major ass in systems all around the Eye of Terror, turning entire planetary populations into zombies. As of 8th edition, they are now their own separate army. Oh, and Mortarion has returned, and his model is [[skub|controversial in terms of appearance]]. They also possess a planet known as the "Plague Planet".

*[[Thousand Sons]]: [[Magnus the Red]] - Another legion that doesn't show up much at all in fluff after the Horus Heresy and [[Rubric Marines|rubric marines]] don't show up much in other legions' warbands and most warbands use their own sorcerers. Except for [[Ahriman]]; Ahriman goes out trolling the Harlequins and those few [[Inquisitor]]s. Ahriman also does this because Tzeentch likes dicking Magnus over in his passive-aggressive way. Fluff-wise, Thousand Sons walk through the Universe, searching for knowledge like ancient books and artifacts to research and nerd out in their libraries, and magicking the shit out of anyone stupid or bold enough to stand on their way. Being smart and cunning motherfuckers they fight only where it really needed and only on their own terms (read: very rarely). Have recently succeeded in fucking up the Fenris furries with Big-Red leading them. And are now their own army and range of models, including a giant daemon version of Magnus with wings.

*[[Black Legion]]: [[Horus]] (kind of) - Originally called the Luna Wolves and then the Sons of Horus, though Abaddon formally disbanded the Legion and used its assets and whatever ragtag allies he had as the foundation of the Black Legion. Unites every now and then when Abaddon wants to launch another Black Crusade. It's honestly a miracle they survived this long, seriously if you look at their battles and losses it really makes no sense how they managed to live long enough to become the Black Legion, let alone the wars after. Known for calling black crusades, massive chaos invasions that consist untold numbers of chaos space marines (provided there's an ass to pull them out of), daemons, and general renegades and heretics all working together to try and tear the Imperium a new asshole. They are the largest legion by far, stated to outnumber the Word Bearers ten to one, namely because Abaddon preys on the other Legions and lures their troops into his own. Unfortunately, they have no real central command structure outside of a Black Crusade, and even then Abaddon can't keep the Legion's shit together for very long before they start breaking off every which way in search of a fight, usually getting slaughtered not long afterward.

*[[Word Bearers]]: [[Lorgar]] - The only Traitor Legion to have retained its Chaplains, who would later become the first [[Dark Apostle]]s, who can often lead a Word Bearers' Warband in the place of a Chaos Lord or Champion. They're one of the more organized and complete legions as they have a central daemon world of their own named "Sicarus". Sicarus is covered in dozens of temples and cathedrals devoted to Chaos. The Word Bearers are still united under the banner of their Primarch: Lorgar (even if the lazy bastard never does anything these days but sit around doing nothing). The most coherent after the Iron Warriors, seen as their great companies (or Hosts, as they call them) are still working together under the watchful eye of the Dark Council.

*<s>[[Alpha Legion]]: [[Alpharius]]/[[Omegon]]</s>- No such Legion or Primarchs exists, further speculation on this issue is [[heresy]] and will result in execution. Said non-existent Legion has never trolled the Imperium for the last 10,000 years by faking the death of every member, any idea to the contrary is [[HERESY]]. Also, masters of <s>sneaking around undetected</s> fucking their enemies' brains with multi-step Just As Planned schemes, that aren't overly complicated or lack the fallback plans (unlike Thousand Sons ones). In fact, their fallback-fallback plans usually have their own fallback plans just in case. Pretty much everything Imperium knows about them is a lie, suspected to be one, or a truth no one believes in since it looks like a lie.

Naturally, [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists|not everyone turned traitors]].

=== Renegades ===
The legions of old are not the only source of Chaos Space Marines, with the fluff no longer being clear on whether they even are the largest source anymore. It's either the traitor legions or the Ultramarines who have produced the most Chaos Marines and renegade Chapters. Loyalist marines get turned to Chaos like all the time (well, okay, it's actually pretty rare considering the limited numbers of Space Marines, but significant enough). Most often it's just a few individual marines or squads, sometimes going as far as entire companies, and rarely (but not rarely enough) entire chapters turn to Chaos. Sometimes it's the Imperium's own fault for turning initially loyal marines against the system due to a misunderstanding or an overzealous Inquisitor declaring them heretics and the new 'renegades' then realize that since no matter what they do they'll be viewed as traitors by the Imperium, they may as well become traitors in reality. Sometimes, like with the [[Abyssal Crusade]], it's a case of [[just as planned]] succeeding so hard Tzeentch isn't even miffed that particular plot gets tied up. Other times, marines "caught" some Chaos taint due to fighting Chaos too much without proper Librarian control (bonus points if Librarians themselves get corrupted), committing terrible crimes in their fights against Ruinous Powers, or trying to fight Chaos with Chaos, like the [[Relictors]]. And finally, a Chapters' own flaws in temperament may leave them all too easily manipulated into bringing their damnation upon themselves.

What is the most surprising, is that shit still happens despite loyalist marines being heavily brainwashed, even more than Death Korps of Krieg or Sisters of Battle (both of which are famous for having close to zero Chaos corruption rate). More so, marines even have a specific organ, to make them even more brainwashable. Some speculate the reason behind this is just Astartes longevity - after all SoBs and Kriegers didn't get continuously exposed to Ruinous Powers for hundreds of years. Others say that marines are just naturally susceptible to corruption, which makes sense if you believe the story daemons tell: that Primarchs were made with the help of The Four, and were given their power to make them something more than just genetically engineered humans. A theory from 30k states that the reason Marines are more easily turned to Chaos is that Marines naturally are fanatical in almost anything they do, and when feeling scolded by the very thing they are fanatical about it makes them do a full 180" to worship something else instead. This is what happened to the [[Word Bearers]], and most modern-day Marines are <s>at least as religious as the Word Bearers were before the Horus Heresy</s> either atheist or view the Emperor as a sort of Living Saint. Marines that worship anything are rare and looked upon as oddballs by the rest of the Adeptus Astartes. Usually it's whole Chapters rather than individuals that do it. Being Space Marines are highly valued by Chaos, they might simply be singled out for dedicated attempts to corrupt them whereas even Sisters of Battle are basically ignored and either get corrupted the same way as Guardsmen or not at all because Chaos doesn't care about them. It does care about Astartes.

ADB once said that Abaddon embodies the old Biblical thing about Satan refusing to bow down to man, and this might be applied to most Chaos Space Marines. Space Marines are expected to give their whole lives - centuries (if not millennia) and sometimes even [[Dreadnought|beyond that]] - to war, so that ordinary humans, most of whom will never have to fight for their lives, can live in relative comfort. Unsurprisingly many Space Marines do resent this on some level, although regular indoctrination helps them cope with that particular feeling by redirecting it toward xenos/heretics in [[rip and tear|a more productive way]]. It has been suggested that Marines genuinely treating mortals with respect are probably in the minority, though, and then along comes a Word Bearer talking about these gods who will set them free, who'll make them the masters instead of the servants... Despite the nigh-constant indoctrination, these words don't always fall on deaf ears. Which is still really weird since the Astartes voluntarily ''chose'' their life barring the rare Chapter that conscripts/kidnaps aspirants. Sure, they might change their mind over time, but they didn't go through all those trials and hardships and training just to decide it wasn't worthwhile after all.

Renegades also have rather divergent attitudes to the Traitor Primarchs. Some venerate them as the Daemonic overlords that they are. Others wonder why everyone seems to fanboy themselves over beings who "lived" thousands of years ago and even then only for a few verifiable centuries before vanishing up their own arses to sit out the wars that the renegade has potentially been fighting for far longer than the Primarchs were ever alive for.

No matter the true reason behind, this shit happens, and from one retcon to another after-Heresy chapter renegades become more and more prevalent to the point that they could actually outnumber the old Legions, even if the Black Legion isn't shy about inducting any who is willing to join and swear fealty to [[Abaddon]] amongst their ranks.

Although, "Renegade" is also used to refer to non-Chaos aligned Astartes and other rogue but non-Chaos forces. They aren't generally against the Imperium, either. At worst just pirating as needed to survive and little else but it isn’t uncommon for them to (futilely) trying to find absolution or [[Soul Drinkers|just ignoring their own expulsion and continuing to serve as usual]]. Which is hilarious.

==A "Meta-History" of Sorts==
I suppose we should [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|start at the beginning]]? So, back in the day, Chaos introduced in the tome Slaves To Darkness, which was effectively an expansion to Rogue Trader. That's right,
the original 40k didn't have Chaos, although it did have Warp Demons. In the original Rogue Trader narrative, the Emperor was encased in the Golden Throne because he was thousands of years old and he needed life force from psykers in order to survive. Once Slaves to Darkness and its sister book Lost and the Damned were introduced, it was revealed that there was this event called the Horus Heresy, and Horus was a primarch that rebelled and nearly killed the Emperor. Talk about a pretty hefty background update!

Crunchwise, the CSM were just marines with some different wargear selection, as well as the ability to get Chaos mutations. It gets really confusing from there (Can you say, D1000 chart with 100+ mutations?) so the less said about the First Edition days, the better. The first, most important thing to remember is that Chaos was effectively a WHFB expy, so it included beastmen, daemons and renegades [[Awesome|all rolled into one]].

===2nd Ed: First Age of Whoop-Ass===
Hoo-boy... I want you to picture it, if you can, a codex wherein Chaos Lords had no stats under 5, daemons could be freely taken in any FO slot (or the equivalent for 2nd Ed) and everything, ''everything'' could push a loyalist's shit in. The CSM received a promotion in the fluff to primary antagonists after getting retconned into the reason as to why the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne (via Horus traitorous ways and that mortal wound). Those were the days of 2nd edition; that's when Chaos was a unified front led by an interesting character on a 10,000 year quest for bloody vengeance. These were the days when a [[Bloodthirster]] would use an [[Avatar]] as a speedbump, and yet the only trump against CSM were the Eldar (And to a lesser extent the Tyranids when they evolved beyond Genestealer cults). Your characters could equip a Bloodletter's sword if you so chose to do so, as well as Chaos Terminator armour that could save on a 2d6 roll of 2+. Noise Marines, Thousand Sons, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines all got their start here, and they started out as ''Troops'' (or rather, their second ed equivalent). You could also take [[Foulspawn]], a special character Nurgle [[Chaos Spawn|Thing]]/[[Daemon Prince]] with 19 wounds (!) that stole wounds from his kills and could regenerate lost wounds every turn. And guess what? You could field beasts, renegades and daemons in your army. It was also possible to give Chaos Marines equipment and vehicles that only their loyalist equivalents get nowadays (including [[Dude, Where's my Land Speeder?|assault cannons, storm bolters, cyclone missile launchers, and various support vehicles]]), in order to accurately represent the equipment used by Renegades from later Foundings. However, they had to pay an extra 50% traitor tax in order to take them.

Yeah, it sounds fucking insane and the coolest thing ever, and it was. Arguably, things were a bit nascent because in spite of all the other extras, they were still very much just space marines with other armies rolled into it. They had the same stats and many of the same rules and wargear as their loyalist counterparts.

===3rd Ed: Roller Coaster into [[Awesome]]===
Third edition started by screwing everyone: the rules were fucked up to try and shift the balance of power towards infantry and away from characters (so sayeth GW, anyway). Regardless, this is one of a few times that GW actually dialed back the power creep inherent in their game systems to such a degree that all existing armies got hosed (worst of all, Eldar) and CSM were no exception. The Codex pumped out was a hackneyed shadow of its former self that needed constant reference checks to the main rules because all the rules for your stuff got printed there instead of your codex. This first release however brought about the much-loved [[Obliterators]], [[Possessed]] and [[Raptors]] and GW did make rules for entire cult armies available for download on their website at the time, which was a thing GW used to do.

Halfway through its life-cycle, GW introduced [[Tau]] and [[Necrons]], breaking the game with [[Fish of Fury]] and just simply existing, respectively. [[List of 40K Cheese|In the midst of this renewed cheese surge, the CSM got a second lease on life]], cranking their competitiveness to second place behind the dreaded third ed 'crons. These were the days of the 200+ point CSM lord that could out-punch fucking ANYTHING! We're talking about a wargear sheet noticeably larger than any other faction, which also included the curious ability to make your aspiring champions psykers. You could load up a squad with stacks of veteran skills, sneaking them into position, moving through cover and then finishing with a furious charge. [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets its big introduction as a monstrous creature AND a walker! These were the days when you ''bought'' as opposed to rolled for the powers your Possessed had; where you could dedicate vehicles to the Gods, and that gave you certain options (thus creating the Sonic Dreadnought... and Predator). You could take a Slaaneshi psyker and give him and his unit immunity from shooting attacks with a well rolled minor psychic power. Best of all, these were the days of fielding Traitor Legions - ridiculously unbalanced lists that would either fall flat on their faces and cost way too much (Thousand Sons) or tear the fucking table in half (Iron Warriors).

Games Workshop tried valiantly to dial back the cheese by releasing Imperial Assassins, Daemonhunters and Witchhunters but once the Eye of Terror campaign hit and the official (and also cheesy) Lost and the Damned rules were out, third ed was firmly [[Cultist-chan|captoored by chaoz.]]

===4th Ed: The Sudden Betrayal===
That rat-bastard, pointy-eared fuck! In 4th ed, [[Gav Thorpe]] raped Chaos and left her to die in a fucking gutter. Those broken-as-hell traitor legions lists? Instead of fixing them for players that liked the other legions, they were removed. Veteran skills? Gone. Wargear? Toast. Lost and the Damned? More like "lost-a la vista," amirite. Daemons? Worst of all, Thorpe figured they needed their own, super-shitty codex. CSM players were ''pissed'' at the "streamlining" their armies got, but they endured it because at the time there were a few nifty silver linings. You could still technically have your cult army/legion/whatever and they were all not bad; that is to say the codex was at least internally balanced. During this time, the Eldar got pumped from worse than last place to playable, Tyranids got an update that was fair as well, Fish of Fury got pulled from the Tau Codex and the loyalists got a decent buff in the 4th ed SM codices. Nothing spectacular, but everything felt fair; it felt like we could have fun with each other and save our bitter sniping for the rightly-deserving Necron players and their totes OP 3E rules. For a brief period of time, the rules system was stable and there was hope that this trend might continue...

===5th Ed: Abandon (the Despoiler) Ship!===
[[Matt Ward|And then this happened.]] GW, in a moment of clarity and business acumen, summoned Matt Ward from the pit to turn the 40K metagame on its larynx through its asshole to promote sales of their most popular line, Space Marines. [[Dawn of War]] had just come out and Relic/THQ made the Space Marines really good (and Imperial Guard, and Eldar, [[Dawn of Eldar|especially the Eldar]] but they would have to wait until 6E to get their cheese on). CSM didn't get a release in this edition because GW decided instead to dedicate their time to fanboy service while throwing a bone to the Dark Eldar and Orks. This was when the 4th ed. rules were used to create the well-known CSM mono-build for 5th ed (Lash Prince, Plague Marines, Termicide, Obliterators and ''maybe'' a Chosen squad for guiding deep strikes). However, once the 5th ed Grey Knights landed, Chaos was truly on its ass. These were the days all the jokes made against Chaos finally made it to the internets and the forces of Chaos shifted from that terrifying adversary feared across the galaxy to the Imperium's punching bag ''du jour''. Many were the veteran players who simply left in disgust.

===6th Ed: A New NOPE!===
Rumours started pouring in furiously when 6th ed was nearing release. Close combat will have AP values? Oooo! What's this - CSM will be the first codex out the gate? Hot damn! New models? BITCHIN'! Revamped rules to finally reclaim some of the fucking glory we lost in the last two goddamn editions? Hallelujah!

So, 2013 has come and gone along with that release and I think we can all say how disappointing that truly was. Of the few bright spots was [[Helldrake|a new flyer with a *AHEM* ''gigantic exhaust port'']]. ("Gaze into the Eye of Terror!" and "Glory to the Goatse of Chaos!" were only some of the reactions.) Many lulz were enjoyed by /tg/ of its... ahem, questionable design aesthetics. This however says nothing of the fact that crunch-wise it is arguably the cheesiest flyer in all of 6th ed - praise the dark gods, indeed?

Aside from the Heldrakes however, the codex had a lot of questionable design choices. Well, not really because there was a lot of dead weight and questionable mechanic design in that book; unlike their loyalist counterparts, the Chaos Army could not properly run MSU builds, since "all its shooting" was in the Heavy Support section, and "all of its speed" was in the Fast Attack section; this contrasted drastically with Marines being able to do ranged threats in their entire FOC via Rifleman Dreadnoughts, Sternguard, Land Speeders and Razorbacks, or their ability to apply pressure via Bike Troops & Drop Pods. In theory, 6th edition was supposed to compensate for this overspecialization by doubling FOCs at 2000 points, [[Rage|but most tournaments ran at either 1850 points or "1999+1 points"]].

Speaking to questionable design, [[Mutilators]] and [[Warp Talons]] reeked of lazy design, while mathhammer and an emphasis on "disembarked troops" holding objectives meant that many tournament armies became little more than a tide of Cultists and Heldrakes, leading to a paradoxical consensus that the [[fail|best way to with with Chaos Space Marines was to not actually take any Chaos Space Marines]]. [[Rage|Needless to say, this did not go well with many players]].

When it comes to the traitor marines themselves, /tg/'s opinions were divided. Some praised the new design for its focus on intricate trims and warp-induced mutations (eyes, tentacles), whereas others disliked it for its lack of [[Grimdark]], claiming it looked too cartoonish and too playful. Crunchwise, as if we haven't said it enough, this book was well and truly fucked. We really tried to like it, but any list that requires supplements and/or Forgeworld models/books to fill strategic gaps in the codex is a pretty bad list.

===7th Ed: What the Fuck is this even===
Chaos Space Marines played similar to their loyalist counterparts, having access to most of the same wargear and vehicles, plus some unique stuff at the expense of all the stuff that makes loyalists remotely useful in a (completely vain) attempt to play up the [[RIP AND TEAR]] side in an edition favouring shooting. They have some of the same strengths and amplified weaknesses, expensive-to-overpriced units, are easily often outnumbered, but overall, they tend to play too aggressively to the point of carelessness. Thanks to all this nerf-slapping, their ranking amongst armies has tanked from the notably OP 3.5 days; the codex and army have since fallen into decline due to progressively weaker books in favour of the worst kind of fan-service for a handful of factions. CSM did get a release in the form of Khorne Daemonkin, but it just blended two books together with some new rules and wargear instead of fixing glaring problems with the units in them; they ''were'' weak due to their garbled 6E codex. Fortunately, 7E has been putting the screws to every single Codex released in 5th Ed while GW releases an unrelenting tide of half-assed pseudo-codices that don't even cover an FOC while adding bullshit mechanics like grav-spam, decurions or buffing the Eldar sky-high.

That lasted until the release of the Traitor Legions supplement. With the release of the supplement, CSM got legion specific buffs and abilites, for Fluffy builds. For example, Alpha Legion armies can't have any marks, but they get to pass on their warlord trait to a friendly character if the current warlord dies. Night Lords get Raptors as core, Iron Warriors get [[Derp|Mutilators]] and [[Awesome|Obliterators]], Word Bearers get Possessed, and so on. Ironically, it's now better to take Khorne CSM over berserkers, because they're basically the same unit, but one is cheaper. Overall, Death Guard and Emperor's Children seem to be the best options at the moment, followed by the Alpha Legion. Basic Emperor's Children marines with Icon of excess are 190 pts for a 10 man squad of initiative 5 marines, with 4+ FNP, Fearless, and a roll on the combat drug table, which can give them +1 WS, BS, S, T, A, I. Death Guard Marines, meanwhile, are incredible also (Likely even better than the EC ones), 170 pts for a 10 man squad of toughness 5 marines with 5+ FNP and fearless but with a -1 to initiative. Iron Warriors, while initially derided, can bring three pairs of Tank Hunter Obliterators and three Twinlinked Vindicators at 1850 points, with a team or two of fortification-camping, Fearless, Tank Hunter, ObSec Autocannon Havocs.

For the second half of 7th ed, it was safe to say that CSM were solid again. Could every Legion deal with Scatbike spam, Crisis/Markerlight shenanigans, or free DTs easily? Not exactly. But World Eaters could get to melee faster than anyone else. Black Legion could pull crazy alpha strikes and use 13-point marines with Rage, Counter-Attack, +1 strength if the charge roll is 8+, Ld9 (10 on the champ), Crusader, Fear, and Hatred (with permanent re-rolls to hit against Imperium). So we might not be quite as good as [[Cheese|Craftworld Eldar]], grav-spamming [[Smashfucker]] Loyalists or Guard and their absurd amounts of ordnance but CSM could fuck up the mid-tier Tau, Mechanicum and Necrons with ease again (the less said about the benighted Nids, Deldar and Orks the better; don't ask about the Sisters). We're calling that a result! It seems someone understood the risk-reward paradigm of the CSM (the risk in putting your eggs in a basket that would either collapse or rip and tear your opponent).

... and then 7th ed. ended. A minor loss but thank god that's over!

===8th Ed: Time to hope once again?===
The Traitor Legions book was a decent step forward in the era of 7th edition and 8th edition was certainly full of changes. Traitor lists largely remained although they were nowhere near as wild as the last edition. Thankfully, a lot of the garbage from 6th and 7th has been thrown out with them. No more "randomness because Chaos, guys!" as pretty much ''all'' the random tables from all over 7th are scrapped as are the Decurions. This is a big step forward although a curious step into the mists of time, harkening back to 2nd.

For a moment, CSM could still ally seamlessly with Daemons and Renegades until GW patched out soup lists. There were some issues with the index but Vigilius Ablaze brought us new units and models, which then found their way into the Codex. Said book not only patched the problems with the index, but added Legion Traits that help the Traitor Legions excel in their fluff-based specialties. The Thousand Sons and Death Guard also received their own Codexes with their own special flavor of nastiness.

===9th Ed: The Galaxy Ablaze Once Again===
Things are getting HOT! There's a new codex around the corner with updates to Death Guard and Thousand Sons. CSM are slated for a release in early 2022. Which is good because our book is old and NOT doing well. In fact [[RAGE|GW has failed to FAQ Chaos Marines to 2 Wounds yet]] (They are waiting for the codex). However their new previewed datasheet points to them having better stats than [[Awesome|Primaris Marines.]] They are slated for a new range of models including a variety of cultists and chaos marine models. Shit, it looks like Renegades and Heretics got rolled into the CSM book, so that's interesting.

==See Also==
*[[Warriors of Chaos]]: The much <s>more competent</s> <s>useful</s> less punching bag counterparts to the Chaos Marines in Warhammer Fantasy, at least until the Age of Sigmar took hold.
**[[Chaos Warrior|Chaos Warriors]]: each member of this parade of ruin.
*[[Chaos Space Marine Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Chaos Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (9E)|Tactics on how to play them.]]
*[[What it's like]]: A short story meant to place emphasis the uncertainty of the life of a chaos space marine.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:1227181112539.jpg|The Typical Chaos Space Marine
File:1174923365695wq1vj1.png|The dreaded [[Night Lords]] preparing an ambush
File:Emperor s Children by megalaros.jpg|Slaaneshi noise marine. Because words can kill.
File:Lcw.jpg|[[Imperium|They]] think that corpse on a throne is a god!
File:Firstkeeper.jpg|Change we can believe in!
</gallery>

{{Chaos-Official}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{WH40k-Factions}}

Chaos Space Marines

2022-10-19T05:05:21Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Overview */

{{heresy}}
{{Topquote|And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say: "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with [[Black Legion|sword]], and with [[World Eaters|hunger]], and with [[Death Guard|death]], and with [[Chaos Spawn|the beasts of the earth.]]|Revelation 6:8}}

{{Topquote|The treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel.|Brenna Yovanoff}}
[[File:Crimson Slaughter Chaos Marine ukitakumuki.jpg|thumb|500px|right|Chaos up in this motherfucker.]]

'''Chaos Space Marines''' (also known as '''Heretic Astartes''' and '''Astartes Traitoris''') are, simply enough, [[Space Marines]] that have fallen to, or were inducted to, [[Chaos]]. They are also one of the main factions in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. The first Chaos Marines were born during the [[Horus Heresy]] from the nine [[Traitor Legion]]s. Since then, many Space Marines (and even a few full [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapters]]) have gone rogue, becoming Renegades. However, this is mostly a [[fluff]] distinction, as the [[Codex]] (or the models for that matter) does not differentiate between the two.

CSM supplement their lack of more easily available loyalist resources (recruits, tech, supplies, etc.) by way of daemons and Warp energy from the dark Gods, plundered weapons from whoever is unlucky enough to lose an engagement to them, and renegades from the Imperium, which are always available because the Imperium [[Grimdark|treats its subjects like steampunk condoms]].

==Overview==
[[File:Black crusade by yogh art-d5bqzea.jpg|thumb|450px|left|Birds have not been so scary for 66 million years.]]
Chaos Space Marines are basically Imperial Space Marines who have forsaken their oath to the Imperium of Man to serve the Ruinous Powers, which is [[Heresy]]. Marines do this for a number of reasons, although the cause of this is usually finding that the ways of Chaos suit them more than the Imperium, or the classic case of the Imperium dicking them over (largely the case for post-heresy chapters).

The origins of Chaos Space Marines go back to [[Erebus]] of the Word Bearers, the first Chaos Marine, who then corrupted the recently-emotionally-discouraged Primarch [[Lorgar]] to Chaos. Erebus would then set into motion the events that would lead to Warmaster Horus being wounded on Davin's moon, where he would fall to the corruptions of Chaos. Horus, supreme Warmaster of the Imperium, would then gather [[Mortarion|<s>7</s>]] [[Omegon|8]] [[Konrad Curze|more]] [[Alpharius|of]] [[Angron|his]] [[Magnus the Red|distraught]] [[Perturabo|brother]] [[Fulgrim|Primarchs]] to his cause, along with a good fraction of Imperial forces and the Adeptus Mechanicus in full-scale rebellion, resulting in the Horus Heresy. [[Not as Planned|That didn't go so well]]. When Horus got roflstomped by the Emprah during their duel (at which point he was the only remaining traitor primarch that hadn't been [[Mortarian|banished]] [[Magnus the Red|into the]] [[Angron|warp]] [[Konrad Curze|or else]] [[Lorgar|simply]] [[Fulgrim|fucked off]] [[Perturabo|and went AWOL]], most of the Traitors fled to the Eye of Terror because of the loss of leadership, resulting in what would be known as "Chaos Space Marines".

Naturally, they fight just like Space Marines except <s>on average they are stronger, more experienced, and older, given that the majority stood with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade</s> only worse because Mary Sues need punching bags. They keep using shit they were equipped with prior to the Horus Heresy such as [[bolter]]s and the ever useful Space Marine [[plot armor|plot]] [[pauldrons|armor]], which would explain why they didn't fistfuck each other to death before reaching the Eye of Terror, or why they would follow the lead of a particular [[Saturday]] [[Abaddon|morning cartoon villain]].

Chaos Marines are also commonly known to compensate their aging weapons (which didn't really age much, considering how fucktarded Imperium tech support is) by using demon magic for that extra edge in combat. Naturally they lack some of the weapons and [[Standard Template Construct|equipment Imperium "invented" (or rather dug up) for the last 10,000 years]], such as [[Razorback Transport|Razorbacks]], [[Centurion Squad|Centurion suits]], [[Autogun|assault cannons]] or [[Grav-Weaponry|grav guns]], and although they often get their hands on such pieces of tech (mostly by killing corpse-worshipers who own them), their Dark Mechanicum allies have few to zero spare parts and/or ammo for them, those trophies rarely last in use for a long time. The latter reason is also why Chaos Marines no longer use some of them more delicate and advanced tech like Land Speeder variants or Whirlwinds, which they definitely HAD before the Heresy - those things require just too much maintenance to fit into their more independent and chaotic combat doctrines.
[[File:1286933675792.jpg|400px|right|thumb|The eternal war rages on.]]

For all their powers from Chaos, however, most of them are nowhere nearly as organized as their loyalist counterparts. Turning to Chaos tends to drive Marines insane, usually causing them to lose much of the tactical prowess they had as loyalists. That said, organized legions like the Word Bearers, Thousand Sons, Iron Warriors, Death Guard (once they got their shit together), and Black Legion still remain much more of a competent military force than one might think. This is emphasized in the Black Legion novels, where the narrator has to explain to the freaking Inquisition, of all people, that the Chaos Legions don't have any dedicated supply lines, logistics, infrastructure, shipyards, independent manufacturing, or even the ability to feed their own forces. And since the Imperium can't effectively garrison every world (at least not without sacrificing the initiative on all fronts) the Chaos Space Marines still remain a great threat despite their shortcomings...

...though many of those problems were eventually solved as the Traitor Legions regained their Heresy-era numbers (or even more in some cases), and various industries were built or captured from the Imperium; the Idolator ship and two Planet Killers were made 100% from Chaos factories.

After all, the tree of heresy can grow from the smallest seed.

Different warbands of Chaos Space Marines are every bit as prone to fighting each other as they are anything else for any number of reasons; evil doesn't get along with evil, they're all nuts and just want to fight something, or the other warband worships a different Chaos god. Yeah, these guys are nuts. The phrase "the devil is not mocked", comes to mind, as was aptly conveyed by [[Alpharius]] during the height of the Horus Heresy. Infighting inside individual warbands is not unheard of, and their leaders always have to watch their back because every single Marine has hopes of killing their superiors and taking over. So yeah, if they didn't have the [[Eye of Terror]] to hide in and the Imperium wasn't so idiot-ball prone, it probably would have killed them by now. However, when they DO get their shit together, they fuck up the Imperium on a scale undreamed of by [[War of the Beast|almost]] every other race in Warhammer. See the Dominion of Fire or the Cholercaust Blood Crusade. '''GODDAMN IT, KHORNATE BERZERKERS ARE AWESOME.'''

They ''were'' the oldest fogies (or at least the ones from traitor legions are anyway) in the setting, barring the [[Eldar|space elves]], [[Bjorn the Fell Handed|that one angry viking dreadnought]] (who's about their age), the [[Necrons|Tomb King expys]] and maybe a few of the [[Tyranid|Omnivorous Space Bug Lizards things]] but now they've been retconned. CSM today may be some of the veterans from the Heresy or they could just be newfags that decided they were too cool for the Imperium. Fucking hell this is depressing.

Many Chaos Marines eventually dedicate themselves to one of the four [[Chaos Gods]], becoming little more than an extension of the god's will. This path has great risk and great reward, as the Chaos Gods are quite capricious; between two equally-dedicated champions, one will become a [[Chaos Spawn|horrific beast that should not be named]], whereas the other will achieve apotheosis and become a [[Daemon Prince]].

*'''[[Khorne|Khornate Champions]]:''' Those who worship Khorne (such as the [[World Eaters]] Traitor Legion) become close quarters badasses full of [[rage|RAAAAAAAAAGGGEEEE]]!. Khornate champions are among the best dedicated melee fighters in the setting. They are insane, ruthless, and barbaric, and continually lust after BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! Marines dedicated to Khorne are usually called [[Khorne Berzerkers]], after the Berzerkers of the World Eaters Legion, of whom [[Kharn]] (swell guy by the way) is the most famous. They are famed for their use of the [[chainaxe]] and their fucktastically fearless charges. They also get the best speeches. Although do note that Khornate followers are not all pure-CQC fighters, any weapon that spills blood in honorable combat like heavy weapons or vehicles is welcomed by Khorne. '''"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!! BUTTER FOR THE POP KHORNE!!"'''

*'''[[Nurgle|Nurglic Champions]]:''' These guys are rotting, diseased, decaying sacks of flesh who can take hits that would kill a squad of Terminators. They're something of a meat shield as far as Chaos is concerned (although not as much as [[Cornholio the Cultist|Chaos Cultists]]). They've contracted every disease in creation and then some. Despite looking like a bag of things best not described, Nurgle's followers won't hesitate to give you a big, long, family hug. D'awww. The [[Death Guard]] fell to Nurgle, but it wasn't really their fault.

*'''[[Slaanesh|Slaaneshi Champions]]:''' The followers of Slaanesh simply want to experience pleasure to the highest degree, most of which usually involves the euphoria gained from killing another person. Thus, Slaaneshi followers typically hype themselves up on drugs in order to intensify the sensations they experience, whether from sex or from slaughter. Slaaneshi Marines have taken so many drugs their bodies ''start to produce them normally.'' And yes, this is really canon. They also get penis fingers to give them the extra edge in combat (somehow) and hyperactive awareness, meaning that Slaaneshi followers typically move so fast that they're at par with Eldar reflexes. [[Doomrider]] is one of the most famous Slaaneshi champions (at least on /tg/), although he isn't from the [[Emperor's Children]], the Chaos Legion that fell to Slaanesh; [[Lucius the Eternal]], on the other hand, is.

*'''[[Tzeentch|Tzeentchian Champions]]:''' All followers of Tzeentch are tricky and conniving, and many of them are also powerful [[psyker]]s (as Tzeentch is the god of magic). Warriors under Tzeentch tend to rape anything in ranged combat with either enhanced weapons or SPACE MAGIC that would turn heroes into [[Chaos Spawn]], squa-'''GRAABBRLBLLRBLRLRBLR'''{{*BLAM*}}
**Ahem. To continue where the previous writer left off... squads of infantry into ash, and vehicles into puddles of molten goo. The [[Thousand Sons]] Legion is dedicated to Tzeentch; their (former) chief diviner, [[Ahriman]], is one of the better-known Tzeentchian sorcerers.

*'''[[Chaos Undivided|Undivided]]:''' Back in the good ol' days, Chaos Undivided was the concept of worshiping Chaos as a combined entity or pantheon. The [[Word Bearers]] were probably the most well-known worshippers of Chaos Undivided. Since then, it has been largely retconned; instead, Chaos Undivided refers to Chaos Marines with the support of all four Chaos gods... because apparently that's different somehow (the former is monotheistic worship of Chaos as though Chaos itself was a god, the latter is the worship of aspects of Chaos as separate deities). This has left the Word Bearers in something of a weird spot, as their core concept has been badly mangled. Although, this is not completely out of place: Undivided followers ''do'' have the support of all four Chaos Gods due to their doctrine, but because they don't swear complete servitude to one like what the [[Death Guard]] and [[World Eaters]] did, they don't receive the full power of each Chaos God either. This isn't a bad thing, though, as even at a glance it's easy to see how the gods of Chaos compliment each other when undivided. And undivided worshipers are usually not insane. Plus, the more you do to prove yourself to each god, the more benefits you get from each. It's a longer game than swearing yourself to just one, but the end benefits are larger as well. If you can survive long enough to reap your rewards. Most importantly, perhaps, is that the critical flaws of each of the four is balanced out by the others, so while you'll be a jack of all trades you aren't going to be a one-trick pony most of your enemies know how to counter. And you'll still have Chaos empowerment and the sanity to use it intelligently.

Note that many bands of Undivided Marines exploit Chaos for their own gain and feel little devotion to the Ruinous Powers, seeing it as no more than a tool for their goals. The [[Alpha Legion]], for instance, are closet loyalists (or double heretics, or triple heretics, or brothas doin' it for themselves, nobody knows), whereas the [[Night Lords]] Legion only cares about spreading terror, which Chaos is undoubtedly useful for, but they look down upon the religious. Similarly, the [[Soul Drinkers]], a Renegade Chapter with an entire book series, are enemies of both Chaos and the [[Imperium of Man]] (though they fight for the [[Emperor]]'s ideals; it's complicated, but likely has roots in the current Imperium being the antithesis or something akin to the [[Imperial Truth]]), although most in the Imperium would consider them "Chaos Marines."

*'''[[Malal|Malice]]:''' Way back when, [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] had a [[Chaos Gods#The_Other_Ones|minor Chaos God]] named Malal. Malal was a paradox, in that he is the embodiment of Chaos' chaotic behavior. His main goal was the spread of chaos (not the Warp energies, but actual chaos like anarchy and disruption) by screwing up the plans of the other Ruinous Powers, so he had dedicated Champions that hunted down other Chaos Champions and generally dicked over the Chaos Gods. However, [[Games Workshop]] had to remove him from the setting due to a trademark dispute with the author that invented him. In 40k, meanwhile, there's a warband called the [[Sons of Malice]] that hunt down other Chaos Marines and seem to worship a minor Chaos power named "Malice." This has led /tg/ to believe that Malal/Malice exists in 40k and can be invoked upon for power, although this is of dubious canonicity at best.

==The Traitor Legions==
[[File:Word Bearers by Chingonman.jpg|500px|right|thumb|When Space Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking, don't answer the door.]]
When the [[Horus Heresy]] struck, nine of the original twenty Legions turned against the [[Emprah]]. These guys are basically the original and the best. All of these survived the Siege of Terra and escaped into the [[Eye of Terror]] with a very large number of bodies (Space Marine legions frequently numbered up to 100,000 members by the time of the Heresy). Over time, they have become widely scattered, generally working in mixed warbands combining a variety of Traitor Legionnaires, Renegade Marines, and lesser humans (frequently rebellious Imperial Guard). However, it should be noted that quite a few Chaos Marines still fight as a Legion (generally drastically reduced in size) led by their original (now-Daemon) Primarch (if they're still alive, anyway). It's very rare to see more than a Grand Company (roughly equal in size to a Chapter of loyalist Marines) in any given battle unless it's an organized invasion (of which the most notable examples are the Black Crusades led by a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]]), the Legion's Primarch himself calls them to fuck some shit up, or you're dealing with the Word Bearers or Iron Warriors, who are generally more organized than anybody else. The following are the nine Traitor Legions:

*[[Emperor's Children]]: Also known as pretty marines, their Primarch is [[Fulgrim]], who is now <s>a painting</s> getting his serpentine dick sucked by a swarm of daemonettes on his pleasure planet. <s>possibly still a painting</s> They don't operate as a Legion at all anymore, mostly because [[Kharn]] and the slave wars kinda fucked all their shit up. Anyway, they were basically OCD hyper-perfectionists that also really liked to party. They got ever-more hedonistic, attracted the attention of [[Slaanesh]], and the rest is history. Their Cult unit is the [[Noise Marines]], which are (as their name implies) Chaos Marines that like to kill people with noise. This used to mean sweet heavy-metal guitars, but GW retconned that, so now they have less-impressive (but still cool) <s>bass cannons</s> sonic cannons.

*[[Iron Warriors]]: The evil twins of the [[Imperial Fists]], they really like to build shit and then tear (somebody else's) shit down. In other words, they are masters of siege warfare (basically, rooting out cover-camping bitches). Their Primarch is [[Perturabo]]. They're generally the second most coherent of the Traitor Legions, retaining most of their pre-Heresy organization and numbers, although their great companies are generally independent and only answer to Perturabo himself, who on his part doesn't give a fuck and let them fight each other just for lulz. Also, they probably created the [[Obliterator|Obliterator Virus]], seeing as how they seem to have special connections with the Obliterator Cult. Sadly, they can no longer take [[Basilisk|Basilisks]] and don't have any special rules or Cult units (seeing as how that was quite broken back in 3rd), but GW did throw them a bone in the new book with the [[Warpsmith]] (not to be confused with a [[Warsmith]], which is also Iron Warriors-related). One of their noted leaders is [[Honsou]], a Warsmith in the running for "evilest villain."

*[[Night Lords]]: Their Primarch was [[Konrad Curze]] (also known as the Night Haunter). They're basically space-terrorists, which (unsurprisingly) means they created Raptors, the sociopathic, predatory answer to the loyalists' Assault Marines. They prefer ambush tactics, which is quite difficult when you're walking around in Power Amour and wearing stupid bat-wing helmets. They also like screaming like maniacs to cause terror. They are one of the few legions (in fact, pretty much the only one) who refuse to employ Daemons or live in the Eye of Terror. (Well, at least the warbands that remained loyal to Kurze's vision. The biggest extant warband worships Chaos and is lead by a Daemon Prince.) They're one of the few Traitor Legion that has a dead Primarch, on account of Curze's desire to go down in a fucked up version of suicide by cop to vindicate his obsessive belief that monsters and criminals should be put down like rabid dogs.

*[[World Eaters]]: [[Angron]]- Dissolved after [[Kharn]] turned the legion against themselves, what a guy. Now acting as roaming warbands and mercenaries. They still unite every now and then when Angron wants to fuck something's shit up, such as [[Cadia]]. The <s>only</s> legion known to get shit done when called up to do so.

*[[Death Guard]]: [[Mortarion]] - Didn't show up much in the fluff until the release of the Death Guard codex, though plague marines and champions can be found in many other warbands and, next to world-eater berserkers, are the most common cult unit. Also before Thirteenth Black Crusade Typhus's Plague Fleet kicked major ass in systems all around the Eye of Terror, turning entire planetary populations into zombies. As of 8th edition, they are now their own separate army. Oh, and Mortarion has returned, and his model is [[skub|controversial in terms of appearance]]. They also possess a planet known as the "Plague Planet".

*[[Thousand Sons]]: [[Magnus the Red]] - Another legion that doesn't show up much at all in fluff after the Horus Heresy and [[Rubric Marines|rubric marines]] don't show up much in other legions' warbands and most warbands use their own sorcerers. Except for [[Ahriman]]; Ahriman goes out trolling the Harlequins and those few [[Inquisitor]]s. Ahriman also does this because Tzeentch likes dicking Magnus over in his passive-aggressive way. Fluff-wise, Thousand Sons walk through the Universe, searching for knowledge like ancient books and artifacts to research and nerd out in their libraries, and magicking the shit out of anyone stupid or bold enough to stand on their way. Being smart and cunning motherfuckers they fight only where it really needed and only on their own terms (read: very rarely). Have recently succeeded in fucking up the Fenris furries with Big-Red leading them. And are now their own army and range of models, including a giant daemon version of Magnus with wings.

*[[Black Legion]]: [[Horus]] (kind of) - Originally called the Luna Wolves and then the Sons of Horus, though Abaddon formally disbanded the Legion and used its assets and whatever ragtag allies he had as the foundation of the Black Legion. Unites every now and then when Abaddon wants to launch another Black Crusade. It's honestly a miracle they survived this long, seriously if you look at their battles and losses it really makes no sense how they managed to live long enough to become the Black Legion, let alone the wars after. Known for calling black crusades, massive chaos invasions that consist untold numbers of chaos space marines (provided there's an ass to pull them out of), daemons, and general renegades and heretics all working together to try and tear the Imperium a new asshole. They are the largest legion by far, stated to outnumber the Word Bearers ten to one, namely because Abaddon preys on the other Legions and lures their troops into his own. Unfortunately, they have no real central command structure outside of a Black Crusade, and even then Abaddon can't keep the Legion's shit together for very long before they start breaking off every which way in search of a fight, usually getting slaughtered not long afterward.

*[[Word Bearers]]: [[Lorgar]] - The only Traitor Legion to have retained its Chaplains, who would later become the first [[Dark Apostle]]s, who can often lead a Word Bearers' Warband in the place of a Chaos Lord or Champion. They're one of the more organized and complete legions as they have a central daemon world of their own named "Sicarus". Sicarus is covered in dozens of temples and cathedrals devoted to Chaos. The Word Bearers are still united under the banner of their Primarch: Lorgar (even if the lazy bastard never does anything these days but sit around doing nothing). The most coherent after the Iron Warriors, seen as their great companies (or Hosts, as they call them) are still working together under the watchful eye of the Dark Council.

*<s>[[Alpha Legion]]: [[Alpharius]]/[[Omegon]]</s>- No such Legion or Primarchs exists, further speculation on this issue is [[heresy]] and will result in execution. Said non-existent Legion has never trolled the Imperium for the last 10,000 years by faking the death of every member, any idea to the contrary is [[HERESY]]. Also, masters of <s>sneaking around undetected</s> fucking their enemies' brains with multi-step Just As Planned schemes, that aren't overly complicated or lack the fallback plans (unlike Thousand Sons ones). In fact, their fallback-fallback plans usually have their own fallback plans just in case. Pretty much everything Imperium knows about them is a lie, suspected to be one, or a truth no one believes in since it looks like a lie.

Naturally, [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists|not everyone turned traitors]].

=== Renegades ===
The legions of old are not the only source of Chaos Space Marines, with the fluff no longer being clear on whether they even are the largest source anymore. It's either the traitor legions or the Ultramarines who have produced the most Chaos Marines and renegade Chapters. Loyalist marines get turned to Chaos like all the time (well, okay, it's actually pretty rare considering the limited numbers of Space Marines, but significant enough). Most often it's just a few individual marines or squads, sometimes going as far as entire companies, and rarely (but not rarely enough) entire chapters turn to Chaos. Sometimes it's the Imperium's own fault for turning initially loyal marines against the system due to a misunderstanding or an overzealous Inquisitor declaring them heretics and the new 'renegades' then realize that since no matter what they do they'll be viewed as traitors by the Imperium, they may as well become traitors in reality. Sometimes, like with the [[Abyssal Crusade]], it's a case of [[just as planned]] succeeding so hard Tzeentch isn't even miffed that particular plot gets tied up. Other times, marines "caught" some Chaos taint due to fighting Chaos too much without proper Librarian control (bonus points if Librarians themselves get corrupted), committing terrible crimes in their fights against Ruinous Powers, or trying to fight Chaos with Chaos, like the [[Relictors]]. And finally, a Chapters' own flaws in temperament may leave them all too easily manipulated into bringing their damnation upon themselves.

What is the most surprising, is that shit still happens despite loyalist marines being heavily brainwashed, even more than Death Korps of Krieg or Sisters of Battle (both of which are famous for having close to zero Chaos corruption rate). More so, marines even have a specific organ, to make them even more brainwashable. Some speculate the reason behind this is just Astartes longevity - after all SoBs and Kriegers didn't get continuously exposed to Ruinous Powers for hundreds of years. Others say that marines are just naturally susceptible to corruption, which makes sense if you believe the story daemons tell: that Primarchs were made with the help of The Four, and were given their power to make them something more than just genetically engineered humans. A theory from 30k states that the reason Marines are more easily turned to Chaos is that Marines naturally are fanatical in almost anything they do, and when feeling scolded by the very thing they are fanatical about it makes them do a full 180" to worship something else instead. This is what happened to the [[Word Bearers]], and most modern-day Marines are <s>at least as religious as the Word Bearers were before the Horus Heresy</s> either atheist or view the Emperor as a sort of Living Saint. Marines that worship anything are rare and looked upon as oddballs by the rest of the Adeptus Astartes. Usually it's whole Chapters rather than individuals that do it. Being Space Marines are highly valued by Chaos, they might simply be singled out for dedicated attempts to corrupt them whereas even Sisters of Battle are basically ignored and either get corrupted the same way as Guardsmen or not at all because Chaos doesn't care about them. It does care about Astartes.

ADB once said that Abaddon embodies the old Biblical thing about Satan refusing to bow down to man, and this might be applied to most Chaos Space Marines. Space Marines are expected to give their whole lives - centuries (if not millennia) and sometimes even [[Dreadnought|beyond that]] - to war, so that ordinary humans, most of whom will never have to fight for their lives, can live in relative comfort. Unsurprisingly many Space Marines do resent this on some level, although regular indoctrination helps them cope with that particular feeling by redirecting it toward xenos/heretics in [[rip and tear|a more productive way]]. It has been suggested that Marines genuinely treating mortals with respect are probably in the minority, though, and then along comes a Word Bearer talking about these gods who will set them free, who'll make them the masters instead of the servants... Despite the nigh-constant indoctrination, these words don't always fall on deaf ears. Which is still really weird since the Astartes voluntarily ''chose'' their life barring the rare Chapter that conscripts/kidnaps aspirants. Sure, they might change their mind over time, but they didn't go through all those trials and hardships and training just to decide it wasn't worthwhile after all.

Renegades also have rather divergent attitudes to the Traitor Primarchs. Some venerate them as the Daemonic overlords that they are. Others wonder why everyone seems to fanboy themselves over beings who "lived" thousands of years ago and even then only for a few verifiable centuries before vanishing up their own arses to sit out the wars that the renegade has potentially been fighting for far longer than the Primarchs were ever alive for.

No matter the true reason behind, this shit happens, and from one retcon to another after-Heresy chapter renegades become more and more prevalent to the point that they could actually outnumber the old Legions, even if the Black Legion isn't shy about inducting any who is willing to join and swear fealty to [[Abaddon]] amongst their ranks.

Although, "Renegade" is also used to refer to non-Chaos aligned Astartes and other rogue but non-Chaos forces. They aren't generally against the Imperium, either. At worst just pirating as needed to survive and little else but it isn’t uncommon for them to (futilely) trying to find absolution or [[Soul Drinkers|just ignoring their own expulsion and continuing to serve as usual]]. Which is hilarious.

==A "Meta-History" of Sorts==
I suppose we should [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|start at the beginning]]? So, back in the day, Chaos introduced in the tome Slaves To Darkness, which was effectively an expansion to Rogue Trader. That's right,
the original 40k didn't have Chaos, although it did have Warp Demons. In the original Rogue Trader narrative, the Emperor was encased in the Golden Throne because he was thousands of years old and he needed life force from psykers in order to survive. Once Slaves to Darkness and its sister book Lost and the Damned were introduced, it was revealed that there was this event called the Horus Heresy, and Horus was a primarch that rebelled and nearly killed the Emperor. Talk about a pretty hefty background update!

Crunchwise, the CSM were just marines with some different wargear selection, as well as the ability to get Chaos mutations. It gets really confusing from there (Can you say, D1000 chart with 100+ mutations?) so the less said about the First Edition days, the better. The first, most important thing to remember is that Chaos was effectively a WHFB expy, so it included beastmen, daemons and renegades [[Awesome|all rolled into one]].

===2nd Ed: First Age of Whoop-Ass===
Hoo-boy... I want you to picture it, if you can, a codex wherein Chaos Lords had no stats under 5, daemons could be freely taken in any FO slot (or the equivalent for 2nd Ed) and everything, ''everything'' could push a loyalist's shit in. The CSM received a promotion in the fluff to primary antagonists after getting retconned into the reason as to why the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne (via Horus traitorous ways and that mortal wound). Those were the days of 2nd edition; that's when Chaos was a unified front led by an interesting character on a 10,000 year quest for bloody vengeance. These were the days when a [[Bloodthirster]] would use an [[Avatar]] as a speedbump, and yet the only trump against CSM were the Eldar (And to a lesser extent the Tyranids when they evolved beyond Genestealer cults). Your characters could equip a Bloodletter's sword if you so chose to do so, as well as Chaos Terminator armour that could save on a 2d6 roll of 2+. Noise Marines, Thousand Sons, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines all got their start here, and they started out as ''Troops'' (or rather, their second ed equivalent). You could also take [[Foulspawn]], a special character Nurgle [[Chaos Spawn|Thing]]/[[Daemon Prince]] with 19 wounds (!) that stole wounds from his kills and could regenerate lost wounds every turn. And guess what? You could field beasts, renegades and daemons in your army. It was also possible to give Chaos Marines equipment and vehicles that only their loyalist equivalents get nowadays (including [[Dude, Where's my Land Speeder?|assault cannons, storm bolters, cyclone missile launchers, and various support vehicles]]), in order to accurately represent the equipment used by Renegades from later Foundings. However, they had to pay an extra 50% traitor tax in order to take them.

Yeah, it sounds fucking insane and the coolest thing ever, and it was. Arguably, things were a bit nascent because in spite of all the other extras, they were still very much just space marines with other armies rolled into it. They had the same stats and many of the same rules and wargear as their loyalist counterparts.

===3rd Ed: Roller Coaster into [[Awesome]]===
Third edition started by screwing everyone: the rules were fucked up to try and shift the balance of power towards infantry and away from characters (so sayeth GW, anyway). Regardless, this is one of a few times that GW actually dialed back the power creep inherent in their game systems to such a degree that all existing armies got hosed (worst of all, Eldar) and CSM were no exception. The Codex pumped out was a hackneyed shadow of its former self that needed constant reference checks to the main rules because all the rules for your stuff got printed there instead of your codex. This first release however brought about the much-loved [[Obliterators]], [[Possessed]] and [[Raptors]] and GW did make rules for entire cult armies available for download on their website at the time, which was a thing GW used to do.

Halfway through its life-cycle, GW introduced [[Tau]] and [[Necrons]], breaking the game with [[Fish of Fury]] and just simply existing, respectively. [[List of 40K Cheese|In the midst of this renewed cheese surge, the CSM got a second lease on life]], cranking their competitiveness to second place behind the dreaded third ed 'crons. These were the days of the 200+ point CSM lord that could out-punch fucking ANYTHING! We're talking about a wargear sheet noticeably larger than any other faction, which also included the curious ability to make your aspiring champions psykers. You could load up a squad with stacks of veteran skills, sneaking them into position, moving through cover and then finishing with a furious charge. [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets its big introduction as a monstrous creature AND a walker! These were the days when you ''bought'' as opposed to rolled for the powers your Possessed had; where you could dedicate vehicles to the Gods, and that gave you certain options (thus creating the Sonic Dreadnought... and Predator). You could take a Slaaneshi psyker and give him and his unit immunity from shooting attacks with a well rolled minor psychic power. Best of all, these were the days of fielding Traitor Legions - ridiculously unbalanced lists that would either fall flat on their faces and cost way too much (Thousand Sons) or tear the fucking table in half (Iron Warriors).

Games Workshop tried valiantly to dial back the cheese by releasing Imperial Assassins, Daemonhunters and Witchhunters but once the Eye of Terror campaign hit and the official (and also cheesy) Lost and the Damned rules were out, third ed was firmly [[Cultist-chan|captoored by chaoz.]]

===4th Ed: The Sudden Betrayal===
That rat-bastard, pointy-eared fuck! In 4th ed, [[Gav Thorpe]] raped Chaos and left her to die in a fucking gutter. Those broken-as-hell traitor legions lists? Instead of fixing them for players that liked the other legions, they were removed. Veteran skills? Gone. Wargear? Toast. Lost and the Damned? More like "lost-a la vista," amirite. Daemons? Worst of all, Thorpe figured they needed their own, super-shitty codex. CSM players were ''pissed'' at the "streamlining" their armies got, but they endured it because at the time there were a few nifty silver linings. You could still technically have your cult army/legion/whatever and they were all not bad; that is to say the codex was at least internally balanced. During this time, the Eldar got pumped from worse than last place to playable, Tyranids got an update that was fair as well, Fish of Fury got pulled from the Tau Codex and the loyalists got a decent buff in the 4th ed SM codices. Nothing spectacular, but everything felt fair; it felt like we could have fun with each other and save our bitter sniping for the rightly-deserving Necron players and their totes OP 3E rules. For a brief period of time, the rules system was stable and there was hope that this trend might continue...

===5th Ed: Abandon (the Despoiler) Ship!===
[[Matt Ward|And then this happened.]] GW, in a moment of clarity and business acumen, summoned Matt Ward from the pit to turn the 40K metagame on its larynx through its asshole to promote sales of their most popular line, Space Marines. [[Dawn of War]] had just come out and Relic/THQ made the Space Marines really good (and Imperial Guard, and Eldar, [[Dawn of Eldar|especially the Eldar]] but they would have to wait until 6E to get their cheese on). CSM didn't get a release in this edition because GW decided instead to dedicate their time to fanboy service while throwing a bone to the Dark Eldar and Orks. This was when the 4th ed. rules were used to create the well-known CSM mono-build for 5th ed (Lash Prince, Plague Marines, Termicide, Obliterators and ''maybe'' a Chosen squad for guiding deep strikes). However, once the 5th ed Grey Knights landed, Chaos was truly on its ass. These were the days all the jokes made against Chaos finally made it to the internets and the forces of Chaos shifted from that terrifying adversary feared across the galaxy to the Imperium's punching bag ''du jour''. Many were the veteran players who simply left in disgust.

===6th Ed: A New NOPE!===
Rumours started pouring in furiously when 6th ed was nearing release. Close combat will have AP values? Oooo! What's this - CSM will be the first codex out the gate? Hot damn! New models? BITCHIN'! Revamped rules to finally reclaim some of the fucking glory we lost in the last two goddamn editions? Hallelujah!

So, 2013 has come and gone along with that release and I think we can all say how disappointing that truly was. Of the few bright spots was [[Helldrake|a new flyer with a *AHEM* ''gigantic exhaust port'']]. ("Gaze into the Eye of Terror!" and "Glory to the Goatse of Chaos!" were only some of the reactions.) Many lulz were enjoyed by /tg/ of its... ahem, questionable design aesthetics. This however says nothing of the fact that crunch-wise it is arguably the cheesiest flyer in all of 6th ed - praise the dark gods, indeed?

Aside from the Heldrakes however, the codex had a lot of questionable design choices. Well, not really because there was a lot of dead weight and questionable mechanic design in that book; unlike their loyalist counterparts, the Chaos Army could not properly run MSU builds, since "all its shooting" was in the Heavy Support section, and "all of its speed" was in the Fast Attack section; this contrasted drastically with Marines being able to do ranged threats in their entire FOC via Rifleman Dreadnoughts, Sternguard, Land Speeders and Razorbacks, or their ability to apply pressure via Bike Troops & Drop Pods. In theory, 6th edition was supposed to compensate for this overspecialization by doubling FOCs at 2000 points, [[Rage|but most tournaments ran at either 1850 points or "1999+1 points"]].

Speaking to questionable design, [[Mutilators]] and [[Warp Talons]] reeked of lazy design, while mathhammer and an emphasis on "disembarked troops" holding objectives meant that many tournament armies became little more than a tide of Cultists and Heldrakes, leading to a paradoxical consensus that the [[fail|best way to with with Chaos Space Marines was to not actually take any Chaos Space Marines]]. [[Rage|Needless to say, this did not go well with many players]].

When it comes to the traitor marines themselves, /tg/'s opinions were divided. Some praised the new design for its focus on intricate trims and warp-induced mutations (eyes, tentacles), whereas others disliked it for its lack of [[Grimdark]], claiming it looked too cartoonish and too playful. Crunchwise, as if we haven't said it enough, this book was well and truly fucked. We really tried to like it, but any list that requires supplements and/or Forgeworld models/books to fill strategic gaps in the codex is a pretty bad list.

===7th Ed: What the Fuck is this even===
Chaos Space Marines played similar to their loyalist counterparts, having access to most of the same wargear and vehicles, plus some unique stuff at the expense of all the stuff that makes loyalists remotely useful in a (completely vain) attempt to play up the [[RIP AND TEAR]] side in an edition favouring shooting. They have some of the same strengths and amplified weaknesses, expensive-to-overpriced units, are easily often outnumbered, but overall, they tend to play too aggressively to the point of carelessness. Thanks to all this nerf-slapping, their ranking amongst armies has tanked from the notably OP 3.5 days; the codex and army have since fallen into decline due to progressively weaker books in favour of the worst kind of fan-service for a handful of factions. CSM did get a release in the form of Khorne Daemonkin, but it just blended two books together with some new rules and wargear instead of fixing glaring problems with the units in them; they ''were'' weak due to their garbled 6E codex. Fortunately, 7E has been putting the screws to every single Codex released in 5th Ed while GW releases an unrelenting tide of half-assed pseudo-codices that don't even cover an FOC while adding bullshit mechanics like grav-spam, decurions or buffing the Eldar sky-high.

That lasted until the release of the Traitor Legions supplement. With the release of the supplement, CSM got legion specific buffs and abilites, for Fluffy builds. For example, Alpha Legion armies can't have any marks, but they get to pass on their warlord trait to a friendly character if the current warlord dies. Night Lords get Raptors as core, Iron Warriors get [[Derp|Mutilators]] and [[Awesome|Obliterators]], Word Bearers get Possessed, and so on. Ironically, it's now better to take Khorne CSM over berserkers, because they're basically the same unit, but one is cheaper. Overall, Death Guard and Emperor's Children seem to be the best options at the moment, followed by the Alpha Legion. Basic Emperor's Children marines with Icon of excess are 190 pts for a 10 man squad of initiative 5 marines, with 4+ FNP, Fearless, and a roll on the combat drug table, which can give them +1 WS, BS, S, T, A, I. Death Guard Marines, meanwhile, are incredible also (Likely even better than the EC ones), 170 pts for a 10 man squad of toughness 5 marines with 5+ FNP and fearless but with a -1 to initiative. Iron Warriors, while initially derided, can bring three pairs of Tank Hunter Obliterators and three Twinlinked Vindicators at 1850 points, with a team or two of fortification-camping, Fearless, Tank Hunter, ObSec Autocannon Havocs.

For the second half of 7th ed, it was safe to say that CSM were solid again. Could every Legion deal with Scatbike spam, Crisis/Markerlight shenanigans, or free DTs easily? Not exactly. But World Eaters could get to melee faster than anyone else. Black Legion could pull crazy alpha strikes and use 13-point marines with Rage, Counter-Attack, +1 strength if the charge roll is 8+, Ld9 (10 on the champ), Crusader, Fear, and Hatred (with permanent re-rolls to hit against Imperium). So we might not be quite as good as [[Cheese|Craftworld Eldar]], grav-spamming [[Smashfucker]] Loyalists or Guard and their absurd amounts of ordnance but CSM could fuck up the mid-tier Tau, Mechanicum and Necrons with ease again (the less said about the benighted Nids, Deldar and Orks the better; don't ask about the Sisters). We're calling that a result! It seems someone understood the risk-reward paradigm of the CSM (the risk in putting your eggs in a basket that would either collapse or rip and tear your opponent).

... and then 7th ed. ended. A minor loss but thank god that's over!

===8th Ed: Time to hope once again?===
The Traitor Legions book was a decent step forward in the era of 7th edition and 8th edition was certainly full of changes. Traitor lists largely remained although they were nowhere near as wild as the last edition. Thankfully, a lot of the garbage from 6th and 7th has been thrown out with them. No more "randomness because Chaos, guys!" as pretty much ''all'' the random tables from all over 7th are scrapped as are the Decurions. This is a big step forward although a curious step into the mists of time, harkening back to 2nd.

For a moment, CSM could still ally seamlessly with Daemons and Renegades until GW patched out soup lists. There were some issues with the index but Vigilius Ablaze brought us new units and models, which then found their way into the Codex. Said book not only patched the problems with the index, but added Legion Traits that help the Traitor Legions excel in their fluff-based specialties. The Thousand Sons and Death Guard also received their own Codexes with their own special flavor of nastiness.

===9th Ed: The Galaxy Ablaze Once Again===
Things are getting HOT! There's a new codex around the corner with updates to Death Guard and Thousand Sons. CSM are slated for a release in early 2022. Which is good because our book is old and NOT doing well. In fact [[RAGE|GW has failed to FAQ Chaos Marines to 2 Wounds yet]] (They are waiting for the codex). However their new previewed datasheet points to them having better stats than [[Awesome|Primaris Marines.]] They are slated for a new range of models including a variety of cultists and chaos marine models. Shit, it looks like Renegades and Heretics got rolled into the CSM book, so that's interesting.

==See Also==
*[[Warriors of Chaos]]: The much <s>more competent</s> <s>useful</s> less punching bag counterparts to the Chaos Marines in Warhammer Fantasy, at least until the Age of Sigmar took hold.
**[[Chaos Warrior|Chaos Warriors]]: each member of this parade of ruin.
*[[Chaos Space Marine Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Chaos Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (9E)|Tactics on how to play them.]]
*[[What it's like]]: A short story meant to place emphasis the uncertainty of the life of a chaos space marine.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:1227181112539.jpg|The Typical Chaos Space Marine
File:1174923365695wq1vj1.png|The dreaded [[Night Lords]] preparing an ambush
File:Emperor s Children by megalaros.jpg|Slaaneshi noise marine. Because words can kill.
File:Lcw.jpg|[[Imperium|They]] think that corpse on a throne is a god!
File:Firstkeeper.jpg|Change we can believe in!
</gallery>

{{Chaos-Official}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{WH40k-Factions}}

Chaos Space Marines

2022-10-19T04:56:31Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Overview */

{{heresy}}
{{Topquote|And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say: "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with [[Black Legion|sword]], and with [[World Eaters|hunger]], and with [[Death Guard|death]], and with [[Chaos Spawn|the beasts of the earth.]]|Revelation 6:8}}

{{Topquote|The treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel.|Brenna Yovanoff}}
[[File:Crimson Slaughter Chaos Marine ukitakumuki.jpg|thumb|500px|right|Chaos up in this motherfucker.]]

'''Chaos Space Marines''' (also known as '''Heretic Astartes''' and '''Astartes Traitoris''') are, simply enough, [[Space Marines]] that have fallen to, or were inducted to, [[Chaos]]. They are also one of the main factions in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. The first Chaos Marines were born during the [[Horus Heresy]] from the nine [[Traitor Legion]]s. Since then, many Space Marines (and even a few full [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapters]]) have gone rogue, becoming Renegades. However, this is mostly a [[fluff]] distinction, as the [[Codex]] (or the models for that matter) does not differentiate between the two.

CSM supplement their lack of more easily available loyalist resources (recruits, tech, supplies, etc.) by way of daemons and Warp energy from the dark Gods, plundered weapons from whoever is unlucky enough to lose an engagement to them, and renegades from the Imperium, which are always available because the Imperium [[Grimdark|treats its subjects like steampunk condoms]].

==Overview==
[[File:Black crusade by yogh art-d5bqzea.jpg|thumb|450px|left|Birds have not been so scary for 66 million years.]]
Chaos Space Marines are basically Imperial Space Marines who have forsaken their oath to the Imperium of Man to serve the Ruinous Powers, which is [[Heresy]]. Marines do this for a number of reasons, although the cause of this is usually finding that the ways of Chaos suit them more than the Imperium, or the classic case of the Imperium dicking them over (largely the case for post-heresy chapters).

The origins of Chaos Space Marines go back to [[Erebus]] of the Word Bearers, the first Chaos Marine, who then corrupted the recently-emotionally-discouraged Primarch [[Lorgar]] to Chaos. Erebus would then set into motion the events that would lead to Warmaster Horus being wounded on Davin's moon, where he would fall to the corruptions of Chaos. Horus, supreme Warmaster of the Imperium, would then gather [[Mortarion|<s>7</s>]] [[Omegon|8]] [[Konrad Curze|more]] [[Alpharius|of]] [[Angron|his]] [[Magnus the Red|distraught]] [[Perturabo|brother]] [[Fulgrim|Primarchs]] to his cause, along with a good fraction of Imperial forces and the Adeptus Mechanicus in full-scale rebellion, resulting in the Horus Heresy. When Horus got roflstomped by the Emprah during their duel, most of the Traitors fled to the Eye of Terror because of the loss of leadership, resulting in what would be known as "Chaos Space Marines".

Naturally, they fight just like Space Marines except <s>on average they are stronger, more experienced, and older, given that the majority stood with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade</s> only worse because Mary Sues need punching bags. They keep using shit they were equipped with prior to the Horus Heresy such as [[bolter]]s and the ever useful Space Marine [[plot armor|plot]] [[pauldrons|armor]], which would explain why they didn't fistfuck each other to death before reaching the Eye of Terror, or why they would follow the lead of a particular [[Saturday]] [[Abaddon|morning cartoon villain]].

Chaos Marines are also commonly known to compensate their aging weapons (which didn't really age much, considering how fucktarded Imperium tech support is) by using demon magic for that extra edge in combat. Naturally they lack some of the weapons and [[Standard Template Construct|equipment Imperium "invented" (or rather dug up) for the last 10,000 years]], such as [[Razorback Transport|Razorbacks]], [[Centurion Squad|Centurion suits]], [[Autogun|assault cannons]] or [[Grav-Weaponry|grav guns]], and although they often get their hands on such pieces of tech (mostly by killing corpse-worshipers who own them), their Dark Mechanicum allies have few to zero spare parts and/or ammo for them, those trophies rarely last in use for a long time. The latter reason is also why Chaos Marines no longer use some of them more delicate and advanced tech like Land Speeder variants or Whirlwinds, which they definitely HAD before the Heresy - those things require just too much maintenance to fit into their more independent and chaotic combat doctrines.
[[File:1286933675792.jpg|400px|right|thumb|The eternal war rages on.]]

For all their powers from Chaos, however, most of them are nowhere nearly as organized as their loyalist counterparts. Turning to Chaos tends to drive Marines insane, usually causing them to lose much of the tactical prowess they had as loyalists. That said, organized legions like the Word Bearers, Thousand Sons, Iron Warriors, Death Guard (once they got their shit together), and Black Legion still remain much more of a competent military force than one might think. This is emphasized in the Black Legion novels, where the narrator has to explain to the freaking Inquisition, of all people, that the Chaos Legions don't have any dedicated supply lines, logistics, infrastructure, shipyards, independent manufacturing, or even the ability to feed their own forces. And since the Imperium can't effectively garrison every world (at least not without sacrificing the initiative on all fronts) the Chaos Space Marines still remain a great threat despite their shortcomings...

...though many of those problems were eventually solved as the Traitor Legions regained their Heresy-era numbers (or even more in some cases), and various industries were built or captured from the Imperium; the Idolator ship and two Planet Killers were made 100% from Chaos factories.

After all, the tree of heresy can grow from the smallest seed.

Different warbands of Chaos Space Marines are every bit as prone to fighting each other as they are anything else for any number of reasons; evil doesn't get along with evil, they're all nuts and just want to fight something, or the other warband worships a different Chaos god. Yeah, these guys are nuts. The phrase "the devil is not mocked", comes to mind, as was aptly conveyed by [[Alpharius]] during the height of the Horus Heresy. Infighting inside individual warbands is not unheard of, and their leaders always have to watch their back because every single Marine has hopes of killing their superiors and taking over. So yeah, if they didn't have the [[Eye of Terror]] to hide in and the Imperium wasn't so idiot-ball prone, it probably would have killed them by now. However, when they DO get their shit together, they fuck up the Imperium on a scale undreamed of by [[War of the Beast|almost]] every other race in Warhammer. See the Dominion of Fire or the Cholercaust Blood Crusade. '''GODDAMN IT, KHORNATE BERZERKERS ARE AWESOME.'''

They ''were'' the oldest fogies (or at least the ones from traitor legions are anyway) in the setting, barring the [[Eldar|space elves]], [[Bjorn the Fell Handed|that one angry viking dreadnought]] (who's about their age), the [[Necrons|Tomb King expys]] and maybe a few of the [[Tyranid|Omnivorous Space Bug Lizards things]] but now they've been retconned. CSM today may be some of the veterans from the Heresy or they could just be newfags that decided they were too cool for the Imperium. Fucking hell this is depressing.

Many Chaos Marines eventually dedicate themselves to one of the four [[Chaos Gods]], becoming little more than an extension of the god's will. This path has great risk and great reward, as the Chaos Gods are quite capricious; between two equally-dedicated champions, one will become a [[Chaos Spawn|horrific beast that should not be named]], whereas the other will achieve apotheosis and become a [[Daemon Prince]].

*'''[[Khorne|Khornate Champions]]:''' Those who worship Khorne (such as the [[World Eaters]] Traitor Legion) become close quarters badasses full of [[rage|RAAAAAAAAAGGGEEEE]]!. Khornate champions are among the best dedicated melee fighters in the setting. They are insane, ruthless, and barbaric, and continually lust after BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! Marines dedicated to Khorne are usually called [[Khorne Berzerkers]], after the Berzerkers of the World Eaters Legion, of whom [[Kharn]] (swell guy by the way) is the most famous. They are famed for their use of the [[chainaxe]] and their fucktastically fearless charges. They also get the best speeches. Although do note that Khornate followers are not all pure-CQC fighters, any weapon that spills blood in honorable combat like heavy weapons or vehicles is welcomed by Khorne. '''"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!! BUTTER FOR THE POP KHORNE!!"'''

*'''[[Nurgle|Nurglic Champions]]:''' These guys are rotting, diseased, decaying sacks of flesh who can take hits that would kill a squad of Terminators. They're something of a meat shield as far as Chaos is concerned (although not as much as [[Cornholio the Cultist|Chaos Cultists]]). They've contracted every disease in creation and then some. Despite looking like a bag of things best not described, Nurgle's followers won't hesitate to give you a big, long, family hug. D'awww. The [[Death Guard]] fell to Nurgle, but it wasn't really their fault.

*'''[[Slaanesh|Slaaneshi Champions]]:''' The followers of Slaanesh simply want to experience pleasure to the highest degree, most of which usually involves the euphoria gained from killing another person. Thus, Slaaneshi followers typically hype themselves up on drugs in order to intensify the sensations they experience, whether from sex or from slaughter. Slaaneshi Marines have taken so many drugs their bodies ''start to produce them normally.'' And yes, this is really canon. They also get penis fingers to give them the extra edge in combat (somehow) and hyperactive awareness, meaning that Slaaneshi followers typically move so fast that they're at par with Eldar reflexes. [[Doomrider]] is one of the most famous Slaaneshi champions (at least on /tg/), although he isn't from the [[Emperor's Children]], the Chaos Legion that fell to Slaanesh; [[Lucius the Eternal]], on the other hand, is.

*'''[[Tzeentch|Tzeentchian Champions]]:''' All followers of Tzeentch are tricky and conniving, and many of them are also powerful [[psyker]]s (as Tzeentch is the god of magic). Warriors under Tzeentch tend to rape anything in ranged combat with either enhanced weapons or SPACE MAGIC that would turn heroes into [[Chaos Spawn]], squa-'''GRAABBRLBLLRBLRLRBLR'''{{*BLAM*}}
**Ahem. To continue where the previous writer left off... squads of infantry into ash, and vehicles into puddles of molten goo. The [[Thousand Sons]] Legion is dedicated to Tzeentch; their (former) chief diviner, [[Ahriman]], is one of the better-known Tzeentchian sorcerers.

*'''[[Chaos Undivided|Undivided]]:''' Back in the good ol' days, Chaos Undivided was the concept of worshiping Chaos as a combined entity or pantheon. The [[Word Bearers]] were probably the most well-known worshippers of Chaos Undivided. Since then, it has been largely retconned; instead, Chaos Undivided refers to Chaos Marines with the support of all four Chaos gods... because apparently that's different somehow (the former is monotheistic worship of Chaos as though Chaos itself was a god, the latter is the worship of aspects of Chaos as separate deities). This has left the Word Bearers in something of a weird spot, as their core concept has been badly mangled. Although, this is not completely out of place: Undivided followers ''do'' have the support of all four Chaos Gods due to their doctrine, but because they don't swear complete servitude to one like what the [[Death Guard]] and [[World Eaters]] did, they don't receive the full power of each Chaos God either. This isn't a bad thing, though, as even at a glance it's easy to see how the gods of Chaos compliment each other when undivided. And undivided worshipers are usually not insane. Plus, the more you do to prove yourself to each god, the more benefits you get from each. It's a longer game than swearing yourself to just one, but the end benefits are larger as well. If you can survive long enough to reap your rewards. Most importantly, perhaps, is that the critical flaws of each of the four is balanced out by the others, so while you'll be a jack of all trades you aren't going to be a one-trick pony most of your enemies know how to counter. And you'll still have Chaos empowerment and the sanity to use it intelligently.

Note that many bands of Undivided Marines exploit Chaos for their own gain and feel little devotion to the Ruinous Powers, seeing it as no more than a tool for their goals. The [[Alpha Legion]], for instance, are closet loyalists (or double heretics, or triple heretics, or brothas doin' it for themselves, nobody knows), whereas the [[Night Lords]] Legion only cares about spreading terror, which Chaos is undoubtedly useful for, but they look down upon the religious. Similarly, the [[Soul Drinkers]], a Renegade Chapter with an entire book series, are enemies of both Chaos and the [[Imperium of Man]] (though they fight for the [[Emperor]]'s ideals; it's complicated, but likely has roots in the current Imperium being the antithesis or something akin to the [[Imperial Truth]]), although most in the Imperium would consider them "Chaos Marines."

*'''[[Malal|Malice]]:''' Way back when, [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] had a [[Chaos Gods#The_Other_Ones|minor Chaos God]] named Malal. Malal was a paradox, in that he is the embodiment of Chaos' chaotic behavior. His main goal was the spread of chaos (not the Warp energies, but actual chaos like anarchy and disruption) by screwing up the plans of the other Ruinous Powers, so he had dedicated Champions that hunted down other Chaos Champions and generally dicked over the Chaos Gods. However, [[Games Workshop]] had to remove him from the setting due to a trademark dispute with the author that invented him. In 40k, meanwhile, there's a warband called the [[Sons of Malice]] that hunt down other Chaos Marines and seem to worship a minor Chaos power named "Malice." This has led /tg/ to believe that Malal/Malice exists in 40k and can be invoked upon for power, although this is of dubious canonicity at best.

==The Traitor Legions==
[[File:Word Bearers by Chingonman.jpg|500px|right|thumb|When Space Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking, don't answer the door.]]
When the [[Horus Heresy]] struck, nine of the original twenty Legions turned against the [[Emprah]]. These guys are basically the original and the best. All of these survived the Siege of Terra and escaped into the [[Eye of Terror]] with a very large number of bodies (Space Marine legions frequently numbered up to 100,000 members by the time of the Heresy). Over time, they have become widely scattered, generally working in mixed warbands combining a variety of Traitor Legionnaires, Renegade Marines, and lesser humans (frequently rebellious Imperial Guard). However, it should be noted that quite a few Chaos Marines still fight as a Legion (generally drastically reduced in size) led by their original (now-Daemon) Primarch (if they're still alive, anyway). It's very rare to see more than a Grand Company (roughly equal in size to a Chapter of loyalist Marines) in any given battle unless it's an organized invasion (of which the most notable examples are the Black Crusades led by a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]]), the Legion's Primarch himself calls them to fuck some shit up, or you're dealing with the Word Bearers or Iron Warriors, who are generally more organized than anybody else. The following are the nine Traitor Legions:

*[[Emperor's Children]]: Also known as pretty marines, their Primarch is [[Fulgrim]], who is now <s>a painting</s> getting his serpentine dick sucked by a swarm of daemonettes on his pleasure planet. <s>possibly still a painting</s> They don't operate as a Legion at all anymore, mostly because [[Kharn]] and the slave wars kinda fucked all their shit up. Anyway, they were basically OCD hyper-perfectionists that also really liked to party. They got ever-more hedonistic, attracted the attention of [[Slaanesh]], and the rest is history. Their Cult unit is the [[Noise Marines]], which are (as their name implies) Chaos Marines that like to kill people with noise. This used to mean sweet heavy-metal guitars, but GW retconned that, so now they have less-impressive (but still cool) <s>bass cannons</s> sonic cannons.

*[[Iron Warriors]]: The evil twins of the [[Imperial Fists]], they really like to build shit and then tear (somebody else's) shit down. In other words, they are masters of siege warfare (basically, rooting out cover-camping bitches). Their Primarch is [[Perturabo]]. They're generally the second most coherent of the Traitor Legions, retaining most of their pre-Heresy organization and numbers, although their great companies are generally independent and only answer to Perturabo himself, who on his part doesn't give a fuck and let them fight each other just for lulz. Also, they probably created the [[Obliterator|Obliterator Virus]], seeing as how they seem to have special connections with the Obliterator Cult. Sadly, they can no longer take [[Basilisk|Basilisks]] and don't have any special rules or Cult units (seeing as how that was quite broken back in 3rd), but GW did throw them a bone in the new book with the [[Warpsmith]] (not to be confused with a [[Warsmith]], which is also Iron Warriors-related). One of their noted leaders is [[Honsou]], a Warsmith in the running for "evilest villain."

*[[Night Lords]]: Their Primarch was [[Konrad Curze]] (also known as the Night Haunter). They're basically space-terrorists, which (unsurprisingly) means they created Raptors, the sociopathic, predatory answer to the loyalists' Assault Marines. They prefer ambush tactics, which is quite difficult when you're walking around in Power Amour and wearing stupid bat-wing helmets. They also like screaming like maniacs to cause terror. They are one of the few legions (in fact, pretty much the only one) who refuse to employ Daemons or live in the Eye of Terror. (Well, at least the warbands that remained loyal to Kurze's vision. The biggest extant warband worships Chaos and is lead by a Daemon Prince.) They're one of the few Traitor Legion that has a dead Primarch, on account of Curze's desire to go down in a fucked up version of suicide by cop to vindicate his obsessive belief that monsters and criminals should be put down like rabid dogs.

*[[World Eaters]]: [[Angron]]- Dissolved after [[Kharn]] turned the legion against themselves, what a guy. Now acting as roaming warbands and mercenaries. They still unite every now and then when Angron wants to fuck something's shit up, such as [[Cadia]]. The <s>only</s> legion known to get shit done when called up to do so.

*[[Death Guard]]: [[Mortarion]] - Didn't show up much in the fluff until the release of the Death Guard codex, though plague marines and champions can be found in many other warbands and, next to world-eater berserkers, are the most common cult unit. Also before Thirteenth Black Crusade Typhus's Plague Fleet kicked major ass in systems all around the Eye of Terror, turning entire planetary populations into zombies. As of 8th edition, they are now their own separate army. Oh, and Mortarion has returned, and his model is [[skub|controversial in terms of appearance]]. They also possess a planet known as the "Plague Planet".

*[[Thousand Sons]]: [[Magnus the Red]] - Another legion that doesn't show up much at all in fluff after the Horus Heresy and [[Rubric Marines|rubric marines]] don't show up much in other legions' warbands and most warbands use their own sorcerers. Except for [[Ahriman]]; Ahriman goes out trolling the Harlequins and those few [[Inquisitor]]s. Ahriman also does this because Tzeentch likes dicking Magnus over in his passive-aggressive way. Fluff-wise, Thousand Sons walk through the Universe, searching for knowledge like ancient books and artifacts to research and nerd out in their libraries, and magicking the shit out of anyone stupid or bold enough to stand on their way. Being smart and cunning motherfuckers they fight only where it really needed and only on their own terms (read: very rarely). Have recently succeeded in fucking up the Fenris furries with Big-Red leading them. And are now their own army and range of models, including a giant daemon version of Magnus with wings.

*[[Black Legion]]: [[Horus]] (kind of) - Originally called the Luna Wolves and then the Sons of Horus, though Abaddon formally disbanded the Legion and used its assets and whatever ragtag allies he had as the foundation of the Black Legion. Unites every now and then when Abaddon wants to launch another Black Crusade. It's honestly a miracle they survived this long, seriously if you look at their battles and losses it really makes no sense how they managed to live long enough to become the Black Legion, let alone the wars after. Known for calling black crusades, massive chaos invasions that consist untold numbers of chaos space marines (provided there's an ass to pull them out of), daemons, and general renegades and heretics all working together to try and tear the Imperium a new asshole. They are the largest legion by far, stated to outnumber the Word Bearers ten to one, namely because Abaddon preys on the other Legions and lures their troops into his own. Unfortunately, they have no real central command structure outside of a Black Crusade, and even then Abaddon can't keep the Legion's shit together for very long before they start breaking off every which way in search of a fight, usually getting slaughtered not long afterward.

*[[Word Bearers]]: [[Lorgar]] - The only Traitor Legion to have retained its Chaplains, who would later become the first [[Dark Apostle]]s, who can often lead a Word Bearers' Warband in the place of a Chaos Lord or Champion. They're one of the more organized and complete legions as they have a central daemon world of their own named "Sicarus". Sicarus is covered in dozens of temples and cathedrals devoted to Chaos. The Word Bearers are still united under the banner of their Primarch: Lorgar (even if the lazy bastard never does anything these days but sit around doing nothing). The most coherent after the Iron Warriors, seen as their great companies (or Hosts, as they call them) are still working together under the watchful eye of the Dark Council.

*<s>[[Alpha Legion]]: [[Alpharius]]/[[Omegon]]</s>- No such Legion or Primarchs exists, further speculation on this issue is [[heresy]] and will result in execution. Said non-existent Legion has never trolled the Imperium for the last 10,000 years by faking the death of every member, any idea to the contrary is [[HERESY]]. Also, masters of <s>sneaking around undetected</s> fucking their enemies' brains with multi-step Just As Planned schemes, that aren't overly complicated or lack the fallback plans (unlike Thousand Sons ones). In fact, their fallback-fallback plans usually have their own fallback plans just in case. Pretty much everything Imperium knows about them is a lie, suspected to be one, or a truth no one believes in since it looks like a lie.

Naturally, [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists|not everyone turned traitors]].

=== Renegades ===
The legions of old are not the only source of Chaos Space Marines, with the fluff no longer being clear on whether they even are the largest source anymore. It's either the traitor legions or the Ultramarines who have produced the most Chaos Marines and renegade Chapters. Loyalist marines get turned to Chaos like all the time (well, okay, it's actually pretty rare considering the limited numbers of Space Marines, but significant enough). Most often it's just a few individual marines or squads, sometimes going as far as entire companies, and rarely (but not rarely enough) entire chapters turn to Chaos. Sometimes it's the Imperium's own fault for turning initially loyal marines against the system due to a misunderstanding or an overzealous Inquisitor declaring them heretics and the new 'renegades' then realize that since no matter what they do they'll be viewed as traitors by the Imperium, they may as well become traitors in reality. Sometimes, like with the [[Abyssal Crusade]], it's a case of [[just as planned]] succeeding so hard Tzeentch isn't even miffed that particular plot gets tied up. Other times, marines "caught" some Chaos taint due to fighting Chaos too much without proper Librarian control (bonus points if Librarians themselves get corrupted), committing terrible crimes in their fights against Ruinous Powers, or trying to fight Chaos with Chaos, like the [[Relictors]]. And finally, a Chapters' own flaws in temperament may leave them all too easily manipulated into bringing their damnation upon themselves.

What is the most surprising, is that shit still happens despite loyalist marines being heavily brainwashed, even more than Death Korps of Krieg or Sisters of Battle (both of which are famous for having close to zero Chaos corruption rate). More so, marines even have a specific organ, to make them even more brainwashable. Some speculate the reason behind this is just Astartes longevity - after all SoBs and Kriegers didn't get continuously exposed to Ruinous Powers for hundreds of years. Others say that marines are just naturally susceptible to corruption, which makes sense if you believe the story daemons tell: that Primarchs were made with the help of The Four, and were given their power to make them something more than just genetically engineered humans. A theory from 30k states that the reason Marines are more easily turned to Chaos is that Marines naturally are fanatical in almost anything they do, and when feeling scolded by the very thing they are fanatical about it makes them do a full 180" to worship something else instead. This is what happened to the [[Word Bearers]], and most modern-day Marines are <s>at least as religious as the Word Bearers were before the Horus Heresy</s> either atheist or view the Emperor as a sort of Living Saint. Marines that worship anything are rare and looked upon as oddballs by the rest of the Adeptus Astartes. Usually it's whole Chapters rather than individuals that do it. Being Space Marines are highly valued by Chaos, they might simply be singled out for dedicated attempts to corrupt them whereas even Sisters of Battle are basically ignored and either get corrupted the same way as Guardsmen or not at all because Chaos doesn't care about them. It does care about Astartes.

ADB once said that Abaddon embodies the old Biblical thing about Satan refusing to bow down to man, and this might be applied to most Chaos Space Marines. Space Marines are expected to give their whole lives - centuries (if not millennia) and sometimes even [[Dreadnought|beyond that]] - to war, so that ordinary humans, most of whom will never have to fight for their lives, can live in relative comfort. Unsurprisingly many Space Marines do resent this on some level, although regular indoctrination helps them cope with that particular feeling by redirecting it toward xenos/heretics in [[rip and tear|a more productive way]]. It has been suggested that Marines genuinely treating mortals with respect are probably in the minority, though, and then along comes a Word Bearer talking about these gods who will set them free, who'll make them the masters instead of the servants... Despite the nigh-constant indoctrination, these words don't always fall on deaf ears. Which is still really weird since the Astartes voluntarily ''chose'' their life barring the rare Chapter that conscripts/kidnaps aspirants. Sure, they might change their mind over time, but they didn't go through all those trials and hardships and training just to decide it wasn't worthwhile after all.

Renegades also have rather divergent attitudes to the Traitor Primarchs. Some venerate them as the Daemonic overlords that they are. Others wonder why everyone seems to fanboy themselves over beings who "lived" thousands of years ago and even then only for a few verifiable centuries before vanishing up their own arses to sit out the wars that the renegade has potentially been fighting for far longer than the Primarchs were ever alive for.

No matter the true reason behind, this shit happens, and from one retcon to another after-Heresy chapter renegades become more and more prevalent to the point that they could actually outnumber the old Legions, even if the Black Legion isn't shy about inducting any who is willing to join and swear fealty to [[Abaddon]] amongst their ranks.

Although, "Renegade" is also used to refer to non-Chaos aligned Astartes and other rogue but non-Chaos forces. They aren't generally against the Imperium, either. At worst just pirating as needed to survive and little else but it isn’t uncommon for them to (futilely) trying to find absolution or [[Soul Drinkers|just ignoring their own expulsion and continuing to serve as usual]]. Which is hilarious.

==A "Meta-History" of Sorts==
I suppose we should [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|start at the beginning]]? So, back in the day, Chaos introduced in the tome Slaves To Darkness, which was effectively an expansion to Rogue Trader. That's right,
the original 40k didn't have Chaos, although it did have Warp Demons. In the original Rogue Trader narrative, the Emperor was encased in the Golden Throne because he was thousands of years old and he needed life force from psykers in order to survive. Once Slaves to Darkness and its sister book Lost and the Damned were introduced, it was revealed that there was this event called the Horus Heresy, and Horus was a primarch that rebelled and nearly killed the Emperor. Talk about a pretty hefty background update!

Crunchwise, the CSM were just marines with some different wargear selection, as well as the ability to get Chaos mutations. It gets really confusing from there (Can you say, D1000 chart with 100+ mutations?) so the less said about the First Edition days, the better. The first, most important thing to remember is that Chaos was effectively a WHFB expy, so it included beastmen, daemons and renegades [[Awesome|all rolled into one]].

===2nd Ed: First Age of Whoop-Ass===
Hoo-boy... I want you to picture it, if you can, a codex wherein Chaos Lords had no stats under 5, daemons could be freely taken in any FO slot (or the equivalent for 2nd Ed) and everything, ''everything'' could push a loyalist's shit in. The CSM received a promotion in the fluff to primary antagonists after getting retconned into the reason as to why the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne (via Horus traitorous ways and that mortal wound). Those were the days of 2nd edition; that's when Chaos was a unified front led by an interesting character on a 10,000 year quest for bloody vengeance. These were the days when a [[Bloodthirster]] would use an [[Avatar]] as a speedbump, and yet the only trump against CSM were the Eldar (And to a lesser extent the Tyranids when they evolved beyond Genestealer cults). Your characters could equip a Bloodletter's sword if you so chose to do so, as well as Chaos Terminator armour that could save on a 2d6 roll of 2+. Noise Marines, Thousand Sons, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines all got their start here, and they started out as ''Troops'' (or rather, their second ed equivalent). You could also take [[Foulspawn]], a special character Nurgle [[Chaos Spawn|Thing]]/[[Daemon Prince]] with 19 wounds (!) that stole wounds from his kills and could regenerate lost wounds every turn. And guess what? You could field beasts, renegades and daemons in your army. It was also possible to give Chaos Marines equipment and vehicles that only their loyalist equivalents get nowadays (including [[Dude, Where's my Land Speeder?|assault cannons, storm bolters, cyclone missile launchers, and various support vehicles]]), in order to accurately represent the equipment used by Renegades from later Foundings. However, they had to pay an extra 50% traitor tax in order to take them.

Yeah, it sounds fucking insane and the coolest thing ever, and it was. Arguably, things were a bit nascent because in spite of all the other extras, they were still very much just space marines with other armies rolled into it. They had the same stats and many of the same rules and wargear as their loyalist counterparts.

===3rd Ed: Roller Coaster into [[Awesome]]===
Third edition started by screwing everyone: the rules were fucked up to try and shift the balance of power towards infantry and away from characters (so sayeth GW, anyway). Regardless, this is one of a few times that GW actually dialed back the power creep inherent in their game systems to such a degree that all existing armies got hosed (worst of all, Eldar) and CSM were no exception. The Codex pumped out was a hackneyed shadow of its former self that needed constant reference checks to the main rules because all the rules for your stuff got printed there instead of your codex. This first release however brought about the much-loved [[Obliterators]], [[Possessed]] and [[Raptors]] and GW did make rules for entire cult armies available for download on their website at the time, which was a thing GW used to do.

Halfway through its life-cycle, GW introduced [[Tau]] and [[Necrons]], breaking the game with [[Fish of Fury]] and just simply existing, respectively. [[List of 40K Cheese|In the midst of this renewed cheese surge, the CSM got a second lease on life]], cranking their competitiveness to second place behind the dreaded third ed 'crons. These were the days of the 200+ point CSM lord that could out-punch fucking ANYTHING! We're talking about a wargear sheet noticeably larger than any other faction, which also included the curious ability to make your aspiring champions psykers. You could load up a squad with stacks of veteran skills, sneaking them into position, moving through cover and then finishing with a furious charge. [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets its big introduction as a monstrous creature AND a walker! These were the days when you ''bought'' as opposed to rolled for the powers your Possessed had; where you could dedicate vehicles to the Gods, and that gave you certain options (thus creating the Sonic Dreadnought... and Predator). You could take a Slaaneshi psyker and give him and his unit immunity from shooting attacks with a well rolled minor psychic power. Best of all, these were the days of fielding Traitor Legions - ridiculously unbalanced lists that would either fall flat on their faces and cost way too much (Thousand Sons) or tear the fucking table in half (Iron Warriors).

Games Workshop tried valiantly to dial back the cheese by releasing Imperial Assassins, Daemonhunters and Witchhunters but once the Eye of Terror campaign hit and the official (and also cheesy) Lost and the Damned rules were out, third ed was firmly [[Cultist-chan|captoored by chaoz.]]

===4th Ed: The Sudden Betrayal===
That rat-bastard, pointy-eared fuck! In 4th ed, [[Gav Thorpe]] raped Chaos and left her to die in a fucking gutter. Those broken-as-hell traitor legions lists? Instead of fixing them for players that liked the other legions, they were removed. Veteran skills? Gone. Wargear? Toast. Lost and the Damned? More like "lost-a la vista," amirite. Daemons? Worst of all, Thorpe figured they needed their own, super-shitty codex. CSM players were ''pissed'' at the "streamlining" their armies got, but they endured it because at the time there were a few nifty silver linings. You could still technically have your cult army/legion/whatever and they were all not bad; that is to say the codex was at least internally balanced. During this time, the Eldar got pumped from worse than last place to playable, Tyranids got an update that was fair as well, Fish of Fury got pulled from the Tau Codex and the loyalists got a decent buff in the 4th ed SM codices. Nothing spectacular, but everything felt fair; it felt like we could have fun with each other and save our bitter sniping for the rightly-deserving Necron players and their totes OP 3E rules. For a brief period of time, the rules system was stable and there was hope that this trend might continue...

===5th Ed: Abandon (the Despoiler) Ship!===
[[Matt Ward|And then this happened.]] GW, in a moment of clarity and business acumen, summoned Matt Ward from the pit to turn the 40K metagame on its larynx through its asshole to promote sales of their most popular line, Space Marines. [[Dawn of War]] had just come out and Relic/THQ made the Space Marines really good (and Imperial Guard, and Eldar, [[Dawn of Eldar|especially the Eldar]] but they would have to wait until 6E to get their cheese on). CSM didn't get a release in this edition because GW decided instead to dedicate their time to fanboy service while throwing a bone to the Dark Eldar and Orks. This was when the 4th ed. rules were used to create the well-known CSM mono-build for 5th ed (Lash Prince, Plague Marines, Termicide, Obliterators and ''maybe'' a Chosen squad for guiding deep strikes). However, once the 5th ed Grey Knights landed, Chaos was truly on its ass. These were the days all the jokes made against Chaos finally made it to the internets and the forces of Chaos shifted from that terrifying adversary feared across the galaxy to the Imperium's punching bag ''du jour''. Many were the veteran players who simply left in disgust.

===6th Ed: A New NOPE!===
Rumours started pouring in furiously when 6th ed was nearing release. Close combat will have AP values? Oooo! What's this - CSM will be the first codex out the gate? Hot damn! New models? BITCHIN'! Revamped rules to finally reclaim some of the fucking glory we lost in the last two goddamn editions? Hallelujah!

So, 2013 has come and gone along with that release and I think we can all say how disappointing that truly was. Of the few bright spots was [[Helldrake|a new flyer with a *AHEM* ''gigantic exhaust port'']]. ("Gaze into the Eye of Terror!" and "Glory to the Goatse of Chaos!" were only some of the reactions.) Many lulz were enjoyed by /tg/ of its... ahem, questionable design aesthetics. This however says nothing of the fact that crunch-wise it is arguably the cheesiest flyer in all of 6th ed - praise the dark gods, indeed?

Aside from the Heldrakes however, the codex had a lot of questionable design choices. Well, not really because there was a lot of dead weight and questionable mechanic design in that book; unlike their loyalist counterparts, the Chaos Army could not properly run MSU builds, since "all its shooting" was in the Heavy Support section, and "all of its speed" was in the Fast Attack section; this contrasted drastically with Marines being able to do ranged threats in their entire FOC via Rifleman Dreadnoughts, Sternguard, Land Speeders and Razorbacks, or their ability to apply pressure via Bike Troops & Drop Pods. In theory, 6th edition was supposed to compensate for this overspecialization by doubling FOCs at 2000 points, [[Rage|but most tournaments ran at either 1850 points or "1999+1 points"]].

Speaking to questionable design, [[Mutilators]] and [[Warp Talons]] reeked of lazy design, while mathhammer and an emphasis on "disembarked troops" holding objectives meant that many tournament armies became little more than a tide of Cultists and Heldrakes, leading to a paradoxical consensus that the [[fail|best way to with with Chaos Space Marines was to not actually take any Chaos Space Marines]]. [[Rage|Needless to say, this did not go well with many players]].

When it comes to the traitor marines themselves, /tg/'s opinions were divided. Some praised the new design for its focus on intricate trims and warp-induced mutations (eyes, tentacles), whereas others disliked it for its lack of [[Grimdark]], claiming it looked too cartoonish and too playful. Crunchwise, as if we haven't said it enough, this book was well and truly fucked. We really tried to like it, but any list that requires supplements and/or Forgeworld models/books to fill strategic gaps in the codex is a pretty bad list.

===7th Ed: What the Fuck is this even===
Chaos Space Marines played similar to their loyalist counterparts, having access to most of the same wargear and vehicles, plus some unique stuff at the expense of all the stuff that makes loyalists remotely useful in a (completely vain) attempt to play up the [[RIP AND TEAR]] side in an edition favouring shooting. They have some of the same strengths and amplified weaknesses, expensive-to-overpriced units, are easily often outnumbered, but overall, they tend to play too aggressively to the point of carelessness. Thanks to all this nerf-slapping, their ranking amongst armies has tanked from the notably OP 3.5 days; the codex and army have since fallen into decline due to progressively weaker books in favour of the worst kind of fan-service for a handful of factions. CSM did get a release in the form of Khorne Daemonkin, but it just blended two books together with some new rules and wargear instead of fixing glaring problems with the units in them; they ''were'' weak due to their garbled 6E codex. Fortunately, 7E has been putting the screws to every single Codex released in 5th Ed while GW releases an unrelenting tide of half-assed pseudo-codices that don't even cover an FOC while adding bullshit mechanics like grav-spam, decurions or buffing the Eldar sky-high.

That lasted until the release of the Traitor Legions supplement. With the release of the supplement, CSM got legion specific buffs and abilites, for Fluffy builds. For example, Alpha Legion armies can't have any marks, but they get to pass on their warlord trait to a friendly character if the current warlord dies. Night Lords get Raptors as core, Iron Warriors get [[Derp|Mutilators]] and [[Awesome|Obliterators]], Word Bearers get Possessed, and so on. Ironically, it's now better to take Khorne CSM over berserkers, because they're basically the same unit, but one is cheaper. Overall, Death Guard and Emperor's Children seem to be the best options at the moment, followed by the Alpha Legion. Basic Emperor's Children marines with Icon of excess are 190 pts for a 10 man squad of initiative 5 marines, with 4+ FNP, Fearless, and a roll on the combat drug table, which can give them +1 WS, BS, S, T, A, I. Death Guard Marines, meanwhile, are incredible also (Likely even better than the EC ones), 170 pts for a 10 man squad of toughness 5 marines with 5+ FNP and fearless but with a -1 to initiative. Iron Warriors, while initially derided, can bring three pairs of Tank Hunter Obliterators and three Twinlinked Vindicators at 1850 points, with a team or two of fortification-camping, Fearless, Tank Hunter, ObSec Autocannon Havocs.

For the second half of 7th ed, it was safe to say that CSM were solid again. Could every Legion deal with Scatbike spam, Crisis/Markerlight shenanigans, or free DTs easily? Not exactly. But World Eaters could get to melee faster than anyone else. Black Legion could pull crazy alpha strikes and use 13-point marines with Rage, Counter-Attack, +1 strength if the charge roll is 8+, Ld9 (10 on the champ), Crusader, Fear, and Hatred (with permanent re-rolls to hit against Imperium). So we might not be quite as good as [[Cheese|Craftworld Eldar]], grav-spamming [[Smashfucker]] Loyalists or Guard and their absurd amounts of ordnance but CSM could fuck up the mid-tier Tau, Mechanicum and Necrons with ease again (the less said about the benighted Nids, Deldar and Orks the better; don't ask about the Sisters). We're calling that a result! It seems someone understood the risk-reward paradigm of the CSM (the risk in putting your eggs in a basket that would either collapse or rip and tear your opponent).

... and then 7th ed. ended. A minor loss but thank god that's over!

===8th Ed: Time to hope once again?===
The Traitor Legions book was a decent step forward in the era of 7th edition and 8th edition was certainly full of changes. Traitor lists largely remained although they were nowhere near as wild as the last edition. Thankfully, a lot of the garbage from 6th and 7th has been thrown out with them. No more "randomness because Chaos, guys!" as pretty much ''all'' the random tables from all over 7th are scrapped as are the Decurions. This is a big step forward although a curious step into the mists of time, harkening back to 2nd.

For a moment, CSM could still ally seamlessly with Daemons and Renegades until GW patched out soup lists. There were some issues with the index but Vigilius Ablaze brought us new units and models, which then found their way into the Codex. Said book not only patched the problems with the index, but added Legion Traits that help the Traitor Legions excel in their fluff-based specialties. The Thousand Sons and Death Guard also received their own Codexes with their own special flavor of nastiness.

===9th Ed: The Galaxy Ablaze Once Again===
Things are getting HOT! There's a new codex around the corner with updates to Death Guard and Thousand Sons. CSM are slated for a release in early 2022. Which is good because our book is old and NOT doing well. In fact [[RAGE|GW has failed to FAQ Chaos Marines to 2 Wounds yet]] (They are waiting for the codex). However their new previewed datasheet points to them having better stats than [[Awesome|Primaris Marines.]] They are slated for a new range of models including a variety of cultists and chaos marine models. Shit, it looks like Renegades and Heretics got rolled into the CSM book, so that's interesting.

==See Also==
*[[Warriors of Chaos]]: The much <s>more competent</s> <s>useful</s> less punching bag counterparts to the Chaos Marines in Warhammer Fantasy, at least until the Age of Sigmar took hold.
**[[Chaos Warrior|Chaos Warriors]]: each member of this parade of ruin.
*[[Chaos Space Marine Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Chaos Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (9E)|Tactics on how to play them.]]
*[[What it's like]]: A short story meant to place emphasis the uncertainty of the life of a chaos space marine.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:1227181112539.jpg|The Typical Chaos Space Marine
File:1174923365695wq1vj1.png|The dreaded [[Night Lords]] preparing an ambush
File:Emperor s Children by megalaros.jpg|Slaaneshi noise marine. Because words can kill.
File:Lcw.jpg|[[Imperium|They]] think that corpse on a throne is a god!
File:Firstkeeper.jpg|Change we can believe in!
</gallery>

{{Chaos-Official}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{WH40k-Factions}}

Chaos Space Marines

2022-10-19T04:52:27Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Overview */

{{heresy}}
{{Topquote|And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword. And I beheld, and lo a black horse; and he that sat on him had a pair of balances in his hand. And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts say: "A measure of wheat for a penny, and three measures of barley for a penny; and see thou hurt not the oil and the wine." And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with [[Black Legion|sword]], and with [[World Eaters|hunger]], and with [[Death Guard|death]], and with [[Chaos Spawn|the beasts of the earth.]]|Revelation 6:8}}

{{Topquote|The treachery of demons is nothing compared to the betrayal of an angel.|Brenna Yovanoff}}
[[File:Crimson Slaughter Chaos Marine ukitakumuki.jpg|thumb|500px|right|Chaos up in this motherfucker.]]

'''Chaos Space Marines''' (also known as '''Heretic Astartes''' and '''Astartes Traitoris''') are, simply enough, [[Space Marines]] that have fallen to, or were inducted to, [[Chaos]]. They are also one of the main factions in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. The first Chaos Marines were born during the [[Horus Heresy]] from the nine [[Traitor Legion]]s. Since then, many Space Marines (and even a few full [[Space Marine Chapter|Chapters]]) have gone rogue, becoming Renegades. However, this is mostly a [[fluff]] distinction, as the [[Codex]] (or the models for that matter) does not differentiate between the two.

CSM supplement their lack of more easily available loyalist resources (recruits, tech, supplies, etc.) by way of daemons and Warp energy from the dark Gods, plundered weapons from whoever is unlucky enough to lose an engagement to them, and renegades from the Imperium, which are always available because the Imperium [[Grimdark|treats its subjects like steampunk condoms]].

==Overview==
[[File:Black crusade by yogh art-d5bqzea.jpg|thumb|450px|left|Birds have not been so scary for 66 million years.]]
Chaos Space Marines are basically Imperial Space Marines who have forsaken their oath to the Imperium of Man to serve the Ruinous Powers, which is [[Heresy]]. Marines do this for a number of reasons, although the cause of this is usually finding that the ways of Chaos suit them more than the Imperium, or the classic case of the Imperium dicking them over (largely the case for post-heresy chapters).

The origins of Chaos Space Marines go back to [[Erebus]] of the Word Bearers, the first Chaos Marine, who then corrupted the recently-emotionally-discouraged Primarch [[Lorgar]] to Chaos. Erebus would then set into motion the events that would lead to Warmaster Horus being wounded on Davin's moon, where he would fall to the corruptions of Chaos. Horus, supreme Warmaster of the Imperium, would then gather [[Mortarion|<s>7</s>]] [[Omegon|8]] [[Konrad Curze|more]] [[Alpharius|of]] [[Angron|his]] [[Magnus the Red|distraught]] [[Perturabo|brother]] [[Fulgrim|Primarchs]] to his cause, along with a good fraction of Imperial forces and the Adeptus Mechanicus in full-scale rebellion, resulting in the Horus Heresy. When Horus got roflstomped by the Emprah during their duel, most of the Traitors fled to the Eye of Terror because of the loss of leadership, resulting in what would be known as "Chaos Space Marines".

Naturally, they fight just like Space Marines except <s>on average they are stronger, more experienced, and older, given that the majority stood with their Primarchs during the Great Crusade</s> only worse because Mary Sues need punching bags. They keep using shit they were equipped with prior to the Horus Heresy such as [[bolter]]s and the ever useful Space Marine [[plot armor|plot]] [[pauldrons|armor]], which would explain why they didn't fistfuck each other to death before reaching the Eye of Terror, or why they would follow the lead of a particular [[Saturday]] [[Abaddon|morning cartoon villain]].

Chaos Marines are also commonly known to compensate their aging weapons (which didn't really age much, considering how fucktarded Imperium tech support is) by using demon magic for that extra edge in combat. Naturally they lack some of the weapons and [[Standard Template Construct|equipment Imperium "invented" (or rather dug up) for the last 10,000 years]], such as [[Razorback Transport|Razorbacks]], [[Centurion Squad|Centurion suits]], [[Autogun|assault cannons]] or [[Grav-Weaponry|grav guns]], and although they often get their hands on such pieces of tech (mostly by killing corpse-worshipers who own them), their Dark Mechanicum allies have few to zero spare parts and/or ammo for them, those trophies rarely last in use for a long time. The latter reason is also why Chaos Marines no longer use some of them more delicate and advanced tech like Land Speeder variants or Whirlwinds, which they definitely HAD before the Heresy - those things require just too much maintenance to fit into their more independent and chaotic combat doctrines.
[[File:1286933675792.jpg|400px|right|thumb|The eternal war rages on.]]

For all their powers from Chaos, however, most of them are nowhere nearly as organized as their loyalist counterparts. Turning to Chaos tends to drive Marines insane, usually causing them to lose much of the tactical prowess they had as loyalists. That said, organized legions like the Word Bearers, Thousand Sons, Iron Warriors, Death Guard (once they got their shit together), and Black Legion still remain much more of a competent military force than one might think. This is emphasized in the Black Legion novels, where the narrator has to explain to the freaking Inquisition, of all people, that the Chaos Legions don't have any dedicated supply lines, logistics, infrastructure, shipyards, independent manufacturing, or even the ability to feed their own forces. And they're still a great threat despite all this..

...though many of those problems were eventually solved as the Traitor Legions regained their Heresy-era numbers (or even more in some cases), and various industries were built or captured from the Imperium; the Idolator ship and two Planet Killers were made 100% from Chaos factories.

After all, the tree of heresy can grow from the smallest seed.

Different warbands of Chaos Space Marines are every bit as prone to fighting each other as they are anything else for any number of reasons; evil doesn't get along with evil, they're all nuts and just want to fight something, or the other warband worships a different Chaos god. Yeah, these guys are nuts. The phrase "the devil is not mocked", comes to mind, as was aptly conveyed by [[Alpharius]] during the height of the Horus Heresy. Infighting inside individual warbands is not unheard of, and their leaders always have to watch their back because every single Marine has hopes of killing their superiors and taking over. So yeah, if they didn't have the [[Eye of Terror]] to hide in and the Imperium wasn't so idiot-ball prone, it probably would have killed them by now. However, when they DO get their shit together, they fuck up the Imperium on a scale undreamed of by [[War of the Beast|almost]] every other race in Warhammer. See the Dominion of Fire or the Cholercaust Blood Crusade. '''GODDAMN IT, KHORNATE BERZERKERS ARE AWESOME.'''

They ''were'' the oldest fogies (or at least the ones from traitor legions are anyway) in the setting, barring the [[Eldar|space elves]], [[Bjorn the Fell Handed|that one angry viking dreadnought]] (who's about their age), the [[Necrons|Tomb King expys]] and maybe a few of the [[Tyranid|Omnivorous Space Bug Lizards things]] but now they've been retconned. CSM today may be some of the veterans from the Heresy or they could just be newfags that decided they were too cool for the Imperium. Fucking hell this is depressing.

Many Chaos Marines eventually dedicate themselves to one of the four [[Chaos Gods]], becoming little more than an extension of the god's will. This path has great risk and great reward, as the Chaos Gods are quite capricious; between two equally-dedicated champions, one will become a [[Chaos Spawn|horrific beast that should not be named]], whereas the other will achieve apotheosis and become a [[Daemon Prince]].

*'''[[Khorne|Khornate Champions]]:''' Those who worship Khorne (such as the [[World Eaters]] Traitor Legion) become close quarters badasses full of [[rage|RAAAAAAAAAGGGEEEE]]!. Khornate champions are among the best dedicated melee fighters in the setting. They are insane, ruthless, and barbaric, and continually lust after BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD and SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! Marines dedicated to Khorne are usually called [[Khorne Berzerkers]], after the Berzerkers of the World Eaters Legion, of whom [[Kharn]] (swell guy by the way) is the most famous. They are famed for their use of the [[chainaxe]] and their fucktastically fearless charges. They also get the best speeches. Although do note that Khornate followers are not all pure-CQC fighters, any weapon that spills blood in honorable combat like heavy weapons or vehicles is welcomed by Khorne. '''"BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE! MILK FOR THE KHORNE FLAKES!! BUTTER FOR THE POP KHORNE!!"'''

*'''[[Nurgle|Nurglic Champions]]:''' These guys are rotting, diseased, decaying sacks of flesh who can take hits that would kill a squad of Terminators. They're something of a meat shield as far as Chaos is concerned (although not as much as [[Cornholio the Cultist|Chaos Cultists]]). They've contracted every disease in creation and then some. Despite looking like a bag of things best not described, Nurgle's followers won't hesitate to give you a big, long, family hug. D'awww. The [[Death Guard]] fell to Nurgle, but it wasn't really their fault.

*'''[[Slaanesh|Slaaneshi Champions]]:''' The followers of Slaanesh simply want to experience pleasure to the highest degree, most of which usually involves the euphoria gained from killing another person. Thus, Slaaneshi followers typically hype themselves up on drugs in order to intensify the sensations they experience, whether from sex or from slaughter. Slaaneshi Marines have taken so many drugs their bodies ''start to produce them normally.'' And yes, this is really canon. They also get penis fingers to give them the extra edge in combat (somehow) and hyperactive awareness, meaning that Slaaneshi followers typically move so fast that they're at par with Eldar reflexes. [[Doomrider]] is one of the most famous Slaaneshi champions (at least on /tg/), although he isn't from the [[Emperor's Children]], the Chaos Legion that fell to Slaanesh; [[Lucius the Eternal]], on the other hand, is.

*'''[[Tzeentch|Tzeentchian Champions]]:''' All followers of Tzeentch are tricky and conniving, and many of them are also powerful [[psyker]]s (as Tzeentch is the god of magic). Warriors under Tzeentch tend to rape anything in ranged combat with either enhanced weapons or SPACE MAGIC that would turn heroes into [[Chaos Spawn]], squa-'''GRAABBRLBLLRBLRLRBLR'''{{*BLAM*}}
**Ahem. To continue where the previous writer left off... squads of infantry into ash, and vehicles into puddles of molten goo. The [[Thousand Sons]] Legion is dedicated to Tzeentch; their (former) chief diviner, [[Ahriman]], is one of the better-known Tzeentchian sorcerers.

*'''[[Chaos Undivided|Undivided]]:''' Back in the good ol' days, Chaos Undivided was the concept of worshiping Chaos as a combined entity or pantheon. The [[Word Bearers]] were probably the most well-known worshippers of Chaos Undivided. Since then, it has been largely retconned; instead, Chaos Undivided refers to Chaos Marines with the support of all four Chaos gods... because apparently that's different somehow (the former is monotheistic worship of Chaos as though Chaos itself was a god, the latter is the worship of aspects of Chaos as separate deities). This has left the Word Bearers in something of a weird spot, as their core concept has been badly mangled. Although, this is not completely out of place: Undivided followers ''do'' have the support of all four Chaos Gods due to their doctrine, but because they don't swear complete servitude to one like what the [[Death Guard]] and [[World Eaters]] did, they don't receive the full power of each Chaos God either. This isn't a bad thing, though, as even at a glance it's easy to see how the gods of Chaos compliment each other when undivided. And undivided worshipers are usually not insane. Plus, the more you do to prove yourself to each god, the more benefits you get from each. It's a longer game than swearing yourself to just one, but the end benefits are larger as well. If you can survive long enough to reap your rewards. Most importantly, perhaps, is that the critical flaws of each of the four is balanced out by the others, so while you'll be a jack of all trades you aren't going to be a one-trick pony most of your enemies know how to counter. And you'll still have Chaos empowerment and the sanity to use it intelligently.

Note that many bands of Undivided Marines exploit Chaos for their own gain and feel little devotion to the Ruinous Powers, seeing it as no more than a tool for their goals. The [[Alpha Legion]], for instance, are closet loyalists (or double heretics, or triple heretics, or brothas doin' it for themselves, nobody knows), whereas the [[Night Lords]] Legion only cares about spreading terror, which Chaos is undoubtedly useful for, but they look down upon the religious. Similarly, the [[Soul Drinkers]], a Renegade Chapter with an entire book series, are enemies of both Chaos and the [[Imperium of Man]] (though they fight for the [[Emperor]]'s ideals; it's complicated, but likely has roots in the current Imperium being the antithesis or something akin to the [[Imperial Truth]]), although most in the Imperium would consider them "Chaos Marines."

*'''[[Malal|Malice]]:''' Way back when, [[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] had a [[Chaos Gods#The_Other_Ones|minor Chaos God]] named Malal. Malal was a paradox, in that he is the embodiment of Chaos' chaotic behavior. His main goal was the spread of chaos (not the Warp energies, but actual chaos like anarchy and disruption) by screwing up the plans of the other Ruinous Powers, so he had dedicated Champions that hunted down other Chaos Champions and generally dicked over the Chaos Gods. However, [[Games Workshop]] had to remove him from the setting due to a trademark dispute with the author that invented him. In 40k, meanwhile, there's a warband called the [[Sons of Malice]] that hunt down other Chaos Marines and seem to worship a minor Chaos power named "Malice." This has led /tg/ to believe that Malal/Malice exists in 40k and can be invoked upon for power, although this is of dubious canonicity at best.

==The Traitor Legions==
[[File:Word Bearers by Chingonman.jpg|500px|right|thumb|When Space Jehovah's Witnesses come knocking, don't answer the door.]]
When the [[Horus Heresy]] struck, nine of the original twenty Legions turned against the [[Emprah]]. These guys are basically the original and the best. All of these survived the Siege of Terra and escaped into the [[Eye of Terror]] with a very large number of bodies (Space Marine legions frequently numbered up to 100,000 members by the time of the Heresy). Over time, they have become widely scattered, generally working in mixed warbands combining a variety of Traitor Legionnaires, Renegade Marines, and lesser humans (frequently rebellious Imperial Guard). However, it should be noted that quite a few Chaos Marines still fight as a Legion (generally drastically reduced in size) led by their original (now-Daemon) Primarch (if they're still alive, anyway). It's very rare to see more than a Grand Company (roughly equal in size to a Chapter of loyalist Marines) in any given battle unless it's an organized invasion (of which the most notable examples are the Black Crusades led by a [[Abaddon|certain armless failure]]), the Legion's Primarch himself calls them to fuck some shit up, or you're dealing with the Word Bearers or Iron Warriors, who are generally more organized than anybody else. The following are the nine Traitor Legions:

*[[Emperor's Children]]: Also known as pretty marines, their Primarch is [[Fulgrim]], who is now <s>a painting</s> getting his serpentine dick sucked by a swarm of daemonettes on his pleasure planet. <s>possibly still a painting</s> They don't operate as a Legion at all anymore, mostly because [[Kharn]] and the slave wars kinda fucked all their shit up. Anyway, they were basically OCD hyper-perfectionists that also really liked to party. They got ever-more hedonistic, attracted the attention of [[Slaanesh]], and the rest is history. Their Cult unit is the [[Noise Marines]], which are (as their name implies) Chaos Marines that like to kill people with noise. This used to mean sweet heavy-metal guitars, but GW retconned that, so now they have less-impressive (but still cool) <s>bass cannons</s> sonic cannons.

*[[Iron Warriors]]: The evil twins of the [[Imperial Fists]], they really like to build shit and then tear (somebody else's) shit down. In other words, they are masters of siege warfare (basically, rooting out cover-camping bitches). Their Primarch is [[Perturabo]]. They're generally the second most coherent of the Traitor Legions, retaining most of their pre-Heresy organization and numbers, although their great companies are generally independent and only answer to Perturabo himself, who on his part doesn't give a fuck and let them fight each other just for lulz. Also, they probably created the [[Obliterator|Obliterator Virus]], seeing as how they seem to have special connections with the Obliterator Cult. Sadly, they can no longer take [[Basilisk|Basilisks]] and don't have any special rules or Cult units (seeing as how that was quite broken back in 3rd), but GW did throw them a bone in the new book with the [[Warpsmith]] (not to be confused with a [[Warsmith]], which is also Iron Warriors-related). One of their noted leaders is [[Honsou]], a Warsmith in the running for "evilest villain."

*[[Night Lords]]: Their Primarch was [[Konrad Curze]] (also known as the Night Haunter). They're basically space-terrorists, which (unsurprisingly) means they created Raptors, the sociopathic, predatory answer to the loyalists' Assault Marines. They prefer ambush tactics, which is quite difficult when you're walking around in Power Amour and wearing stupid bat-wing helmets. They also like screaming like maniacs to cause terror. They are one of the few legions (in fact, pretty much the only one) who refuse to employ Daemons or live in the Eye of Terror. (Well, at least the warbands that remained loyal to Kurze's vision. The biggest extant warband worships Chaos and is lead by a Daemon Prince.) They're one of the few Traitor Legion that has a dead Primarch, on account of Curze's desire to go down in a fucked up version of suicide by cop to vindicate his obsessive belief that monsters and criminals should be put down like rabid dogs.

*[[World Eaters]]: [[Angron]]- Dissolved after [[Kharn]] turned the legion against themselves, what a guy. Now acting as roaming warbands and mercenaries. They still unite every now and then when Angron wants to fuck something's shit up, such as [[Cadia]]. The <s>only</s> legion known to get shit done when called up to do so.

*[[Death Guard]]: [[Mortarion]] - Didn't show up much in the fluff until the release of the Death Guard codex, though plague marines and champions can be found in many other warbands and, next to world-eater berserkers, are the most common cult unit. Also before Thirteenth Black Crusade Typhus's Plague Fleet kicked major ass in systems all around the Eye of Terror, turning entire planetary populations into zombies. As of 8th edition, they are now their own separate army. Oh, and Mortarion has returned, and his model is [[skub|controversial in terms of appearance]]. They also possess a planet known as the "Plague Planet".

*[[Thousand Sons]]: [[Magnus the Red]] - Another legion that doesn't show up much at all in fluff after the Horus Heresy and [[Rubric Marines|rubric marines]] don't show up much in other legions' warbands and most warbands use their own sorcerers. Except for [[Ahriman]]; Ahriman goes out trolling the Harlequins and those few [[Inquisitor]]s. Ahriman also does this because Tzeentch likes dicking Magnus over in his passive-aggressive way. Fluff-wise, Thousand Sons walk through the Universe, searching for knowledge like ancient books and artifacts to research and nerd out in their libraries, and magicking the shit out of anyone stupid or bold enough to stand on their way. Being smart and cunning motherfuckers they fight only where it really needed and only on their own terms (read: very rarely). Have recently succeeded in fucking up the Fenris furries with Big-Red leading them. And are now their own army and range of models, including a giant daemon version of Magnus with wings.

*[[Black Legion]]: [[Horus]] (kind of) - Originally called the Luna Wolves and then the Sons of Horus, though Abaddon formally disbanded the Legion and used its assets and whatever ragtag allies he had as the foundation of the Black Legion. Unites every now and then when Abaddon wants to launch another Black Crusade. It's honestly a miracle they survived this long, seriously if you look at their battles and losses it really makes no sense how they managed to live long enough to become the Black Legion, let alone the wars after. Known for calling black crusades, massive chaos invasions that consist untold numbers of chaos space marines (provided there's an ass to pull them out of), daemons, and general renegades and heretics all working together to try and tear the Imperium a new asshole. They are the largest legion by far, stated to outnumber the Word Bearers ten to one, namely because Abaddon preys on the other Legions and lures their troops into his own. Unfortunately, they have no real central command structure outside of a Black Crusade, and even then Abaddon can't keep the Legion's shit together for very long before they start breaking off every which way in search of a fight, usually getting slaughtered not long afterward.

*[[Word Bearers]]: [[Lorgar]] - The only Traitor Legion to have retained its Chaplains, who would later become the first [[Dark Apostle]]s, who can often lead a Word Bearers' Warband in the place of a Chaos Lord or Champion. They're one of the more organized and complete legions as they have a central daemon world of their own named "Sicarus". Sicarus is covered in dozens of temples and cathedrals devoted to Chaos. The Word Bearers are still united under the banner of their Primarch: Lorgar (even if the lazy bastard never does anything these days but sit around doing nothing). The most coherent after the Iron Warriors, seen as their great companies (or Hosts, as they call them) are still working together under the watchful eye of the Dark Council.

*<s>[[Alpha Legion]]: [[Alpharius]]/[[Omegon]]</s>- No such Legion or Primarchs exists, further speculation on this issue is [[heresy]] and will result in execution. Said non-existent Legion has never trolled the Imperium for the last 10,000 years by faking the death of every member, any idea to the contrary is [[HERESY]]. Also, masters of <s>sneaking around undetected</s> fucking their enemies' brains with multi-step Just As Planned schemes, that aren't overly complicated or lack the fallback plans (unlike Thousand Sons ones). In fact, their fallback-fallback plans usually have their own fallback plans just in case. Pretty much everything Imperium knows about them is a lie, suspected to be one, or a truth no one believes in since it looks like a lie.

Naturally, [[Traitor_Legion_Loyalists|not everyone turned traitors]].

=== Renegades ===
The legions of old are not the only source of Chaos Space Marines, with the fluff no longer being clear on whether they even are the largest source anymore. It's either the traitor legions or the Ultramarines who have produced the most Chaos Marines and renegade Chapters. Loyalist marines get turned to Chaos like all the time (well, okay, it's actually pretty rare considering the limited numbers of Space Marines, but significant enough). Most often it's just a few individual marines or squads, sometimes going as far as entire companies, and rarely (but not rarely enough) entire chapters turn to Chaos. Sometimes it's the Imperium's own fault for turning initially loyal marines against the system due to a misunderstanding or an overzealous Inquisitor declaring them heretics and the new 'renegades' then realize that since no matter what they do they'll be viewed as traitors by the Imperium, they may as well become traitors in reality. Sometimes, like with the [[Abyssal Crusade]], it's a case of [[just as planned]] succeeding so hard Tzeentch isn't even miffed that particular plot gets tied up. Other times, marines "caught" some Chaos taint due to fighting Chaos too much without proper Librarian control (bonus points if Librarians themselves get corrupted), committing terrible crimes in their fights against Ruinous Powers, or trying to fight Chaos with Chaos, like the [[Relictors]]. And finally, a Chapters' own flaws in temperament may leave them all too easily manipulated into bringing their damnation upon themselves.

What is the most surprising, is that shit still happens despite loyalist marines being heavily brainwashed, even more than Death Korps of Krieg or Sisters of Battle (both of which are famous for having close to zero Chaos corruption rate). More so, marines even have a specific organ, to make them even more brainwashable. Some speculate the reason behind this is just Astartes longevity - after all SoBs and Kriegers didn't get continuously exposed to Ruinous Powers for hundreds of years. Others say that marines are just naturally susceptible to corruption, which makes sense if you believe the story daemons tell: that Primarchs were made with the help of The Four, and were given their power to make them something more than just genetically engineered humans. A theory from 30k states that the reason Marines are more easily turned to Chaos is that Marines naturally are fanatical in almost anything they do, and when feeling scolded by the very thing they are fanatical about it makes them do a full 180" to worship something else instead. This is what happened to the [[Word Bearers]], and most modern-day Marines are <s>at least as religious as the Word Bearers were before the Horus Heresy</s> either atheist or view the Emperor as a sort of Living Saint. Marines that worship anything are rare and looked upon as oddballs by the rest of the Adeptus Astartes. Usually it's whole Chapters rather than individuals that do it. Being Space Marines are highly valued by Chaos, they might simply be singled out for dedicated attempts to corrupt them whereas even Sisters of Battle are basically ignored and either get corrupted the same way as Guardsmen or not at all because Chaos doesn't care about them. It does care about Astartes.

ADB once said that Abaddon embodies the old Biblical thing about Satan refusing to bow down to man, and this might be applied to most Chaos Space Marines. Space Marines are expected to give their whole lives - centuries (if not millennia) and sometimes even [[Dreadnought|beyond that]] - to war, so that ordinary humans, most of whom will never have to fight for their lives, can live in relative comfort. Unsurprisingly many Space Marines do resent this on some level, although regular indoctrination helps them cope with that particular feeling by redirecting it toward xenos/heretics in [[rip and tear|a more productive way]]. It has been suggested that Marines genuinely treating mortals with respect are probably in the minority, though, and then along comes a Word Bearer talking about these gods who will set them free, who'll make them the masters instead of the servants... Despite the nigh-constant indoctrination, these words don't always fall on deaf ears. Which is still really weird since the Astartes voluntarily ''chose'' their life barring the rare Chapter that conscripts/kidnaps aspirants. Sure, they might change their mind over time, but they didn't go through all those trials and hardships and training just to decide it wasn't worthwhile after all.

Renegades also have rather divergent attitudes to the Traitor Primarchs. Some venerate them as the Daemonic overlords that they are. Others wonder why everyone seems to fanboy themselves over beings who "lived" thousands of years ago and even then only for a few verifiable centuries before vanishing up their own arses to sit out the wars that the renegade has potentially been fighting for far longer than the Primarchs were ever alive for.

No matter the true reason behind, this shit happens, and from one retcon to another after-Heresy chapter renegades become more and more prevalent to the point that they could actually outnumber the old Legions, even if the Black Legion isn't shy about inducting any who is willing to join and swear fealty to [[Abaddon]] amongst their ranks.

Although, "Renegade" is also used to refer to non-Chaos aligned Astartes and other rogue but non-Chaos forces. They aren't generally against the Imperium, either. At worst just pirating as needed to survive and little else but it isn’t uncommon for them to (futilely) trying to find absolution or [[Soul Drinkers|just ignoring their own expulsion and continuing to serve as usual]]. Which is hilarious.

==A "Meta-History" of Sorts==
I suppose we should [[Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader|start at the beginning]]? So, back in the day, Chaos introduced in the tome Slaves To Darkness, which was effectively an expansion to Rogue Trader. That's right,
the original 40k didn't have Chaos, although it did have Warp Demons. In the original Rogue Trader narrative, the Emperor was encased in the Golden Throne because he was thousands of years old and he needed life force from psykers in order to survive. Once Slaves to Darkness and its sister book Lost and the Damned were introduced, it was revealed that there was this event called the Horus Heresy, and Horus was a primarch that rebelled and nearly killed the Emperor. Talk about a pretty hefty background update!

Crunchwise, the CSM were just marines with some different wargear selection, as well as the ability to get Chaos mutations. It gets really confusing from there (Can you say, D1000 chart with 100+ mutations?) so the less said about the First Edition days, the better. The first, most important thing to remember is that Chaos was effectively a WHFB expy, so it included beastmen, daemons and renegades [[Awesome|all rolled into one]].

===2nd Ed: First Age of Whoop-Ass===
Hoo-boy... I want you to picture it, if you can, a codex wherein Chaos Lords had no stats under 5, daemons could be freely taken in any FO slot (or the equivalent for 2nd Ed) and everything, ''everything'' could push a loyalist's shit in. The CSM received a promotion in the fluff to primary antagonists after getting retconned into the reason as to why the Emperor ascended to the Golden Throne (via Horus traitorous ways and that mortal wound). Those were the days of 2nd edition; that's when Chaos was a unified front led by an interesting character on a 10,000 year quest for bloody vengeance. These were the days when a [[Bloodthirster]] would use an [[Avatar]] as a speedbump, and yet the only trump against CSM were the Eldar (And to a lesser extent the Tyranids when they evolved beyond Genestealer cults). Your characters could equip a Bloodletter's sword if you so chose to do so, as well as Chaos Terminator armour that could save on a 2d6 roll of 2+. Noise Marines, Thousand Sons, Khorne Berzerkers and Plague Marines all got their start here, and they started out as ''Troops'' (or rather, their second ed equivalent). You could also take [[Foulspawn]], a special character Nurgle [[Chaos Spawn|Thing]]/[[Daemon Prince]] with 19 wounds (!) that stole wounds from his kills and could regenerate lost wounds every turn. And guess what? You could field beasts, renegades and daemons in your army. It was also possible to give Chaos Marines equipment and vehicles that only their loyalist equivalents get nowadays (including [[Dude, Where's my Land Speeder?|assault cannons, storm bolters, cyclone missile launchers, and various support vehicles]]), in order to accurately represent the equipment used by Renegades from later Foundings. However, they had to pay an extra 50% traitor tax in order to take them.

Yeah, it sounds fucking insane and the coolest thing ever, and it was. Arguably, things were a bit nascent because in spite of all the other extras, they were still very much just space marines with other armies rolled into it. They had the same stats and many of the same rules and wargear as their loyalist counterparts.

===3rd Ed: Roller Coaster into [[Awesome]]===
Third edition started by screwing everyone: the rules were fucked up to try and shift the balance of power towards infantry and away from characters (so sayeth GW, anyway). Regardless, this is one of a few times that GW actually dialed back the power creep inherent in their game systems to such a degree that all existing armies got hosed (worst of all, Eldar) and CSM were no exception. The Codex pumped out was a hackneyed shadow of its former self that needed constant reference checks to the main rules because all the rules for your stuff got printed there instead of your codex. This first release however brought about the much-loved [[Obliterators]], [[Possessed]] and [[Raptors]] and GW did make rules for entire cult armies available for download on their website at the time, which was a thing GW used to do.

Halfway through its life-cycle, GW introduced [[Tau]] and [[Necrons]], breaking the game with [[Fish of Fury]] and just simply existing, respectively. [[List of 40K Cheese|In the midst of this renewed cheese surge, the CSM got a second lease on life]], cranking their competitiveness to second place behind the dreaded third ed 'crons. These were the days of the 200+ point CSM lord that could out-punch fucking ANYTHING! We're talking about a wargear sheet noticeably larger than any other faction, which also included the curious ability to make your aspiring champions psykers. You could load up a squad with stacks of veteran skills, sneaking them into position, moving through cover and then finishing with a furious charge. [[Defiler|That enemy crab thing]] gets its big introduction as a monstrous creature AND a walker! These were the days when you ''bought'' as opposed to rolled for the powers your Possessed had; where you could dedicate vehicles to the Gods, and that gave you certain options (thus creating the Sonic Dreadnought... and Predator). You could take a Slaaneshi psyker and give him and his unit immunity from shooting attacks with a well rolled minor psychic power. Best of all, these were the days of fielding Traitor Legions - ridiculously unbalanced lists that would either fall flat on their faces and cost way too much (Thousand Sons) or tear the fucking table in half (Iron Warriors).

Games Workshop tried valiantly to dial back the cheese by releasing Imperial Assassins, Daemonhunters and Witchhunters but once the Eye of Terror campaign hit and the official (and also cheesy) Lost and the Damned rules were out, third ed was firmly [[Cultist-chan|captoored by chaoz.]]

===4th Ed: The Sudden Betrayal===
That rat-bastard, pointy-eared fuck! In 4th ed, [[Gav Thorpe]] raped Chaos and left her to die in a fucking gutter. Those broken-as-hell traitor legions lists? Instead of fixing them for players that liked the other legions, they were removed. Veteran skills? Gone. Wargear? Toast. Lost and the Damned? More like "lost-a la vista," amirite. Daemons? Worst of all, Thorpe figured they needed their own, super-shitty codex. CSM players were ''pissed'' at the "streamlining" their armies got, but they endured it because at the time there were a few nifty silver linings. You could still technically have your cult army/legion/whatever and they were all not bad; that is to say the codex was at least internally balanced. During this time, the Eldar got pumped from worse than last place to playable, Tyranids got an update that was fair as well, Fish of Fury got pulled from the Tau Codex and the loyalists got a decent buff in the 4th ed SM codices. Nothing spectacular, but everything felt fair; it felt like we could have fun with each other and save our bitter sniping for the rightly-deserving Necron players and their totes OP 3E rules. For a brief period of time, the rules system was stable and there was hope that this trend might continue...

===5th Ed: Abandon (the Despoiler) Ship!===
[[Matt Ward|And then this happened.]] GW, in a moment of clarity and business acumen, summoned Matt Ward from the pit to turn the 40K metagame on its larynx through its asshole to promote sales of their most popular line, Space Marines. [[Dawn of War]] had just come out and Relic/THQ made the Space Marines really good (and Imperial Guard, and Eldar, [[Dawn of Eldar|especially the Eldar]] but they would have to wait until 6E to get their cheese on). CSM didn't get a release in this edition because GW decided instead to dedicate their time to fanboy service while throwing a bone to the Dark Eldar and Orks. This was when the 4th ed. rules were used to create the well-known CSM mono-build for 5th ed (Lash Prince, Plague Marines, Termicide, Obliterators and ''maybe'' a Chosen squad for guiding deep strikes). However, once the 5th ed Grey Knights landed, Chaos was truly on its ass. These were the days all the jokes made against Chaos finally made it to the internets and the forces of Chaos shifted from that terrifying adversary feared across the galaxy to the Imperium's punching bag ''du jour''. Many were the veteran players who simply left in disgust.

===6th Ed: A New NOPE!===
Rumours started pouring in furiously when 6th ed was nearing release. Close combat will have AP values? Oooo! What's this - CSM will be the first codex out the gate? Hot damn! New models? BITCHIN'! Revamped rules to finally reclaim some of the fucking glory we lost in the last two goddamn editions? Hallelujah!

So, 2013 has come and gone along with that release and I think we can all say how disappointing that truly was. Of the few bright spots was [[Helldrake|a new flyer with a *AHEM* ''gigantic exhaust port'']]. ("Gaze into the Eye of Terror!" and "Glory to the Goatse of Chaos!" were only some of the reactions.) Many lulz were enjoyed by /tg/ of its... ahem, questionable design aesthetics. This however says nothing of the fact that crunch-wise it is arguably the cheesiest flyer in all of 6th ed - praise the dark gods, indeed?

Aside from the Heldrakes however, the codex had a lot of questionable design choices. Well, not really because there was a lot of dead weight and questionable mechanic design in that book; unlike their loyalist counterparts, the Chaos Army could not properly run MSU builds, since "all its shooting" was in the Heavy Support section, and "all of its speed" was in the Fast Attack section; this contrasted drastically with Marines being able to do ranged threats in their entire FOC via Rifleman Dreadnoughts, Sternguard, Land Speeders and Razorbacks, or their ability to apply pressure via Bike Troops & Drop Pods. In theory, 6th edition was supposed to compensate for this overspecialization by doubling FOCs at 2000 points, [[Rage|but most tournaments ran at either 1850 points or "1999+1 points"]].

Speaking to questionable design, [[Mutilators]] and [[Warp Talons]] reeked of lazy design, while mathhammer and an emphasis on "disembarked troops" holding objectives meant that many tournament armies became little more than a tide of Cultists and Heldrakes, leading to a paradoxical consensus that the [[fail|best way to with with Chaos Space Marines was to not actually take any Chaos Space Marines]]. [[Rage|Needless to say, this did not go well with many players]].

When it comes to the traitor marines themselves, /tg/'s opinions were divided. Some praised the new design for its focus on intricate trims and warp-induced mutations (eyes, tentacles), whereas others disliked it for its lack of [[Grimdark]], claiming it looked too cartoonish and too playful. Crunchwise, as if we haven't said it enough, this book was well and truly fucked. We really tried to like it, but any list that requires supplements and/or Forgeworld models/books to fill strategic gaps in the codex is a pretty bad list.

===7th Ed: What the Fuck is this even===
Chaos Space Marines played similar to their loyalist counterparts, having access to most of the same wargear and vehicles, plus some unique stuff at the expense of all the stuff that makes loyalists remotely useful in a (completely vain) attempt to play up the [[RIP AND TEAR]] side in an edition favouring shooting. They have some of the same strengths and amplified weaknesses, expensive-to-overpriced units, are easily often outnumbered, but overall, they tend to play too aggressively to the point of carelessness. Thanks to all this nerf-slapping, their ranking amongst armies has tanked from the notably OP 3.5 days; the codex and army have since fallen into decline due to progressively weaker books in favour of the worst kind of fan-service for a handful of factions. CSM did get a release in the form of Khorne Daemonkin, but it just blended two books together with some new rules and wargear instead of fixing glaring problems with the units in them; they ''were'' weak due to their garbled 6E codex. Fortunately, 7E has been putting the screws to every single Codex released in 5th Ed while GW releases an unrelenting tide of half-assed pseudo-codices that don't even cover an FOC while adding bullshit mechanics like grav-spam, decurions or buffing the Eldar sky-high.

That lasted until the release of the Traitor Legions supplement. With the release of the supplement, CSM got legion specific buffs and abilites, for Fluffy builds. For example, Alpha Legion armies can't have any marks, but they get to pass on their warlord trait to a friendly character if the current warlord dies. Night Lords get Raptors as core, Iron Warriors get [[Derp|Mutilators]] and [[Awesome|Obliterators]], Word Bearers get Possessed, and so on. Ironically, it's now better to take Khorne CSM over berserkers, because they're basically the same unit, but one is cheaper. Overall, Death Guard and Emperor's Children seem to be the best options at the moment, followed by the Alpha Legion. Basic Emperor's Children marines with Icon of excess are 190 pts for a 10 man squad of initiative 5 marines, with 4+ FNP, Fearless, and a roll on the combat drug table, which can give them +1 WS, BS, S, T, A, I. Death Guard Marines, meanwhile, are incredible also (Likely even better than the EC ones), 170 pts for a 10 man squad of toughness 5 marines with 5+ FNP and fearless but with a -1 to initiative. Iron Warriors, while initially derided, can bring three pairs of Tank Hunter Obliterators and three Twinlinked Vindicators at 1850 points, with a team or two of fortification-camping, Fearless, Tank Hunter, ObSec Autocannon Havocs.

For the second half of 7th ed, it was safe to say that CSM were solid again. Could every Legion deal with Scatbike spam, Crisis/Markerlight shenanigans, or free DTs easily? Not exactly. But World Eaters could get to melee faster than anyone else. Black Legion could pull crazy alpha strikes and use 13-point marines with Rage, Counter-Attack, +1 strength if the charge roll is 8+, Ld9 (10 on the champ), Crusader, Fear, and Hatred (with permanent re-rolls to hit against Imperium). So we might not be quite as good as [[Cheese|Craftworld Eldar]], grav-spamming [[Smashfucker]] Loyalists or Guard and their absurd amounts of ordnance but CSM could fuck up the mid-tier Tau, Mechanicum and Necrons with ease again (the less said about the benighted Nids, Deldar and Orks the better; don't ask about the Sisters). We're calling that a result! It seems someone understood the risk-reward paradigm of the CSM (the risk in putting your eggs in a basket that would either collapse or rip and tear your opponent).

... and then 7th ed. ended. A minor loss but thank god that's over!

===8th Ed: Time to hope once again?===
The Traitor Legions book was a decent step forward in the era of 7th edition and 8th edition was certainly full of changes. Traitor lists largely remained although they were nowhere near as wild as the last edition. Thankfully, a lot of the garbage from 6th and 7th has been thrown out with them. No more "randomness because Chaos, guys!" as pretty much ''all'' the random tables from all over 7th are scrapped as are the Decurions. This is a big step forward although a curious step into the mists of time, harkening back to 2nd.

For a moment, CSM could still ally seamlessly with Daemons and Renegades until GW patched out soup lists. There were some issues with the index but Vigilius Ablaze brought us new units and models, which then found their way into the Codex. Said book not only patched the problems with the index, but added Legion Traits that help the Traitor Legions excel in their fluff-based specialties. The Thousand Sons and Death Guard also received their own Codexes with their own special flavor of nastiness.

===9th Ed: The Galaxy Ablaze Once Again===
Things are getting HOT! There's a new codex around the corner with updates to Death Guard and Thousand Sons. CSM are slated for a release in early 2022. Which is good because our book is old and NOT doing well. In fact [[RAGE|GW has failed to FAQ Chaos Marines to 2 Wounds yet]] (They are waiting for the codex). However their new previewed datasheet points to them having better stats than [[Awesome|Primaris Marines.]] They are slated for a new range of models including a variety of cultists and chaos marine models. Shit, it looks like Renegades and Heretics got rolled into the CSM book, so that's interesting.

==See Also==
*[[Warriors of Chaos]]: The much <s>more competent</s> <s>useful</s> less punching bag counterparts to the Chaos Marines in Warhammer Fantasy, at least until the Age of Sigmar took hold.
**[[Chaos Warrior|Chaos Warriors]]: each member of this parade of ruin.
*[[Chaos Space Marine Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Chaos Warband Creation Tables]]
*[[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Chaos Space Marines (9E)|Tactics on how to play them.]]
*[[What it's like]]: A short story meant to place emphasis the uncertainty of the life of a chaos space marine.

==Gallery==
<gallery>
File:1227181112539.jpg|The Typical Chaos Space Marine
File:1174923365695wq1vj1.png|The dreaded [[Night Lords]] preparing an ambush
File:Emperor s Children by megalaros.jpg|Slaaneshi noise marine. Because words can kill.
File:Lcw.jpg|[[Imperium|They]] think that corpse on a throne is a god!
File:Firstkeeper.jpg|Change we can believe in!
</gallery>

{{Chaos-Official}}
{{Chaos Space Marines}}
{{WH40k-Factions}}

Archeotech

2022-10-18T08:24:18Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

{{Wh40k-stub}}
'''Archeotech''' (known by other spellings) is a term from [[Warhammer 40,000]] which refers to any of the vast array of mysterious ancient technologies developed during the [[Dark Age of Technology]], which the [[Imperium of Man]] still digs up and uses for its own purposes, despite not knowing the slightest bit how they work or how to rebuild them, and often misunderstanding what it's for in the first place.

Typically speaking, Archeotech tends to be insanely advanced even by the standards of the setting to the point where anyone or anything short of a [[Necron]] [[Cryptek]] or [[Jokaero]] would scratch their collective heads at how it works. Archeotech also tends to include highly advanced materials which cannot be replicated by any faction in the setting (i.e. Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, etc), and are so complicated and sophisticated in design that trying to understand the inner workings is an act of madness.

Examples of Archeotech include:

*Archeotech Pistols that were available to the highest ranking officers during the [[Great Crusade]]. These are the most common Archeotech that shows up. Fluff depictions differ but in the 30k Horus Heresy rule books they have stopping power that sits between a [[Bolter]] and a [[Plasma Pistol]]. Only [[Rogue Trader]]s and a few named characters seem to have them by the 42nd Millennium.
*A [[Ark_Mechanicus#Speranza|ship with a gun]] that causes targets to telefrag themselves with a version of themselves from a fraction of a second in the future. It cannot miss, not because it is so accurate, but because it manipulates reality so much that it is physically impossible for it to miss. Although it did miss once, thanks to [[Eldar]] psychic powers, reality was rewritten by the gun so it had never missed in the first place.
*A cure-all Panacea that uses quantum certainty/uncertainty to predict diseases that will form and can instantly adapt itself to cure any disease that it encounters.
*A [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)#Castigator Titan|titan]] so advanced it was capable of running, sprinting, jumping, and climbing, despite being bigger than any other Imperial Titan. It also had a Gatling Gun that shot Vortex Shells, though after it fell to chaos it shot [[Daemons]] as ammunition .
*A bomb that dropped living green flame that would move across the battlefield to hunt down victims, and seek out weak points on vehicles and buildings to get at the soft meat inside.
*A device that, when activated, shrouded the battlefield in a strange energy that made it so that the enemy couldn't see through an inky blackness even with Autosenes or Preysight while also making it seem bright as noon for the army that used it.
*Weapons that simultaneously atomize corporeal beings, and unmake (IE ''true death'' permakill) daemons and other denizens of the warp with ease. The destruction is such that some even [[Grimdark|sear their victims from memory itself]]. These can vary from [[Exterminatus]]-grade shipborne weaponry, down to small arms. Alone of the rest of the Imperium (the only exceptions being the Talons of the Emperor), the [[Dark Angels]] have a fuckhueg reserve of such kit, but as its use can only be authorized by the Lion himself (only the Dreadwing possesses limited authority to deploy ''some'' of it until he wakes back up), much of their most valuable gear has been collecting dust for the past 10,000 years. Which is a real shame for a multitude of obvious reasons, but not least of which being that recent fluff has revealed that the Dark Angel's collection even includes planet destroying ordnance capable of permakilling entire worlds engulfed in chaos or warp storms, phages for every enemy or occasion, and [[Awesome|FUNCTIONAL MEN OF IRON]].

This technology is obviously cheesetastic nightmares. Everyone should be thankful that the Imperuim can't mass deploy such artifacts.

Oh, and for these seemingly space magic powers such as causality-changing guns and quantum medicine, keep in mind that at the time humanity thought of magic powers as an interesting phenomenon but didn’t really know how to use it. THIS IS ALL PURE SCIENCE.<s>Please, disregard the fact that the more advanced archeotech looks nothing like human-made, but closely resembles some ancient Xeno relics.</s> <s>How much of it was actually invented and not just stolen from the Akashic Records is also unclear.</s>
==See Also==
*[[LosTech]]

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Imperial]]
[[Category:Squats]]
[[Category:Abhumans]]
[[Category:Under Development]]
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

Archeotech

2022-10-18T08:23:48Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

{{Wh40k-stub}}
'''Archeotech''' (known by other spellings) is a term from [[Warhammer 40,000]] which refers to any of the vast array of mysterious ancient technologies developed during the [[Dark Age of Technology]], which the [[Imperium of Man]] still digs up and uses for its own purposes, despite not knowing the slightest bit how they work or how to rebuild them, and often misunderstanding what it's for in the first place.

Typically speaking, Archeotech tends to be insanely advanced even by the standards of the setting to the point where anyone or anything short of a [[Necron]] [[Cryptek]] or [[Jokaero]] would scratch their collective heads at how it works. Archeotech also tends to include highly advanced materials which cannot be replicated by any faction in the setting (i.e. Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, etc), and are so complicated and sophisticated in design that trying to understand the inner workings is an act of madness.

Examples of Archeotech include:

*Archeotech Pistols that were available to the highest ranking officers during the [[Great Crusade]]. These are the most common Archeotech that shows up. Fluff depictions differ but in the 30k Horus Heresy rule books they have stopping power that sits between a [[Bolter]] and a [[Plasma Pistol]]. Only [[Rogue Trader]]s and a few named characters seem to have them by the 42nd Millennium.
*A [[Ark_Mechanicus#Speranza|ship with a gun]] that causes targets to telefrag themselves with a version of themselves from a fraction of a second in the future. It cannot miss, not because it is so accurate, but because it manipulates reality so much that it is physically impossible for it to miss. Although it did miss once, thanks to [[Eldar]] psychic powers, reality was rewritten by the gun so it had never missed in the first place.
*A cure-all Panacea that uses quantum certainty/uncertainty to predict diseases that will form and can instantly adapt itself to cure any disease that it encounters.
*A [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)#Castigator Titan|titan]] so advanced it was capable of running, sprinting, jumping, and climbing, despite being bigger than any other Imperial Titan. It also had a Gatling Gun that shot Vortex Shells, though after it fell to chaos it shot [[Daemons]] as ammunition .
*A bomb that dropped living green flame that would move across the battlefield to hunt down victims, and seek out weak points on vehicles and buildings to get at the soft meat inside.
*A device that, when activated, shrouded the battlefield in a strange energy that made it so that the enemy couldn't see through an inky blackness even with Autosenes or Preysight while also making it seem bright as noon for the army that used it.
*Weapons that simultaneously atomize corporeal beings, and unmake (IE ''true death'' permakill) daemons and other denizens of the warp with ease. The destruction is such that some even [[Grimdark|sear their victims from memory itself]]. These can vary from [[Exterminatus]]-grade shipborne weaponry, down to small arms.
-Alone of the rest of the Imperium (the only exceptions being the Talons of the Emperor), the [[Dark Angels]] have a fuckhueg reserve of such kit, but as its use can only be authorized by the Lion himself (only the Dreadwing possesses limited authority to deploy ''some'' of it until he wakes back up), much of their most valuable gear has been collecting dust for the past 10,000 years. Which is a real shame for a multitude of obvious reasons, but not least of which being that recent fluff has revealed that the Dark Angel's collection even includes planet destroying ordnance capable of permakilling entire worlds engulfed in chaos or warp storms, phages for every enemy or occasion, and [[Awesome|FUNCTIONAL MEN OF IRON]].

This technology is obviously cheesetastic nightmares. Everyone should be thankful that the Imperuim can't mass deploy such artifacts.

Oh, and for these seemingly space magic powers such as causality-changing guns and quantum medicine, keep in mind that at the time humanity thought of magic powers as an interesting phenomenon but didn’t really know how to use it. THIS IS ALL PURE SCIENCE.<s>Please, disregard the fact that the more advanced archeotech looks nothing like human-made, but closely resembles some ancient Xeno relics.</s> <s>How much of it was actually invented and not just stolen from the Akashic Records is also unclear.</s>
==See Also==
*[[LosTech]]

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Imperial]]
[[Category:Squats]]
[[Category:Abhumans]]
[[Category:Under Development]]
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

Archeotech

2022-10-18T08:21:58Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

{{Wh40k-stub}}
'''Archeotech''' (known by other spellings) is a term from [[Warhammer 40,000]] which refers to any of the vast array of mysterious ancient technologies developed during the [[Dark Age of Technology]], which the [[Imperium of Man]] still digs up and uses for its own purposes, despite not knowing the slightest bit how they work or how to rebuild them, and often misunderstanding what it's for in the first place.

Typically speaking, Archeotech tends to be insanely advanced even by the standards of the setting to the point where anyone or anything short of a [[Necron]] [[Cryptek]] or [[Jokaero]] would scratch their collective heads at how it works. Archeotech also tends to include highly advanced materials which cannot be replicated by any faction in the setting (i.e. Eldar, Dark Eldar, Tau, etc), and are so complicated and sophisticated in design that trying to understand the inner workings is an act of madness.

Examples of Archeotech include:

*Archeotech Pistols that were available to the highest ranking officers during the [[Great Crusade]]. These are the most common Archeotech that shows up. Fluff depictions differ but in the 30k Horus Heresy rule books they have stopping power that sits between a [[Bolter]] and a [[Plasma Pistol]]. Only [[Rogue Trader]]s and a few named characters seem to have them by the 42nd Millennium.
*A [[Ark_Mechanicus#Speranza|ship with a gun]] that causes targets to telefrag themselves with a version of themselves from a fraction of a second in the future. It cannot miss, not because it is so accurate, but because it manipulates reality so much that it is physically impossible for it to miss. Although it did miss once, thanks to [[Eldar]] psychic powers, reality was rewritten by the gun so it had never missed in the first place.
*A cure-all Panacea that uses quantum certainty/uncertainty to predict diseases that will form and can instantly adapt itself to cure any disease that it encounters.
*A [[Titan (Warhammer 40,000)#Castigator Titan|titan]] so advanced it was capable of running, sprinting, jumping, and climbing, despite being bigger than any other Imperial Titan. It also had a Gatling Gun that shot Vortex Shells, though after it fell to chaos it shot [[Daemons]] as ammunition .
*A bomb that dropped living green flame that would move across the battlefield to hunt down victims, and seek out weak points on vehicles and buildings to get at the soft meat inside.
*A device that, when activated, shrouded the battlefield in a strange energy that made it so that the enemy couldn't see through an inky blackness even with Autosenes or Preysight while also making it seem bright as noon for the army that used it.
*Weapons that simultaneously atomize corporeal beings, and unmake (IE ''true death'' permakill) daemons and other denizens of the warp with ease. The destruction is such that some even [[Grimdark|sear their victims from memory itself]]. These can vary from [[Exterminatus]]-grade shipborne weaponry, down to small arms. Alone of the rest of the Imperium (the only exceptions being the Talons of the Emperor), the [[Dark Angels]] have a fuckhueg reserve of such kit, but as its use can only be authorized by the Lion himself (only the Dreadwing possesses limited authority to deploy ''some'' of it), much of their most valuable gear has been collecting dust for the past 10,000 years. Which is a real shame for a multitude of obvious reasons, but not least of which being that recent fluff has revealed that the Dark Angel's collection even includes planet destroying ordnance capable of permakilling entire worlds engulfed in chaos or warp storms, phages for every enemy or occasion, and [[Awesome|FUNCTIONAL MEN OF IRON]].

This technology is obviously cheesetastic nightmares. Everyone should be thankful that the Imperuim can't mass deploy such artifacts.

Oh, and for these seemingly space magic powers such as causality-changing guns and quantum medicine, keep in mind that at the time humanity thought of magic powers as an interesting phenomenon but didn’t really know how to use it. THIS IS ALL PURE SCIENCE.<s>Please, disregard the fact that the more advanced archeotech looks nothing like human-made, but closely resembles some ancient Xeno relics.</s> <s>How much of it was actually invented and not just stolen from the Akashic Records is also unclear.</s>
==See Also==
*[[LosTech]]

[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category: Imperial]]
[[Category:Squats]]
[[Category:Abhumans]]
[[Category:Under Development]]
[[Category:Gamer Slang]]

Autarch

2022-10-15T10:26:06Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

[[File:Eldar Autarch.jpg|300px|thumbnail|left|So then...Which Necron wants to be next? Course, them being asleep first helped a bit]]
[[File:Autarch.png|300px|right|thumb|Bitch will cut you up.]]
An '''Autarch''' is an [[Eldar]] of the [[Craftworld]]s who walks the [[Paths of the Eldar|Path of Command]], a specialized path which studies all the different tactics a warhost of the Eldar Craftworld uses and then brings their different skills and abilities together into a single force that maximizes all their strengths and covers their individual weaknesses.
==Overview==
The Path of Command is the path that studies tactics, make plans and guides the Eldar in their war efforts. Those who walk it are referred to as Autarchs. Before becoming Autarchs, these Eldar would have studied in many of the different war temples of [[Khaine]], mastering each path before choosing another. What this means is that Autarchs will have a range of varied skillsets and will be powerful warriors and great leaders.

On the board this allowed you to select all manner of wargear to kit out your Autarch and [[Your dudes|create your own unique leader]] for your host. No two Autarchs needed look alike and the modeling possibilities were endless. Then GW realized that they don't like conversions (or Eldar) and removed all those options. Thanks. For nothing.
You can still sort of do this with the rules from legends, but they probably won't ever update those. You can't really expect people to accept those rules in every match you play.

They also make [http://wasted-knights.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/joys-of-melta.html terrible decisions.]

It should be noted that Autarchs are the favorite 'prey' of the [[Dark Eldar|Delfdar]] [[Succubi]]. Seeing as how the majority of Autarchs are drawn and portrayed as female and that Dark Eldar have a knack for torturing and [[Rape|raping]] their captives in intense BDSM sessions. [[FATAL|One can only imagine....by the Emperor....]]

[[Prince Yriel]] of [[Craftworld Iyanden]] is perhaps the most famous of the Eldar Autarchs and is a swashbuckling Eldar pirate....in sphess! He beat up a bunch of nids though so he has some more balls than most Eldar. Interestingly, Yriel has never walked the Path of Command, but achieved his post of Autarch due to walking the Path of the Mariner, implying that naval command also qualifies for promotion. Oh yeah, he's also apparently gay.

==Equipment==

Autarchs have gone from one of the most flexible HQ's in the game, being able to pick and choose from an equipment list covering pretty much the entire Aspect Wargear list, to one of the [[Fail | least]].

Since [[GW]] decided that equipment options could only include what was on the model and having retired most of the Autarch models, you can now pretty much only select from 3 preset options to go along with a 4++ forcefield and Plasma Grenades.

* Autarch with Swooping hawk wings, [[Mandiblaster]], [[Power sword|power sword]] and [[Fusion Pistol]] (Alright in a smaller game), but don't expect him to get much done in combat.
* Autarch Skyrunner on jetbike, the only one with even a semblance of choice, being able to switch out it's power sword for a [[Fusion Gun]], or the [[Laser Lance]] that everyone actually chooses. The laser lance can be great when taken in a Siam Hann list with the relic to upgrade it to the Novalance.
* Autarch with [[Power weapon#Star Glaive|Star Glaive]]... No shooting other than the 6" grenades. Doesn't even have an official model. Best guess is someone at GW forgot that [[Prince Yriel]] was a thing and assumed his model was an Autarch and gave it a datasheet, and then someone else also added in Yriel. Doesn't really matter though as there's no reason to take this version.

You can get some of the old flexibility back if you are able to use the [https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/84d4072d.pdf Warhammmer Legends PDF] which just expands the wargear options so you don't lose keywords or synergy, but it's usage is dependant on your opponent agreeing to it and won't be available for tournaments, per GW's suggestion.

==8th Edition==

You Autarch's primary role is to allow <craftworld> units to re-roll hits of 1 within 6 inches and secondly using their Path of Command they can regain command points on a roll of 6.
Also hilariously, he can take a reaper cannon and and mark of the Incomparable Hunter and become an efficient character sniper if you do want to use legends stuff.

==9th Edition==

==Dawn of War 2==
An Autarch appears in Dawn of War 2 called Kayleth from [[Alaitoc]]. She is known to be a complete bitch and an absolute whiner. She is [[That Guy]] if he had a vagayjay. Kayleth is also known for her ''dynamic entry'' which involves dropping several plasma grenades to soften up the enemy position before striking down the remains of whoever was dumb enough to get the hell out of ground zero. She is also a glass cannon, dishing out plenty of pain but cannot take the equivalent amount of damage in turn. She might be tsundere with [[Ronahn]], but Ronahn's big/twin/younger sister [[Taldeer]] might contend with the relationship. She can also kill or, more likely, be killed by, [[Kaptin Bluddflagg]].

== Gallery ==

<gallery>
99070104003 ELDARAUTARCH01.webp|A Saim-Hann Autarch wearing fabulous Swooping Hawk wings.
EldarAutarchBanshee.jpg.jpg|An Alaitoc Autarch with a Banshee Mask & Swooping Hawk Wings, ready for a night out on the town.
GreenAutarch.jpg.jpg|A Biel-Tan Autarch Miniature with a Fusion Gun, Jump Generator & Mandiblasters.
AutarchJetbike.jpg|A helmetless Saim-Hann Autarch mounted on an Eldar Jetbike with a Laser Lance.
New Autarch.jpg|A new Autarch revealed by GW in December, 2021. At last the prayers were answered.
</gallery>

[[Category: Warhammer 40,000]]

[[Category: Xenos]]

[[Category: Eldar]]

[[Category: Craftworld Eldar]]

{{Eldar-Forces}}

Horus Aximand

2022-10-10T10:56:51Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

[[File:Aximand.jpg|thumb|Aximand after getting his face chopped off by a [[White Scars|samurai]]...]]

{{topquote|You always were the wrong Horus.|Garviel Loken, right before ramming his chainsword through Aximand’s sternum}}

'''Horus "[[Dawww|Little Horus]]" Aximand''' was Fifth Captain of the [[Sons of Horus]] legion during the [[Great Crusade]] and the [[Horus Heresy]] and a member of the Mournival, alongside [[Knights-Errant#Garviel_Loken|Garviel Loken]], [[Tarik Torgaddon]], and [[Abaddon|Ezekyle Abaddon]]. His sobriquet came from the fact that, while all his fellow Sons of Horus looked like [[Horus|dear old dad]], he had the greatest resemblance to him.

Known as a level-headed and wise Astartes despite his gloomy demeanor, Aximand earned his place as Fifth Captain and later as part of the Mournival during the Great Crusade, fighting in many battles, including the Compliance of Sixty-Three-Nineteen and on [[Murder]] against the [[Megarachnids]]. While Aximand was loyal to the ideals of the [[Emperor]], he was corrupted by the warrior lodges within the XVI Legion and followed his primarch to damnation at the hands of [[Chaos]].

During the Battle of Istvaan III he killed Tarik Torgaddon in a duel, which caused him to experience the closest thing to PTSD a Space Marine could feel, as he was thereafter haunted by the fact that he'd murdered one of his closest friends and witnessed the death of another (or so he thought). Later on the planet Dwell he got his entire fucking FACE sliced off by Hibou Khan of the [[White Scars]] in an attempt at Chogorian [[Not as planned|plastic surgery]]. After getting it reattached (getting his face stitched back on only increasing the resemblance), he hopped on the [[Vengeful Spirit|party bus]] to [[Terra]]. During the fighting within the Saturnine Wall, he was killed to death by Loken, who impaled and eviscerated Aximand with a chainsword, and in a display of extremely satisfying [[Eldrad|dickery]], [[Grimdark|hoisted Aximand up as he was still stuck on said chainsword and revved the motor]].

==Trivia==
* You have probably noticed the [[Berserk|disproportionate size]] of his blade. Forged on [[Cthonia]], it was a relic [[Power_weapon#Power_Sword|power sword]] known as [[Grimdark|Mourn-it-all]]. Following his death on Terra, Loken [[Blood Ravens|took up]] the weapon.
* He was one of the few who was able to wound [[Sigismund]] in a duel. Though this is also entirely offset by the fact that he first surrounded Sigismund with fresh Sons of Horus, waiting for them to tire out and wound him before intending to swoop in for the kill. Even with all that, Aximand still failed to kill Sigismund, even getting his hand sliced off in the attempt. Wait, why was this cool again? Hey... Attempting to stack the odds in his favor, yet still failing in his objective, and losing his hand in the process? He's just one top knot and lost hand away from mirroring another [[Abaddon|certain armless member of the Mournival]]...

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Horus_Aximand.jpg|...and before his Chogorian facelift. He looks like [[:File:Past-Horus-Primarchs-.jpeg|him]], doesn't he?
Aximand getting a close shave.jpg|Close shave, Chogoris style, also note how the white scar points and laughs at Aximand’s expense (He then took up the weird habit of screaming ‘[[Alpha Legion|Hail Hydra!]]’ Until the apothecary reattached his face)
</gallery>

{{Chaos-Marines}}
[[Category:Black Legion]]

Fall of the Eldar

2022-10-08T07:25:49Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied */

{{heresy}}
{{sick|The xenololi futanari BDSM orgy-genocide that birthed [[Slaanesh|the Great Mistake]].}}
[[Image:FalloftheEldar.jpg|600px|thumb|right|"[[Derp|So, uh... did nobody happen to think of making a time machine while we were fucking? Anyone...?]]"]]

{{topquote|Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.|Proverbs 16-18}}

{{topquote|Welp, we're boned.|Eldar after the birth of Slaanesh, can be viewed metaphorically or quite literally in some cases...}}

The '''Fall of the Eldar''' is an event which has the dubious honour of setting the scene for the fucked up, [[grimdark]] galaxy of [[Warhammer 40,000]] that we all know and love. Despite this, [[Games Workshop]] has released almost no [[lore]] from that time, mostly because the [[Eldar]] aren't [[Space Marines]] and therefore won't sell quite as much as another entry in the [[Horus Heresy]] series or something. The remaining, actually forgivable, excuse is that Fall of the Eldar [[fluff]] may be seen as too deep and too risqué for the child fans Games Workshop wants to appeal to, as [[Grimdark|the nature]] [[Rape|of the]] [[Rule 34|few facts]] that are known about it are how the Eldar were so hedonistic their debauchery accidentally created the Chaos God of hedonism.

==History==
The Fall was set in motion by the [[War in Heaven]] between the makers of the [[Eldar]], the [[Old Ones]], and the [[Necrons]] and their [[C'tan]] overlords. The war fucked everyone over and everyone that didn't go to sleep got nom-nomed by psychic space terrors.

In the aftermath, the Eldar found the galaxy was theirs for the taking (the Necrons having spent themselves and gone into hibernation) and so became its rulers. Through a combination of their advanced technology, the remnants of the Old Ones' [[Webway]], domination over their psychic powers, and long life spans, they had little to no opposition (any [[Ork]] [[WAAAGH]] too stupid to start up most likely got dropped down a black hole or something, and it's hinted Dark Age humanity either never discovered them or purposefully kept its distance).

After many millennia of galactic dominance, the Eldar started to lose interest in menial tasks and concentrated purely on pleasurable acts. Given the depths of their emotions and sensations, these acts soon descended into depravity that would make human snuff films look like Saturday morning cartoons. And then, there were some Eldar who set up private realms in the Webway so that they could commit depraved acts that went too far even for most Eldar. The Empire's collective debauchery, amplified by their psychic prowess, started churning the [[Warp]] itself, making Warp travel nearly impossible.

Some Eldar became uncomfortable with the direction that their society was headed, and settled worlds on the fringe of the galaxy, away from the advanced technologies of the Eldar Empire, and returned to a simpler lifestyle. These were known as [[Exodite]]s. Others dwelled on massive [[Craftworld]]s that traveled the whole Empire, and from their outsider's perspective, could see where things were going. Unfortunately, most of their brothers and sisters didn't believe them. And even more unfortunately, some of their brethren did believe it but actually wanted a god of pleasure to manifest because it's not like such a being would be evil, right? So they kept right on fucking away, until they went and made a new [[Chaos God]]—[[Slaanesh]].

The birth scream of the great pervert tore a great [[Anal circumference|orifice in spacetime]], later known as the [[Eye of Terror]], that consumed most of the Eldar race instantly, even the ones who hadn't wanted to join in with the whole decadence thing but were too close to the epicenter. The only ones who escaped were the Craftworld and Exodite Eldar who were near the rim of the galaxy, and the Eldar who were living in the Webway. The consumed worlds became known as [[Eldar World#Crone Worlds|Crone Worlds]], a particular variety of [[Daemon World]]. To make things even worse (for Eldar at least), the birth of Slaanesh consumed most of the energy that caused massive Warp storms all over the galaxy, and thus allowed humans to launch their [[Great Crusade|massive xenocidal campaign]] during which many of the still young craftworlds were destroyed, and even more Maiden and Exodite worlds were colonized by humans.

==Aftermath==
The Eldar are now a fractured people. The ones who lived in the Webway found their souls slowly draining away over time, and discovered that they could drink the pain of other sentient beings to replenish themselves. They re-organized themselves to gain victims more efficiently, joining their private realms into what became [[Commorragh]], and came to be called the [[Dark Eldar]]. The [[Exodite]]s continue to survive on the rim of the galaxy, and the [[Craftworld]]s still intact drift through space, their inhabitants doing everything they can to atone for the excesses of their ancestors. A few of the Webway-dwellers were rescued by and pledged themselves to [[Cegorach]], becoming the [[Harlequin]]s.

Even the Eldar's gods were affected. When Slaanesh was born, he/she/shklee went on an orgy (because Slaanesh goes on orgies, not sprees) of murder that devoured most of the gods of the Eldar pantheon. The only survivors were [[Khaine]] (who could not be defeated by a god of something other than war, but was shattered into a million pieces), [[Cegorach]] (who escaped into the Webway), and [[Isha]] (who was "rescued" by [[Nurgle]] from being raped and eaten by Slaanesh at his birth, but is now kept as Nurgle's prisoner guinea pig. [[/tg/|Alternate theories]] suggest that Isha isn't actually held captive, but is staying with Nurgle willingly).

The birth of Slaanesh had the positive side effect of providing an outlet for the pent-up Warp energy that had impeded Warp travel for so long (well, the outlet was tearing a great orifice in spacetime and obliterating the Eldar Empire, but at least it was cleared up once the event was over). Warp travel became possible again, which allowed the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to launch his fleets and begin the [[Great Crusade]], and without the mighty Eldar Empire to contend with, his new [[Imperium of Man]] could grow virtually uncontested.

Hilariously, the [[Imperium]] seems vaguely aware the Eldar had a big old space empire at one point but ignores this fact because (a) the Imperium won't keep their hands off their guns long enough for any Eldar to tell them about it, (b) most non-Harlequin Eldar are so arrogant that they think the Imperium, or humanity in general, are unworthy of being taught Eldar history, (c) most Harlequin Eldar can't tell a straight story without layering it first in twelve layers of cryptic bullshit and telling it in the form of an interpretive dance, and (d) the few Imperials who do know the whole story of the Fall interpret it entirely the wrong way and consider it a well-deserved end for the xenos who claimed themselves the rightful lords of the galaxy when that position belonged to humanity alone and (e) any human high-ranking enough to piece together the story is too busy maintaining their own power base to give out status quo shaking revelations or (f) too busy holding the Imperial war machine barely holding back roving Chaos hordes and various monstrous aliens and the incredible levels of oppression that this perpetuates to really dive into the deeper implications of such things.

Fortunately however, there are now some important and powerful imperials who do know, like Guilliman and Cawl.

Given that the [[Chaos Gods]] specifically stated that their interest in humanity is because they are easily manipulated buffoons [[tau|with much tastier and bigger souls than others]], it shows that humanity in 40k has at least one thing in common with the Eldar: high levels of arrogance. Though humanity has the guidance of Big-E to help them to avoid such a a fate, and while he's hardly a flawless strategist, he succeeds more than he fails. There's a reason why the Ruinous Powers feared him even before the Heresy and are terrified of him now.

==Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied==

The Ynnari encounter Ancient Daemons of Slaanesh that have many Eldar-like features. They also encountered a Necron Dynasty that guards a Sealed Warp Gate to prevent said Daemons. They once fought with the old Eldar Empire against Daemons back

The bottom-line is that the revelations has some troubling implications for the Eldar and the rest of the Universe:

-Not all Eldar consumed by the Warp during their Fall were killed but a very small minority have one way or another turned into powerful Slaanesh Daemons that are much more dangerous than the majority of present-day Daemons

-The fact that Daemons of Slaanesh existed back in the WiH is troubling for the Eldar. The fact that the Eldar at the peak of of their power could not defeat these powerful Daemons on their own has caused great concern for the Ynnari

-The fact that the trend of Eldar becoming Daemons started during the War in Heaven does not help either

-However, how much of this can actually be taken at face value remains to be seen. There's probably a sprinkling of truth of course, but then how much? Chaos and daemons do so love their lies and selective truths after all. Just ask Horus. Also, the notion that the ruinous powers were still somehow pulling the strings behind the scenes during the War In Heaven is balls-deep nonsense. Firstly, the Old Ones would not have allowed this if it were so, and make no mistake, they were more than capable of that level of power over the warp back in the day. Nor for that matter would the C'tan have allowed this to be so, who for their part, even in their current diminished, sharded state have proven to be more than capable of shutting down and counteracting the interference of any warpfuckery once it begins to annoy them, and who have uniformly been shown to loath the warp as a whole, but Chaos in particular, more than Nurgle hates soap. More importantly though, while the warp has existed as long as the start of the materium, chaos however was born of the conflict between the Old Ones and C'tan/Necrons, which eventually spilled out into the material realm with the onset of the [[Enslavers|enslaver]] plague. The neverborn can claim all they want that they are timeless, eternal, and were always there, and while there is ''some'' truth in that (because warp), it is also true that they are reliant on and rooted to certain points in materium and certain points in time, which rather takes the wind out of their sails. A point which causes chaos no small amount of [[butthurt]], especially when some of their precursors, arguably their progenitors are still around, albeit mostly still sleeping. Not even the gods of chaos are above some comforting, revisionist history.

==Links==
* In case of extinction events involving the reaping of souls, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIscL-Bjsq4| break glass.]

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Eldar]]

Fall of the Eldar

2022-10-08T07:19:40Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied */

{{heresy}}
{{sick|The xenololi futanari BDSM orgy-genocide that birthed [[Slaanesh|the Great Mistake]].}}
[[Image:FalloftheEldar.jpg|600px|thumb|right|"[[Derp|So, uh... did nobody happen to think of making a time machine while we were fucking? Anyone...?]]"]]

{{topquote|Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.|Proverbs 16-18}}

{{topquote|Welp, we're boned.|Eldar after the birth of Slaanesh, can be viewed metaphorically or quite literally in some cases...}}

The '''Fall of the Eldar''' is an event which has the dubious honour of setting the scene for the fucked up, [[grimdark]] galaxy of [[Warhammer 40,000]] that we all know and love. Despite this, [[Games Workshop]] has released almost no [[lore]] from that time, mostly because the [[Eldar]] aren't [[Space Marines]] and therefore won't sell quite as much as another entry in the [[Horus Heresy]] series or something. The remaining, actually forgivable, excuse is that Fall of the Eldar [[fluff]] may be seen as too deep and too risqué for the child fans Games Workshop wants to appeal to, as [[Grimdark|the nature]] [[Rape|of the]] [[Rule 34|few facts]] that are known about it are how the Eldar were so hedonistic their debauchery accidentally created the Chaos God of hedonism.

==History==
The Fall was set in motion by the [[War in Heaven]] between the makers of the [[Eldar]], the [[Old Ones]], and the [[Necrons]] and their [[C'tan]] overlords. The war fucked everyone over and everyone that didn't go to sleep got nom-nomed by psychic space terrors.

In the aftermath, the Eldar found the galaxy was theirs for the taking (the Necrons having spent themselves and gone into hibernation) and so became its rulers. Through a combination of their advanced technology, the remnants of the Old Ones' [[Webway]], domination over their psychic powers, and long life spans, they had little to no opposition (any [[Ork]] [[WAAAGH]] too stupid to start up most likely got dropped down a black hole or something, and it's hinted Dark Age humanity either never discovered them or purposefully kept its distance).

After many millennia of galactic dominance, the Eldar started to lose interest in menial tasks and concentrated purely on pleasurable acts. Given the depths of their emotions and sensations, these acts soon descended into depravity that would make human snuff films look like Saturday morning cartoons. And then, there were some Eldar who set up private realms in the Webway so that they could commit depraved acts that went too far even for most Eldar. The Empire's collective debauchery, amplified by their psychic prowess, started churning the [[Warp]] itself, making Warp travel nearly impossible.

Some Eldar became uncomfortable with the direction that their society was headed, and settled worlds on the fringe of the galaxy, away from the advanced technologies of the Eldar Empire, and returned to a simpler lifestyle. These were known as [[Exodite]]s. Others dwelled on massive [[Craftworld]]s that traveled the whole Empire, and from their outsider's perspective, could see where things were going. Unfortunately, most of their brothers and sisters didn't believe them. And even more unfortunately, some of their brethren did believe it but actually wanted a god of pleasure to manifest because it's not like such a being would be evil, right? So they kept right on fucking away, until they went and made a new [[Chaos God]]—[[Slaanesh]].

The birth scream of the great pervert tore a great [[Anal circumference|orifice in spacetime]], later known as the [[Eye of Terror]], that consumed most of the Eldar race instantly, even the ones who hadn't wanted to join in with the whole decadence thing but were too close to the epicenter. The only ones who escaped were the Craftworld and Exodite Eldar who were near the rim of the galaxy, and the Eldar who were living in the Webway. The consumed worlds became known as [[Eldar World#Crone Worlds|Crone Worlds]], a particular variety of [[Daemon World]]. To make things even worse (for Eldar at least), the birth of Slaanesh consumed most of the energy that caused massive Warp storms all over the galaxy, and thus allowed humans to launch their [[Great Crusade|massive xenocidal campaign]] during which many of the still young craftworlds were destroyed, and even more Maiden and Exodite worlds were colonized by humans.

==Aftermath==
The Eldar are now a fractured people. The ones who lived in the Webway found their souls slowly draining away over time, and discovered that they could drink the pain of other sentient beings to replenish themselves. They re-organized themselves to gain victims more efficiently, joining their private realms into what became [[Commorragh]], and came to be called the [[Dark Eldar]]. The [[Exodite]]s continue to survive on the rim of the galaxy, and the [[Craftworld]]s still intact drift through space, their inhabitants doing everything they can to atone for the excesses of their ancestors. A few of the Webway-dwellers were rescued by and pledged themselves to [[Cegorach]], becoming the [[Harlequin]]s.

Even the Eldar's gods were affected. When Slaanesh was born, he/she/shklee went on an orgy (because Slaanesh goes on orgies, not sprees) of murder that devoured most of the gods of the Eldar pantheon. The only survivors were [[Khaine]] (who could not be defeated by a god of something other than war, but was shattered into a million pieces), [[Cegorach]] (who escaped into the Webway), and [[Isha]] (who was "rescued" by [[Nurgle]] from being raped and eaten by Slaanesh at his birth, but is now kept as Nurgle's prisoner guinea pig. [[/tg/|Alternate theories]] suggest that Isha isn't actually held captive, but is staying with Nurgle willingly).

The birth of Slaanesh had the positive side effect of providing an outlet for the pent-up Warp energy that had impeded Warp travel for so long (well, the outlet was tearing a great orifice in spacetime and obliterating the Eldar Empire, but at least it was cleared up once the event was over). Warp travel became possible again, which allowed the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to launch his fleets and begin the [[Great Crusade]], and without the mighty Eldar Empire to contend with, his new [[Imperium of Man]] could grow virtually uncontested.

Hilariously, the [[Imperium]] seems vaguely aware the Eldar had a big old space empire at one point but ignores this fact because (a) the Imperium won't keep their hands off their guns long enough for any Eldar to tell them about it, (b) most non-Harlequin Eldar are so arrogant that they think the Imperium, or humanity in general, are unworthy of being taught Eldar history, (c) most Harlequin Eldar can't tell a straight story without layering it first in twelve layers of cryptic bullshit and telling it in the form of an interpretive dance, and (d) the few Imperials who do know the whole story of the Fall interpret it entirely the wrong way and consider it a well-deserved end for the xenos who claimed themselves the rightful lords of the galaxy when that position belonged to humanity alone and (e) any human high-ranking enough to piece together the story is too busy maintaining their own power base to give out status quo shaking revelations or (f) too busy holding the Imperial war machine barely holding back roving Chaos hordes and various monstrous aliens and the incredible levels of oppression that this perpetuates to really dive into the deeper implications of such things.

Fortunately however, there are now some important and powerful imperials who do know, like Guilliman and Cawl.

Given that the [[Chaos Gods]] specifically stated that their interest in humanity is because they are easily manipulated buffoons [[tau|with much tastier and bigger souls than others]], it shows that humanity in 40k has at least one thing in common with the Eldar: high levels of arrogance. Though humanity has the guidance of Big-E to help them to avoid such a a fate, and while he's hardly a flawless strategist, he succeeds more than he fails. There's a reason why the Ruinous Powers feared him even before the Heresy and are terrified of him now.

==Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied==

The Ynnari encounter Ancient Daemons of Slaanesh that have many Eldar-like features. They also encountered a Necron Dynasty that guards a Sealed Warp Gate to prevent said Daemons. They once fought with the old Eldar Empire against Daemons back

The bottom-line is that the revelations has some troubling implications for the Eldar and the rest of the Universe:

-Not all Eldar consumed by the Warp during their Fall were killed but a very small minority have one way or another turned into powerful Slaanesh Daemons that are much more dangerous than the majority of present-day Daemons

-The fact that Daemons of Slaanesh existed back in the WiH is troubling for the Eldar. The fact that the Eldar at the peak of of their power could not defeat these powerful Daemons on their own has caused great concern for the Ynnari

-The fact that the trend of Eldar becoming Daemons started during the War in Heaven does not help either

-However, how much of this can actually be taken at face value remains to be seen. There's probably a sprinkling of truth of course, but then how much? Chaos and daemons do so love their lies and selective truths after all. Just ask Horus. Also, the notion that the ruinous powers were still somehow pulling the strings behind the scenes during the War In Heaven is balls-deep nonsense. Firstly, the Old Ones would not have allowed this if it were so, and make no mistake, they were more than capable of that level of power over the warp back in the day. Nor for that matter would the C'tan have allowed this to be so, who for their part have proven to be more than capable of shutting down and counteracting the interference of any warpfuckery once it begins to annoy them, and who have uniformly been shown to loath the warp as a whole, but Chaos in particular, more than Nurgle hates soap. More importantly though, while the warp has existed as long as the start of the materium, chaos however was born of the conflict between the Old Ones and C'tan/Necrons, which eventually spilled out into the material realm with the onset of the [[Enslavers|enslaver]] plague. For all that the neverborn claim that they are timeless, eternal, and were always there, while there is ''some'' truth in that (because warp), it is also true that they are reliant on and rooted to certain points in materium and certain points in time. A point which causes chaos no small amount of [[butthurt]], especially when some of their precursors, arguably their progenitors are still around, albeit mostly still sleeping. Not even the gods of chaos are above some comforting, revisionist history.

==Links==
* In case of extinction events involving the reaping of souls, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIscL-Bjsq4| break glass.]

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Eldar]]

Fall of the Eldar

2022-10-08T07:18:48Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied */

{{heresy}}
{{sick|The xenololi futanari BDSM orgy-genocide that birthed [[Slaanesh|the Great Mistake]].}}
[[Image:FalloftheEldar.jpg|600px|thumb|right|"[[Derp|So, uh... did nobody happen to think of making a time machine while we were fucking? Anyone...?]]"]]

{{topquote|Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.|Proverbs 16-18}}

{{topquote|Welp, we're boned.|Eldar after the birth of Slaanesh, can be viewed metaphorically or quite literally in some cases...}}

The '''Fall of the Eldar''' is an event which has the dubious honour of setting the scene for the fucked up, [[grimdark]] galaxy of [[Warhammer 40,000]] that we all know and love. Despite this, [[Games Workshop]] has released almost no [[lore]] from that time, mostly because the [[Eldar]] aren't [[Space Marines]] and therefore won't sell quite as much as another entry in the [[Horus Heresy]] series or something. The remaining, actually forgivable, excuse is that Fall of the Eldar [[fluff]] may be seen as too deep and too risqué for the child fans Games Workshop wants to appeal to, as [[Grimdark|the nature]] [[Rape|of the]] [[Rule 34|few facts]] that are known about it are how the Eldar were so hedonistic their debauchery accidentally created the Chaos God of hedonism.

==History==
The Fall was set in motion by the [[War in Heaven]] between the makers of the [[Eldar]], the [[Old Ones]], and the [[Necrons]] and their [[C'tan]] overlords. The war fucked everyone over and everyone that didn't go to sleep got nom-nomed by psychic space terrors.

In the aftermath, the Eldar found the galaxy was theirs for the taking (the Necrons having spent themselves and gone into hibernation) and so became its rulers. Through a combination of their advanced technology, the remnants of the Old Ones' [[Webway]], domination over their psychic powers, and long life spans, they had little to no opposition (any [[Ork]] [[WAAAGH]] too stupid to start up most likely got dropped down a black hole or something, and it's hinted Dark Age humanity either never discovered them or purposefully kept its distance).

After many millennia of galactic dominance, the Eldar started to lose interest in menial tasks and concentrated purely on pleasurable acts. Given the depths of their emotions and sensations, these acts soon descended into depravity that would make human snuff films look like Saturday morning cartoons. And then, there were some Eldar who set up private realms in the Webway so that they could commit depraved acts that went too far even for most Eldar. The Empire's collective debauchery, amplified by their psychic prowess, started churning the [[Warp]] itself, making Warp travel nearly impossible.

Some Eldar became uncomfortable with the direction that their society was headed, and settled worlds on the fringe of the galaxy, away from the advanced technologies of the Eldar Empire, and returned to a simpler lifestyle. These were known as [[Exodite]]s. Others dwelled on massive [[Craftworld]]s that traveled the whole Empire, and from their outsider's perspective, could see where things were going. Unfortunately, most of their brothers and sisters didn't believe them. And even more unfortunately, some of their brethren did believe it but actually wanted a god of pleasure to manifest because it's not like such a being would be evil, right? So they kept right on fucking away, until they went and made a new [[Chaos God]]—[[Slaanesh]].

The birth scream of the great pervert tore a great [[Anal circumference|orifice in spacetime]], later known as the [[Eye of Terror]], that consumed most of the Eldar race instantly, even the ones who hadn't wanted to join in with the whole decadence thing but were too close to the epicenter. The only ones who escaped were the Craftworld and Exodite Eldar who were near the rim of the galaxy, and the Eldar who were living in the Webway. The consumed worlds became known as [[Eldar World#Crone Worlds|Crone Worlds]], a particular variety of [[Daemon World]]. To make things even worse (for Eldar at least), the birth of Slaanesh consumed most of the energy that caused massive Warp storms all over the galaxy, and thus allowed humans to launch their [[Great Crusade|massive xenocidal campaign]] during which many of the still young craftworlds were destroyed, and even more Maiden and Exodite worlds were colonized by humans.

==Aftermath==
The Eldar are now a fractured people. The ones who lived in the Webway found their souls slowly draining away over time, and discovered that they could drink the pain of other sentient beings to replenish themselves. They re-organized themselves to gain victims more efficiently, joining their private realms into what became [[Commorragh]], and came to be called the [[Dark Eldar]]. The [[Exodite]]s continue to survive on the rim of the galaxy, and the [[Craftworld]]s still intact drift through space, their inhabitants doing everything they can to atone for the excesses of their ancestors. A few of the Webway-dwellers were rescued by and pledged themselves to [[Cegorach]], becoming the [[Harlequin]]s.

Even the Eldar's gods were affected. When Slaanesh was born, he/she/shklee went on an orgy (because Slaanesh goes on orgies, not sprees) of murder that devoured most of the gods of the Eldar pantheon. The only survivors were [[Khaine]] (who could not be defeated by a god of something other than war, but was shattered into a million pieces), [[Cegorach]] (who escaped into the Webway), and [[Isha]] (who was "rescued" by [[Nurgle]] from being raped and eaten by Slaanesh at his birth, but is now kept as Nurgle's prisoner guinea pig. [[/tg/|Alternate theories]] suggest that Isha isn't actually held captive, but is staying with Nurgle willingly).

The birth of Slaanesh had the positive side effect of providing an outlet for the pent-up Warp energy that had impeded Warp travel for so long (well, the outlet was tearing a great orifice in spacetime and obliterating the Eldar Empire, but at least it was cleared up once the event was over). Warp travel became possible again, which allowed the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to launch his fleets and begin the [[Great Crusade]], and without the mighty Eldar Empire to contend with, his new [[Imperium of Man]] could grow virtually uncontested.

Hilariously, the [[Imperium]] seems vaguely aware the Eldar had a big old space empire at one point but ignores this fact because (a) the Imperium won't keep their hands off their guns long enough for any Eldar to tell them about it, (b) most non-Harlequin Eldar are so arrogant that they think the Imperium, or humanity in general, are unworthy of being taught Eldar history, (c) most Harlequin Eldar can't tell a straight story without layering it first in twelve layers of cryptic bullshit and telling it in the form of an interpretive dance, and (d) the few Imperials who do know the whole story of the Fall interpret it entirely the wrong way and consider it a well-deserved end for the xenos who claimed themselves the rightful lords of the galaxy when that position belonged to humanity alone and (e) any human high-ranking enough to piece together the story is too busy maintaining their own power base to give out status quo shaking revelations or (f) too busy holding the Imperial war machine barely holding back roving Chaos hordes and various monstrous aliens and the incredible levels of oppression that this perpetuates to really dive into the deeper implications of such things.

Fortunately however, there are now some important and powerful imperials who do know, like Guilliman and Cawl.

Given that the [[Chaos Gods]] specifically stated that their interest in humanity is because they are easily manipulated buffoons [[tau|with much tastier and bigger souls than others]], it shows that humanity in 40k has at least one thing in common with the Eldar: high levels of arrogance. Though humanity has the guidance of Big-E to help them to avoid such a a fate, and while he's hardly a flawless strategist, he succeeds more than he fails. There's a reason why the Ruinous Powers feared him even before the Heresy and are terrified of him now.

==Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied==

The Ynnari encounter Ancient Daemons of Slaanesh that have many Eldar-like features. They also encountered a Necron Dynasty that guards a Sealed Warp Gate to prevent said Daemons. They once fought with the old Eldar Empire against Daemons back

The bottom-line is that the revelations has some troubling implications for the Eldar and the rest of the Universe:

-Not all Eldar consumed by the Warp during their Fall were killed but a very small minority have one way or another turned into powerful Slaanesh Daemons that are much more dangerous than the majority of present-day Daemons

-The fact that Daemons of Slaanesh existed back in the WiH is troubling for the Eldar. The fact that the Eldar at the peak of of their power could not defeat these powerful Daemons on their own has caused great concern for the Ynnari

-The fact that the trend of Eldar becoming Daemons started during the War in Heaven does not help either

-However, how much of this can actually be taken at face value remains to be seen. There's probably a sprinkling of truth of course, but then how much? Chaos and daemons do so love their lies and selective truths after all. Just ask Horus. Also, the notion that the ruinous powers were still somehow pulling the strings behind the scenes during the War In Heaven is balls-deep nonsense. Firstly, the Old Ones would not have allowed this if it were so, and make no mistake, they were more than capable of that level of power over the warp back in the day. Nor for that matter would the C'tan have allowed this to be so, who for their part have proven to be more than capable of shutting down and counteracting the interference of any warpfuckery once it begins to annoy them, and who have uniformly been shown to loath the warp as a whole, but Chaos in particular, more than Nurgle hates soap. More importantly though, while the warp has existed as long as the start of the materium, chaos however was born of the conflict between the Old Ones and C'tan/Necrons, which eventually spilled out into the material realm with the onset of the [[Enslaver]] plague. For all that the neverborn claim that they are timeless, eternal, and were always there, while there is ''some'' truth in that (''because warp''), it is also true that they are reliant on and rooted to certain points in materium and certain points in time. A point which causes chaos no small amount of [[butthurt]], especially when some of their precursors, arguably their progenitors are still around, albeit mostly still sleeping. Not even the gods of chaos are above some comforting, revisionist history.

==Links==
* In case of extinction events involving the reaping of souls, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIscL-Bjsq4| break glass.]

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Eldar]]

Fall of the Eldar

2022-10-08T07:17:36Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673:

{{heresy}}
{{sick|The xenololi futanari BDSM orgy-genocide that birthed [[Slaanesh|the Great Mistake]].}}
[[Image:FalloftheEldar.jpg|600px|thumb|right|"[[Derp|So, uh... did nobody happen to think of making a time machine while we were fucking? Anyone...?]]"]]

{{topquote|Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.|Proverbs 16-18}}

{{topquote|Welp, we're boned.|Eldar after the birth of Slaanesh, can be viewed metaphorically or quite literally in some cases...}}

The '''Fall of the Eldar''' is an event which has the dubious honour of setting the scene for the fucked up, [[grimdark]] galaxy of [[Warhammer 40,000]] that we all know and love. Despite this, [[Games Workshop]] has released almost no [[lore]] from that time, mostly because the [[Eldar]] aren't [[Space Marines]] and therefore won't sell quite as much as another entry in the [[Horus Heresy]] series or something. The remaining, actually forgivable, excuse is that Fall of the Eldar [[fluff]] may be seen as too deep and too risqué for the child fans Games Workshop wants to appeal to, as [[Grimdark|the nature]] [[Rape|of the]] [[Rule 34|few facts]] that are known about it are how the Eldar were so hedonistic their debauchery accidentally created the Chaos God of hedonism.

==History==
The Fall was set in motion by the [[War in Heaven]] between the makers of the [[Eldar]], the [[Old Ones]], and the [[Necrons]] and their [[C'tan]] overlords. The war fucked everyone over and everyone that didn't go to sleep got nom-nomed by psychic space terrors.

In the aftermath, the Eldar found the galaxy was theirs for the taking (the Necrons having spent themselves and gone into hibernation) and so became its rulers. Through a combination of their advanced technology, the remnants of the Old Ones' [[Webway]], domination over their psychic powers, and long life spans, they had little to no opposition (any [[Ork]] [[WAAAGH]] too stupid to start up most likely got dropped down a black hole or something, and it's hinted Dark Age humanity either never discovered them or purposefully kept its distance).

After many millennia of galactic dominance, the Eldar started to lose interest in menial tasks and concentrated purely on pleasurable acts. Given the depths of their emotions and sensations, these acts soon descended into depravity that would make human snuff films look like Saturday morning cartoons. And then, there were some Eldar who set up private realms in the Webway so that they could commit depraved acts that went too far even for most Eldar. The Empire's collective debauchery, amplified by their psychic prowess, started churning the [[Warp]] itself, making Warp travel nearly impossible.

Some Eldar became uncomfortable with the direction that their society was headed, and settled worlds on the fringe of the galaxy, away from the advanced technologies of the Eldar Empire, and returned to a simpler lifestyle. These were known as [[Exodite]]s. Others dwelled on massive [[Craftworld]]s that traveled the whole Empire, and from their outsider's perspective, could see where things were going. Unfortunately, most of their brothers and sisters didn't believe them. And even more unfortunately, some of their brethren did believe it but actually wanted a god of pleasure to manifest because it's not like such a being would be evil, right? So they kept right on fucking away, until they went and made a new [[Chaos God]]—[[Slaanesh]].

The birth scream of the great pervert tore a great [[Anal circumference|orifice in spacetime]], later known as the [[Eye of Terror]], that consumed most of the Eldar race instantly, even the ones who hadn't wanted to join in with the whole decadence thing but were too close to the epicenter. The only ones who escaped were the Craftworld and Exodite Eldar who were near the rim of the galaxy, and the Eldar who were living in the Webway. The consumed worlds became known as [[Eldar World#Crone Worlds|Crone Worlds]], a particular variety of [[Daemon World]]. To make things even worse (for Eldar at least), the birth of Slaanesh consumed most of the energy that caused massive Warp storms all over the galaxy, and thus allowed humans to launch their [[Great Crusade|massive xenocidal campaign]] during which many of the still young craftworlds were destroyed, and even more Maiden and Exodite worlds were colonized by humans.

==Aftermath==
The Eldar are now a fractured people. The ones who lived in the Webway found their souls slowly draining away over time, and discovered that they could drink the pain of other sentient beings to replenish themselves. They re-organized themselves to gain victims more efficiently, joining their private realms into what became [[Commorragh]], and came to be called the [[Dark Eldar]]. The [[Exodite]]s continue to survive on the rim of the galaxy, and the [[Craftworld]]s still intact drift through space, their inhabitants doing everything they can to atone for the excesses of their ancestors. A few of the Webway-dwellers were rescued by and pledged themselves to [[Cegorach]], becoming the [[Harlequin]]s.

Even the Eldar's gods were affected. When Slaanesh was born, he/she/shklee went on an orgy (because Slaanesh goes on orgies, not sprees) of murder that devoured most of the gods of the Eldar pantheon. The only survivors were [[Khaine]] (who could not be defeated by a god of something other than war, but was shattered into a million pieces), [[Cegorach]] (who escaped into the Webway), and [[Isha]] (who was "rescued" by [[Nurgle]] from being raped and eaten by Slaanesh at his birth, but is now kept as Nurgle's prisoner guinea pig. [[/tg/|Alternate theories]] suggest that Isha isn't actually held captive, but is staying with Nurgle willingly).

The birth of Slaanesh had the positive side effect of providing an outlet for the pent-up Warp energy that had impeded Warp travel for so long (well, the outlet was tearing a great orifice in spacetime and obliterating the Eldar Empire, but at least it was cleared up once the event was over). Warp travel became possible again, which allowed the [[God-Emperor of Mankind|Emperor of Mankind]] to launch his fleets and begin the [[Great Crusade]], and without the mighty Eldar Empire to contend with, his new [[Imperium of Man]] could grow virtually uncontested.

Hilariously, the [[Imperium]] seems vaguely aware the Eldar had a big old space empire at one point but ignores this fact because (a) the Imperium won't keep their hands off their guns long enough for any Eldar to tell them about it, (b) most non-Harlequin Eldar are so arrogant that they think the Imperium, or humanity in general, are unworthy of being taught Eldar history, (c) most Harlequin Eldar can't tell a straight story without layering it first in twelve layers of cryptic bullshit and telling it in the form of an interpretive dance, and (d) the few Imperials who do know the whole story of the Fall interpret it entirely the wrong way and consider it a well-deserved end for the xenos who claimed themselves the rightful lords of the galaxy when that position belonged to humanity alone and (e) any human high-ranking enough to piece together the story is too busy maintaining their own power base to give out status quo shaking revelations or (f) too busy holding the Imperial war machine barely holding back roving Chaos hordes and various monstrous aliens and the incredible levels of oppression that this perpetuates to really dive into the deeper implications of such things.

Fortunately however, there are now some important and powerful imperials who do know, like Guilliman and Cawl.

Given that the [[Chaos Gods]] specifically stated that their interest in humanity is because they are easily manipulated buffoons [[tau|with much tastier and bigger souls than others]], it shows that humanity in 40k has at least one thing in common with the Eldar: high levels of arrogance. Though humanity has the guidance of Big-E to help them to avoid such a a fate, and while he's hardly a flawless strategist, he succeeds more than he fails. There's a reason why the Ruinous Powers feared him even before the Heresy and are terrified of him now.

==Ynnari's Quest: Truths Unburied==

The Ynnari encounter Ancient Daemons of Slaanesh that have many Eldar-like features. They also encountered a Necron Dynasty that guards a Sealed Warp Gate to prevent said Daemons. They once fought with the old Eldar Empire against Daemons back

The bottom-line is that the revelations has some troubling implications for the Eldar and the rest of the Universe:

-Not all Eldar consumed by the Warp during their Fall were killed but a very small minority have one way or another turned into powerful Slaanesh Daemons that are much more dangerous than the majority of present-day Daemons

-The fact that Daemons of Slaanesh existed back in the WiH is troubling for the Eldar. The fact that the Eldar at the peak of of their power could not defeat these powerful Daemons on their own has caused great concern for the Ynnari

-The fact that the trend of Eldar becoming Daemons started during the War in Heaven does not help either

-However, how much of this can actually be taken at face value remains to be seen. There's probably a sprinkling of truth of course, but then how much? Chaos and daemons do so love their lies and selective truths after all. Just ask Horus. Also, the notion that the ruinous powers were still somehow pulling the strings behind the scenes during the War In Heaven is balls-deep nonsense. Firstly, the Old Ones would not have allowed this if it were so, and make no mistake, they were more than capable of that level of power over the warp back in the day. Nor for that matter would the C'tan have allowed this to be so, who for their part have proven to be more than capable of shutting down and counteracting the interference of any warpfuckery once it begins to annoy them, and who have uniformly been shown to loath the warp as a whole, but Chaos in particular, more than Nurgle hates soap. More importantly though, while the warp has existed as long as the start of the materium, chaos however was born of the conflict between the Old Ones and C'tan/Necrons, which eventually spilled out into the material realm with the onset of the [[enslaver]] plague. For all that the neverborn claim that they are timeless, eternal, and were always there, while there is ''some'' truth in that (''because warp''), it is also true that they are reliant on and rooted to certain points in materium and certain points in time. A point which causes chaos no small amount of [[butthurt]], especially when some of their precursors, arguably their progenitors are still around, albeit mostly still sleeping. Not even the gods of chaos are above some comforting, revisionist history.

==Links==
* In case of extinction events involving the reaping of souls, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIscL-Bjsq4| break glass.]

{{40k-Timeline}}

[[Category:Eldar]]

Horus Heresy

2022-10-04T08:14:54Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* The Siege of Terra series */

[[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|I never wanted this. I never wanted to unleash my legions. Together, we banished the ignorance of old night. But you betrayed me. You betrayed us all. You stole power from the Gods, and lied to your sons! Mankind has only one chance to prosper. If you will not seize it...'''then I will!!''' So let it be war! From the skies of Terra, to the Galactic Rim. Let the seas boil! Let the stars fall! Though it takes, '''the last drop of my blood''', I will see the Galaxy freed once more! And if I cannot save it from your failure, father...then let the Galaxy '''BURN!'''|Horus, making his own feelings known and [[A Game of Pretend|totally not projecting ''at all''.]]}}

{{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. [[Derp|Also notice how the Gothic Sector and Port Maw, canonically bordering the Eye of Terror, are positioned a quarter of the galaxy away from it.]] [[Forge World|For some reason.]]]]
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' to make the problem go away". 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 defenses. 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 realizing 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 shenanigans 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 cliché 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 Guilliman</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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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. When not showing off the two traitor primarchs, the book 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. The guy also resurrects the Word Bearers' waifu, apparently turning her into a perpetual in the process, only for her to be <s>kidnapped</s> rescued by the Cabal soon after. She is never seen again in the rest of the series. 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 millennia, 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. Unmarked 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. John Grammaticus is up to no good (probably), looking for an artifact infused with the Emperor's groovy god juice and there is a Word Bearer who doesn't seem to be buying into the whole "Chaos is so epic and cool" schtick of his legion. 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 realize 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 foresees 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 exterminatus grade phosphex to the face (he survives nonetheless, 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 defenses 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' defenses 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 ritualized 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 millennium, 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 for 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 defense 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. The 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 acolyte 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 never-ending 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 deep-strikes 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 realizes 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, signaling 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. Big-E 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 few minutes 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 when Horus falls, all but confirming that the Chaos Gods expected Horus to lose his duel with the Emperor.
*'''''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 ultimately results their city getting bombed to shit. (Zenobi's story took about a quarter of the book, but its entirety can be summed up in one sentence, and could '''at best''' be described as misguided, inexplicable filler; 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 to a single (armless) man. 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]] (presumably losing his arms in the transfer) despite his own wish for death, as the Chaos Gods already have him in mind as their new Warmaster. 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 feeds Eidolon his own sword and just straight-up kicks him 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 as the result of what can only be described as a fucked up custody battle - 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 it 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 complete withdrawal of all IV Legion assets on Terra and fucks off, abandoning the siege entirely. 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 and in somewhat limited capacity. Princeps Aurum of the Ordo sinister (whom we saw in a previous short story tell Dorn to fuck off because being one of ''The Talons of the Emperor'', they only answer to Big-E himself), 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 daemon titan engines, and thanks to their nature as [[blanks]], they deny the traitors any further resurrections, so anything they kill ''stays'' dead. They also tank damage without even staggering, simply repairing any damage they accumulate on the spot. However, the traitors brought a LOT of titans, so even those few Psi-titans we get to see are eventually overwhelmed, though they take a fuckton of traitors with them.
** 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 yet. 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? The Dark Angels probably could due to their abundance of Dark Age archeotec and The Lion's maybe [[Tuchulcha|Old Ones-creation biological computer Pinnochio macguffin... Thing]], but everyone else? Nonetheless, the plot decrees that Corswain and his Dark Angels must be given something interesting to do I guess. Thus, 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 and secure 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 daemon (as in ''permakill''), but gets a bad nose-bleed. The horror.
* '''''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. 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. The White Scars' frenzy doesn't end until a newly raised khan gets word to Shiban that their primarch yet lives, and manages to remind Shiban that they were supposed to take the port, not destroy it. The Death Guard retreat in shambles, abandoning the Gate and rejoining Typhus, who had once again taken off to do his own thing earlier in the book.
**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 still 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. Incidentally, this book does the seemingly impossible and actually makes us root for Erebus (the quintessential Quizling-Hitler High School Meangirl hybrid in space) of the entire Horus Heresy, due to him dropping some much needed truth-bombs on Erda (humanity's worst mom) and hands her some long overdue comeuppance. Erebus then moves to finish her off and wreck her house, [[A Game of Pretend|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 [Shiban Khan leads the Lion's Gate Spaceport in his absence], Dorn is surrounded at Bhab Bastion, Corswain and his Dark Angels contingent have locked down the Astronomicon but are ordered to stay put, and all other 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 duel Angron as the big climactic fight.
** A lot of this books focuses on the defenders retreat to (and attackers assault on) the Eternity Gate leading to the Sanctum Imperialis, specifically their mustering and battle before the Delphic Battlement. That being said, this is also the point in the siege where things really start to go [[Not as Planned]] for Team Chaos, and as ever, it's often as much due to them getting in their own way, just as much as the efforts of Team Emperor. The Imperial side of things is mostly narrated through the perspectives of Nassir Amit and Zephon of the Blood Angels. Zephon apparently ''wasn't'' killed back in Saturnine and was just taking a nap until Arkhan Land and some Legion serfs fix him up with Dark Age archeotech and send him on his merry way. Meanwhile, the Chaos side of things is told from the POV of the World Eaters Apothecary Kargos from ''Betrayer'' as he tags along with a random Word Bearers Chaplain, reminiscent of Kharne and Argel Tal's previous bro-ship. It doesn't matter though, because Kargos gets curb-stomped by the Flesh Tearer and left for dead by his Word Bearers buddy. After a day of fighting, the defenders begin to retreat to the Sanctum, knowing that whoever is left on the outside after the doors close will be daemon chow. Sanguinius duels Ka'Bandha and wrecks him pretty one-sidedly. Just as the gates are being closed, a Legio Audax (the same guys from ''Betrayer'') titan holds the door open long enough for Angron to swoop in and start fighting the Angel. The two duel, and Angron gets a good sword-stab to Sanguinius' gutmeats, but then Fabulous Hawk Boy rips the Butcher's Nails from daemon Angron's head and drops him to the ground before heading inside and letting the gates close.
** There's a sub-plot about Vulkan going into the shattered remains of the Emperor's Webway project to duel with Magnus, who is on the other side after being ejected in ''Fury of Magnus''. Magnus does a bunch of magic tricks to Vulkan, but Vulkan is an [[Perpetual|unkillable]] primarch with a big fuckoff hammer and eventually Magnus gets tuckered out long enough for them to 'kill' each other. Magnus is banished from the Webway and Vulkan eventually gets up and wanders out. One revelation from these parts is that the Emperor's 'you only perceive me how I want you to perceive me' shtick extends to the Primarchs, as Vulkan remembers the Emperor's offer to Magnus to lead the Grey Knights as a stern 'lol gtfo'. Well that's one interpretation anyway; the other is that the corruption of Chaos wormed its way yet further into Magnus, altering his cognitive function, allowing him to think of himself as the victim, and thus ensuring that Magnus would dance further to their tune.
** We also get a look into how things are going in the fleet and for some of the mortal followers of Chaos. The aforementioned Legio Audax Warhound, the ''Hindarah'', has been on Terra pretty much since the beginning. It's princeps still believes herself to be alive, and frequently hallucinates that the cockpit of her god-engine has become an abattoir of horrors, but then she comes back to it and everything seems normal again. It isn't until we get another character's view on the interior that we see that, yeah, the princeps and moderati have all fused into a ''[[Chaos Spawn|that thing]]''... Yuck. Lotarra Sarrin, everyone's favorite spunky girl-boss captain of the ''Conqueror'', has become a corrupted ''thing'' partly fused with her command throne, while the parts of her that wanted to run away from the horror of it all became a ghost that the rest of the crew just sort of tolerate. This ghost even manages to get in a call to Horus aboard the ''Vengeful Spirit'', who has continued to deteriorate from 'kooky grampa' to 'scary kooky grampa'. It's heavily implied that Argonis is the only one left really running the fleet.
** The book ends with the Lion's Gate Space Port finally opening fire on the traitor fleet, much to the horror of those aboard, who were caught completely unprepared, in close formation while stationary in geosynchronous orbit, and immediately starts getting torn to pieces. They then receive a message from its [[White Scars|new occupants]], who basically just calls to laugh at them. [[Troll|Then he hangs up]]. In the epilogue a few pages later, we get a sweet little note from Guilliman to Sanguinius, saying that he's a couple days from the system's edge and only a solar week from Terra. However, this message is intercepted and blocked by daemon Lotarra Sarrin from reaching the surface.
** A lot of this helps to set up and answer the ultimate question of "why did Horus drop the void shields?" At this point in the siege, the defenders are on their very last legs. Dorn and a lot of forces are cut off at Bhab Bastion, while everyone else who is still alive has fled inside the Sanctum Imperialis. There are no more walls to get behind, nowhere else to run to. On the Chaos side of things, by book's end, Horus is no longer the smug little shit we've seen throughout the siege, and is instead now shitting his pants, because he has now lost every single one of his generals. Lorgar had already been driven out for plotting to overthrow Horus, Konrad is not even in the correct side of the galaxy, Alpharius/Omegon (it's hard to keep track of which one is which at the best of times) died at Pluto while the other twin remains at large elsewhere, Fulgrim fucked off during ''Saturnine'', Perturabo during ''Mortis'', Mortarion got clapped by the Khan in ''Warhawk'' and shunted off into the warp, and by the end of ''Echoes'', both Magnus and Angron have been reduced to greasy, whiny smears, staining sections of the Webway and Eternity Gates' floors, respectively. To make matters worse for Team Horus (as if any more were needed), with the death or absence of their respective primarchs, a significant percentage of the remaining astartes forces under the Warmaster's command (maybe even up to '''HALF''') have lost anything even remotely resembling unit cohesion, and in the case of The Thousand Sons and World Eaters, probably permanently; the former having fully succumbed to the flesh change en masse and the latter evidently now practicing for the upcoming [[Battle of Skalathrax]] by going all-in on the whole Teamkilling Fucktard thing, whereas before they'd only engaged in the occasional Teamkilling dalliance. The board, as they say, is set for the final showdown.
*'''''The End and the Death''''': This is it. 17 years and over 60 books, all leading up to ''the'' main event of the Heresy: the duel of the Emperor and Horus, as written by [[Dan Abnett|the man who started the series]][[Awesome|.]] Will be split into multiple volumes, because there's no way in hell BL wouldn't milk this for all it's worth, and because Abnett belongs to the school of write a shit ton of words (thankfully, unlike [[A Song of Ice and Fire|someone else we can name]] he actually finishes his shit).
*'''''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 has to go into suspended animation, Garuda the mechanical eagle watches over him as he passes out, 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.
* '''''Garro: Knight of Grey''''': The third novella in the series, featuring Nathaniel Garro's final showdown with Mortarion as he fights to protect Euphrati Keeler.

==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. The surviving natives of Morningstar are obliterated in space to stop the meme from spreading, and shortly before the Siege of Terra Magnus Pókeballs the psychic gestalt from its prison in the ruins of Prospero into his book so he can use it to get past the Emperor's psychic shield.

===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. A meeting takes place between Sanguinius, Magnus and the Khan to talk about protecting the Librarius but Magnus is dismissive as ever about it and doesn't seem to take the issue very seriously. The White Scars fight together with the Luna Wolves against Greenskins and the former legion uses their Librarius against the Orc shamans, in order to not miss a conquest deadline set by the Khan, who of course likes to go very fast in all manner of ways. This has a subtle backfire for the Imperium, as the Luna Wolves disapprove of the Librarius. Horus himself is implied to give Jagathai the cold shoulder as a result of this, due to Horus trying to be on his most neutral, goodie good boyscout behavior, in anticipation of winning the title of Warmaster. The Khan thus loses support of Horus regarding the psyker dilemma. 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. Much better book than most in the Primarchs series, as it's basically a Horus Heresy book and not a novel about a no-stakes Crusade campaign (Guilliman's book) nor a deep dive into the Primarch's life before the Emperor (Lorgar's). This is also a companion piece / prequel to Brotherhood of the Storm (this book directly intertwines with Brotherhood near the end) and Scars.

===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 saw they were too tough a 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 [[Meme|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 be 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 comes across 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 (Alpharius even expresses a foreboding worry that Horus is carrying too much on his shoulders), The Lion to a certain extent (whom Alpharius speculates was the only brother to see through him and sense the truth), 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/foster father, 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 during Mortarion's early days in the Imperium, just after the events of ''The Verdict of the Scythe'' and flashing back to the Conquest of Galaspar, his first campaign as primarch of the Death Guard. As he's settling into command of his legion, Mortarion learns of a noncompliant human empire known as the Order in the Galaspar Cluster. Billions of people are enslaved, kept permanently drugged up, and forced to work themselves to death for the enrichment of the High Comptrollers, a pack of oligarchical assholes who refer to their slaves as "labor units" and have them executed and turned into nutrient sludge because their baking wasn't up to par (no, really). The Order's similarities to the Overlords of Barbarus piss Morty off to the point where he rejects the other Imperial commanders' suggestion that they blockade and besiege the cluster and decides to do a Leeroy Jenkins-style decapitation strike instead. He takes his fleet and barges clean through the Cluster's exterior defenses before ramming a cruiser into the side of the largest hive on Galaspar Prime and going out to kick ass the Death Guard way: fistfuls of rad grenades, rivers of phosphex, and power scythes, all topped off with plenty of orbital bombardments. No one who belongs to the Order is allowed to survive; Morty and the legion kill most of the Comptrollers even when they try to surrender and leave a few to be torn to pieces by their former slaves. Morty expects to be praised for his work, but the Emperor seems upset and sends Horus and Sanguinius to call him to account. Both primarchs are stunned by the level of destruction Mortarion has wrought, and When he tries to justify himself to his brothers, Horus points out that all he's done is replace one kind of tyranny with another. Morty has a brief moment of clarity and wonders if there is a better path forward for him and his legion. Ultimately, however, he concludes that the examples of Galaspar and Absyrtus justify his way of war and decides to become an embodiment of unstoppable, unrelenting Death, [[Nurgle|and we all know how well that worked out for him.]] Also features [[Typhus|Calas Typhon]] and [[Knights-Errant#Nathaniel Garro|Nathaniel Garro]] in their early days as line legionaries. Typhon falls into a disgusting sewer at one point and runs into a psyker who seems to know what he'll become, while Garro is the sole survivor of a kill team sent to take out the Order's chief asshole, which is probably what set him on the path to becoming battle-captain of the Seventh Grand Company.

===Rogal Dorn: The Emperor's Crusader===
Six decades into the Great Crusade, the Emperor orders Dorn to take his Legion into an area of the galaxy obscured by a colossal warp storm and bring it into compliance.

===Sanguinius: The Great Angel===
A disgraced remembrancer joins the IX Legion on campaign and learns more about the early days of the Blood Angels, possibly including some of their more unsavory secrets.

===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."

==Horus Heresy Character Series==

A subseries of novellas and short stories focusing on major characters from the Crusade and Heresy eras. Originally these were part of the Primarchs series until BL finally split them off into their own category.

===Valdor: Birth of the Imperium===
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===
Solomon Voss comes to interview Sigismund for the first time near the end of the Great Crusade, and Sigismund reveals why he believes that there will only be war in the Imperium's <s>grimdark</s> noblebright future.

Most of the novel is concerned with Siggy's backstory: he 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 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 an entire day until Sigismund was about to land the killing blow and Sevatar 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 as a child what he'd become, he'd still have said no. Voss further realizes that Sigismund is hoping to die at some point so he can escape the endless cycle of conflict. The book ends with Voss summarizing what Sigismund believes: there will always be war, because even if the Imperium pacifies the galaxy, it will still have to fight against the cruelty, savagery, and cowardice of human nature. Needless to say, later events proved Sigismund to be absolutely right in every possible way.

==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 mentioned below and more alarmingly, the lead-up to Adepticon 2022 announced that the Horus Heresy wargame was going to see a new edition, now written by the core GW design team. Warhammer Fest 2022 displayed their full intent, with a full box set (filled with plastic Beakies, two new Praetors, a Spartan, and Cataphractii Termies, all in plastic) as well as plenty of other updated models: new support squad weapon kits, reboxed 20-man kits for Mk. III and Mk. IV Marines, plastic Deimos-pattern Rhinos, Sicarans, and Leviathan Dreadnoughts, an updated plastic Contemptor Dread kit, and the brand new [[Kratos Heavy Assault Tank]], a heavy tank placed in between the Sicaran and Fellblade.

===First Edition===
'''Book 1: 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.

'''Book 2: 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.

'''Book 3: 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.

'''Book 4: 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.
'''Book 5: 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.

'''Book 6: 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).

'''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.

'''Book 8: 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, two new squads, and an entire slew of relics that interact with Psykers and Daemons.

'''Book 9: 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 proved to be the last of the black books for the first edition of the Heresy tabletop, as GW announced a new edition of the game at Adepticon 2022.

====Condensed Lists====
The Istvaan Campaign Legions (ICL) and Legiones Astartes Crusade Army List (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 LACAL is basically the generic 30k Space Marine "codex", whilst the ICL contains all of the collected rules for the legions from Books 1-3, including their units, characters and wargear. 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 Taghmata 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.

====Exemplary Battles====
Starting in Fall 2021, GW started publishing a series of free PDFs for the Horus Heresy tabletop which contain mini-campaigns based around battles from the Heresy that have been mentioned in the novels or black books but weren't big enough for a book of their own. These PDFs also include fluff and rules for Legion units that haven't been given any yet, along with photos and conversion tips for said units. These tips boil down to "buy tons of Forge World stuff while you still can", 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; GW has confirmed that the PDFs released prior to the launch of the new edition have been written to work with both sets of rules.

*'''''[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]]. 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.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/AmPdr3yMZbvggCND.pdf The Breaking of the Perfect Fortress]''''': Raven Guard storming the III Legion's Perfect Fortress on the world of Narsis, previously mentioned in ''Deliverance Lost''. Includes rules for the Deliverers, Terran-born Raven Guard who were trained under Horus and still prefer to use Terminator armor and shock-assault tactics. They're Stubborn and get teleportation transponders for deep-striking, but their main rule is Corax's Shame, representing the fact that Corax wasn't fond of his brutal Terran sons. They get +1T against attacks that cause Instant Death and cannot be deployed within 18" of Corax, nor can he ever join them. If you take Deliverers as part of a traitor force, they instead gain Hatred against Corax.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/TLbrp4me5GEfL37Q.pdf The Scouring of Gilden's Star]''''': Word Bearers vs Blood Angels fighting over a ''Hamlet'' reference last seen all the way back in 1989. Has rules for the Word Bearers' Procurators, basically assault squads led by evil Apothecaries who [[Blood Ravens|steal gene-seed]] and desecrate corpses to summon daemons. They give boosts to friendly psykers with the Harbinger of Chaos, Diabolism, and Anathemata disciplines and award an extra VP every time they Sweeping Advance an enemy unit.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/6i9CeSwKmbWmzac4.pdf The Battle of Trisolian: Vengeful Spirit]''''': Taking a page from the ''Wolfsbane'' novel, this portrays the part of the [[Battle of Trisolian]] when the Space Wolves broke into Horus' flagship during Russ' attempt to kill Horus before he reached Terra. Introduces the Space Wolves' Jorlund Hunter Pack, assault marines that can temporarily supercharge their flamers, and the Sons of Horus' Chieftains, an elite retinue of junior officers who specialize in hunting down characters.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/3mVvZrTG9XOWeVxv.pdf The Axandria IV Incident]''''': Imperial Fists, Custodes, and Sisters of Silence raid a Thousand Sons repository world not long before the Siege of Terra, and the Thousand Sons actually score a win this time by evacuating their data stacks before the loyalist forces can trash them. Includes rules for Numerologist Cabals of the Order of Ruin, Thousand Sons Techmarines and tacticians who used divination to generate battle plans and predict enemy movements. The Numerologist gains a special psychic power that gives him a geo-locator beacon and boosts the BS of two friendly Thousand Sons squads if he passes a psychic check. He also gets a special bubble-wrap rule that prevents him from taking any wounds no matter what until all his bodyguards are dead, unless he accepts a challenge.

===Second Edition===
The first two books for the new edition of the tabletop were revealed at Warhammer Fest 2022: the '''Liber Astartes''' and the '''Liber Hereticus'''. These are basically updated and combined versions of the LACAL and ICL books. Both books contain the rules for all non-Legion-specific units, while the Liber Astartes has the rules for the loyalist legions and the Liber Hereticus has the rules for the traitor legions, including their Primarchs, unique units and wargear, Rites of War, Warlord Traits, and faction abilities. The '''Legacies of the Age of Darkness''' PDF contains the rules for vehicles, units, and characters who either never had models or whose models are now out of production, including most of the Legion-specific special characters, Castraferrum Dreadnoughts, the [[Crassus Armored Assault Transport|CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT]], and all of the Baneblade variants. Later leaks, which Warhammer Community would confirm, revealed that there would also be books for the Mechanicum ('''Liber Mechanicum''') that would contain rules for the Taghmata, Knights and Titans as well as a book for the Custodes, Sisters of Silence, Solar Auxilia, and Divisio Assassinorum ('''Liber Imperium'''). Daemons of the Ruinstorm and Imperialis Militia/Warp Cults will get downloadable lists, and according to the Legacies PDF the Knights-Errant and Blackshields are being made into full factions. They will also continue to release the Exemplary Battles series; the previously released PDFs got a separate update PDF in order to work with the new edition. The tactics page for the Legions can be found [[Age of Darkness-Warhammer 30k/2.0 Tactics/Legiones Astartes Tactics|here]].

The core rules have been drastically modified with the addition of "Reactions", which make gameplay more dynamic. In addition to basic reactions such as Overwatch, each Legion now has an "Advanced Reaction" that can be taken in response to the opponent's actions. Furthermore, USRs have been rewritten to be more granular (e.g. Bulky, Very Bulky, and Extremely Bulky are now Bulky (2), Bulky (3), and Bulky (5), where the number in parentheses is how many models that unit counts as for the purposes of transport capacity) and the Psychic Phase has been removed in lieu of the pre-7th edition manner of resolving psychic powers.

==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==
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3170/horus-heresy-1993 Horus Heresy (1993)] at BoardGameGeek
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63543/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (2010)] at BoardGameGeek

{{40k-Timeline}}

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

Horus Heresy

2022-10-03T10:13:18Z

2603:8001:6901:2586:91C8:1258:3361:3673: /* The Siege of Terra series */

[[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|I never wanted this. I never wanted to unleash my legions. Together, we banished the ignorance of old night. But you betrayed me. You betrayed us all. You stole power from the Gods, and lied to your sons! Mankind has only one chance to prosper. If you will not seize it...'''then I will!!''' So let it be war! From the skies of Terra, to the Galactic Rim. Let the seas boil! Let the stars fall! Though it takes, '''the last drop of my blood''', I will see the Galaxy freed once more! And if I cannot save it from your failure, father...then let the Galaxy '''BURN!'''|Horus, making his own feelings known and [[A Game of Pretend|totally not projecting ''at all''.]]}}

{{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. [[Derp|Also notice how the Gothic Sector and Port Maw, canonically bordering the Eye of Terror, are positioned a quarter of the galaxy away from it.]] [[Forge World|For some reason.]]]]
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' to make the problem go away". 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 defenses. 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 realizing 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 shenanigans 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 cliché 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 Guilliman</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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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 Emperor'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. When not showing off the two traitor primarchs, the book 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. The guy also resurrects the Word Bearers' waifu, apparently turning her into a perpetual in the process, only for her to be <s>kidnapped</s> rescued by the Cabal soon after. She is never seen again in the rest of the series. 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 millennia, 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. Unmarked 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. John Grammaticus is up to no good (probably), looking for an artifact infused with the Emperor's groovy god juice and there is a Word Bearer who doesn't seem to be buying into the whole "Chaos is so epic and cool" schtick of his legion. 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 realize 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 foresees 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 exterminatus grade phosphex to the face (he survives nonetheless, 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 defenses 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' defenses 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 ritualized 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 millennium, 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 for 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 defense 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. The 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 acolyte 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 never-ending 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 deep-strikes 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 realizes 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, signaling 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. Big-E 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 few minutes 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 when Horus falls, all but confirming that the Chaos Gods expected Horus to lose his duel with the Emperor.
*'''''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 ultimately results their city getting bombed to shit. (Zenobi's story took about a quarter of the book, but its entirety can be summed up in one sentence, and could '''at best''' be described as misguided, inexplicable filler; 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 to a single (armless) man. 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]] (presumably losing his arms in the transfer) despite his own wish for death, as the Chaos Gods already have him in mind as their new Warmaster. 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 feeds Eidolon his own sword and just straight-up kicks him 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 as the result of what can only be described as a fucked up custody battle - 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 it 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 complete withdrawal of all IV Legion assets on Terra and fucks off, abandoning the siege entirely. 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 and in somewhat limited capacity. Princeps Aurum of the Ordo sinister (whom we saw in a previous short story tell Dorn to fuck off because being one of ''The Talons of the Emperor'', they only answer to Big-E himself), 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 daemon titan engines, and thanks to their nature as [[blanks]], they deny the traitors any further resurrections, so anything they kill ''stays'' dead. They also tank damage without even staggering, simply repairing any damage they accumulate on the spot. However, the traitors brought a LOT of titans, so even those few Psi-titans we get to see are eventually overwhelmed, though they take a fuckton of traitors with them.
** 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 yet. 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? The Dark Angels probably could due to their abundance of Dark Age archeotec and The Lion's maybe [[Tuchulcha|Old Ones-creation biological computer Pinnochio macguffin... Thing]], but everyone else? Nonetheless, the plot decrees that Corswain and his Dark Angels must be given something interesting to do I guess. Thus, 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 and secure 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 daemon (as in ''permakill''), but gets a bad nose-bleed. The horror.
* '''''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. 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. The White Scars' frenzy doesn't end until a newly raised khan gets word to Shiban that their primarch yet lives, and manages to remind Shiban that they were supposed to take the port, not destroy it. The Death Guard retreat in shambles, abandoning the Gate and rejoining Typhus, who had once again taken off to do his own thing earlier in the book.
**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 still 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. Incidentally, this book does the seemingly impossible and actually makes us root for Erebus (the quintessential Quizling-Hitler High School Meangirl hybrid in space) of the entire Horus Heresy, due to him dropping some much needed truth-bombs on Erda (humanity's worst mom) and hands her some long overdue comeuppance. Erebus then moves to finish her off and wreck her house, [[A Game of Pretend|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 [Shiban Khan leads the Lion's Gate Spaceport in his absence], Dorn is surrounded at Bhab Bastion, Corswain and his Dark Angels contingent have locked down the Astronomicon but are ordered to stay put, and all other 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 duel Angron as the big climactic fight.
** A lot of this books focuses on the defenders retreat to (and attackers assault on) the Eternity Gate leading to the Sanctum Imperialis, specifically their mustering and battle before the Delphic Battlement. That being said, this is also the point in the siege where things really start to go [[Not as Planned]] for Team Chaos, and as ever, it's often as much due to them getting in their own way, just as much as the efforts of Team Emperor. The Imperial side of things is mostly narrated through the perspectives of Nassir Amit and Zephon of the Blood Angels. Zephon apparently ''wasn't'' killed back in Saturnine and was just taking a nap until Arkhan Land and some Legion serfs fix him up with Dark Age archeotech and send him on his merry way. Meanwhile, the Chaos side of things is told from the POV of the World Eaters Apothecary Kargos from ''Betrayer'' as he tags along with a random Word Bearers Chaplain, reminiscent of Kharne and Argel Tal's previous bro-ship. It doesn't matter though, because Kargos gets curb-stomped by the Flesh Tearer and left for dead by his Word Bearers buddy. After a day of fighting, the defenders begin to retreat to the Sanctum, knowing that whoever is left on the outside after the doors close will be daemon chow. Sanguinius duels Ka'Bandha and wrecks him pretty one-sidedly. Just as the gates are being closed, a Legio Audax (the same guys from ''Betrayer'') titan holds the door open long enough for Angron to swoop in and start fighting the Angel. The two duel, and Angron gets a good sword-stab to Sanguinius' gutmeats, but then Fabulous Hawk Boy rips the Butcher's Nails from daemon Angron's head and drops him to the ground before heading inside and letting the gates close.
** There's a sub-plot about Vulkan going into the shattered remains of the Emperor's Webway project to duel with Magnus, who is on the other side after being ejected in ''Fury of Magnus''. Magnus does a bunch of magic tricks to Vulkan, but Vulkan is an unkillable primarch with a big fuckoff hammer and eventually Magnus gets tuckered out long enough for them to 'kill' each other. Magnus is banished from the Webway and Vulkan eventually gets up and wanders out. One revelation from these parts is that the Emperor's 'you only perceive me how I want you to perceive me' shtick extends to the Primarchs, as Vulkan remembers the Emperor's offer to Magnus to lead the Grey Knights as a stern 'lol gtfo'. Well that's one interpretation anyway; the other is that the corruption of Chaos wormed its way yet further into Magnus, altering his cognitive function, allowing him to think of himself as the victim, and thus ensuring that Magnus would dance further to their tune.
** We also get a look into how things are going in the fleet and for some of the mortal followers of Chaos. The aforementioned Legio Audax Warhound, the ''Hindarah'', has been on Terra pretty much since the beginning. It's princeps still believes herself to be alive, and frequently hallucinates that the cockpit of her god-engine has become an abattoir of horrors, but then she comes back to it and everything seems normal again. It isn't until we get another character's view on the interior that we see that, yeah, the princeps and moderati have all fused into a ''[[Chaos Spawn|that thing]]''... Yuck. Lotarra Sarrin, everyone's favorite spunky girl-boss captain of the ''Conqueror'', has become a corrupted ''thing'' partly fused with her command throne, while the parts of her that wanted to run away from the horror of it all became a ghost that the rest of the crew just sort of tolerate. This ghost even manages to get in a call to Horus aboard the ''Vengeful Spirit'', who has continued to deteriorate from 'kooky grampa' to 'scary kooky grampa'. It's heavily implied that Argonis is the only one left really running the fleet.
** The book ends with the Lion's Gate Space Port finally opening fire on the traitor fleet, much to the horror of those aboard, who were caught completely unprepared, in close formation while stationary in geosynchronous orbit, and immediately starts getting torn to pieces. They then receive a message from its [[White Scars|new occupants]], who basically just calls to laugh at them. [[Troll|Then he hangs up]]. In the epilogue a few pages later, we get a sweet little note from Guilliman to Sanguinius, saying that he's a couple days from the system's edge and only a solar week from Terra. However, this message is intercepted and blocked by daemon Lotarra Sarrin from reaching the surface.
** A lot of this helps to set up and answer the ultimate question of "why did Horus drop the void shields?" At this point in the siege, the defenders are on their very last legs. Dorn and a lot of forces are cut off at Bhab Bastion, while everyone else who is still alive has fled inside the Sanctum Imperialis. There are no more walls to get behind, nowhere else to run to. On the Chaos side of things, by book's end, Horus is no longer the smug little shit we've seen throughout the siege, and is instead now shitting his pants, because he has now lost every single one of his generals. Lorgar had already been driven out for plotting to overthrow Horus, Konrad is not even in the correct side of the galaxy, Alpharius/Omegon (it's hard to keep track of which one is which at the best of times) died at Pluto while the other twin remains at large elsewhere, Fulgrim fucked off during ''Saturnine'', Perturabo during ''Mortis'', Mortarion got clapped by the Khan in ''Warhawk'' and shunted off into the warp, and by the end of ''Echoes'', both Magnus and Angron have been reduced to greasy, whiny smears, staining sections of the Webway and Eternity Gates' floors, respectively. To make matters worse for Team Horus (as if any more were needed), with the death or absence of their respective primarchs, a significant percentage of the remaining astartes forces under the Warmaster's command (maybe even up to '''HALF''') have lost anything even remotely resembling unit cohesion, and in the case of The Thousand Sons and World Eaters, probably permanently; the former having fully succumbed to the flesh change en masse and the latter evidently now practicing for the upcoming [[Battle of Skalathrax]] by going all-in on the whole Teamkilling Fucktard thing, whereas before they'd only engaged in the occasional Teamkilling dalliance. The board, as they say, is set for the final showdown.
*'''''The End and the Death''''': This is it. 17 years and over 60 books, all leading up to ''the'' main event of the Heresy: the duel of the Emperor and Horus, as written by [[Dan Abnett|the man who started the series]][[Awesome|.]] Will be split into multiple volumes, because there's no way in hell BL wouldn't milk this for all it's worth, and because Abnett belongs to the school of write a shit ton of words (thankfully, unlike [[A Song of Ice and Fire|someone else we can name]] he actually finishes his shit).
*'''''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 has to go into suspended animation, Garuda the mechanical eagle watches over him as he passes out, 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.
* '''''Garro: Knight of Grey''''': The third novella in the series, featuring Nathaniel Garro's final showdown with Mortarion as he fights to protect Euphrati Keeler.

==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. The surviving natives of Morningstar are obliterated in space to stop the meme from spreading, and shortly before the Siege of Terra Magnus Pókeballs the psychic gestalt from its prison in the ruins of Prospero into his book so he can use it to get past the Emperor's psychic shield.

===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. A meeting takes place between Sanguinius, Magnus and the Khan to talk about protecting the Librarius but Magnus is dismissive as ever about it and doesn't seem to take the issue very seriously. The White Scars fight together with the Luna Wolves against Greenskins and the former legion uses their Librarius against the Orc shamans, in order to not miss a conquest deadline set by the Khan, who of course likes to go very fast in all manner of ways. This has a subtle backfire for the Imperium, as the Luna Wolves disapprove of the Librarius. Horus himself is implied to give Jagathai the cold shoulder as a result of this, due to Horus trying to be on his most neutral, goodie good boyscout behavior, in anticipation of winning the title of Warmaster. The Khan thus loses support of Horus regarding the psyker dilemma. 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. Much better book than most in the Primarchs series, as it's basically a Horus Heresy book and not a novel about a no-stakes Crusade campaign (Guilliman's book) nor a deep dive into the Primarch's life before the Emperor (Lorgar's). This is also a companion piece / prequel to Brotherhood of the Storm (this book directly intertwines with Brotherhood near the end) and Scars.

===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 saw they were too tough a 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 [[Meme|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 be 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 comes across 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 (Alpharius even expresses a foreboding worry that Horus is carrying too much on his shoulders), The Lion to a certain extent (whom Alpharius speculates was the only brother to see through him and sense the truth), 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/foster father, 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 during Mortarion's early days in the Imperium, just after the events of ''The Verdict of the Scythe'' and flashing back to the Conquest of Galaspar, his first campaign as primarch of the Death Guard. As he's settling into command of his legion, Mortarion learns of a noncompliant human empire known as the Order in the Galaspar Cluster. Billions of people are enslaved, kept permanently drugged up, and forced to work themselves to death for the enrichment of the High Comptrollers, a pack of oligarchical assholes who refer to their slaves as "labor units" and have them executed and turned into nutrient sludge because their baking wasn't up to par (no, really). The Order's similarities to the Overlords of Barbarus piss Morty off to the point where he rejects the other Imperial commanders' suggestion that they blockade and besiege the cluster and decides to do a Leeroy Jenkins-style decapitation strike instead. He takes his fleet and barges clean through the Cluster's exterior defenses before ramming a cruiser into the side of the largest hive on Galaspar Prime and going out to kick ass the Death Guard way: fistfuls of rad grenades, rivers of phosphex, and power scythes, all topped off with plenty of orbital bombardments. No one who belongs to the Order is allowed to survive; Morty and the legion kill most of the Comptrollers even when they try to surrender and leave a few to be torn to pieces by their former slaves. Morty expects to be praised for his work, but the Emperor seems upset and sends Horus and Sanguinius to call him to account. Both primarchs are stunned by the level of destruction Mortarion has wrought, and When he tries to justify himself to his brothers, Horus points out that all he's done is replace one kind of tyranny with another. Morty has a brief moment of clarity and wonders if there is a better path forward for him and his legion. Ultimately, however, he concludes that the examples of Galaspar and Absyrtus justify his way of war and decides to become an embodiment of unstoppable, unrelenting Death, [[Nurgle|and we all know how well that worked out for him.]] Also features [[Typhus|Calas Typhon]] and [[Knights-Errant#Nathaniel Garro|Nathaniel Garro]] in their early days as line legionaries. Typhon falls into a disgusting sewer at one point and runs into a psyker who seems to know what he'll become, while Garro is the sole survivor of a kill team sent to take out the Order's chief asshole, which is probably what set him on the path to becoming battle-captain of the Seventh Grand Company.

===Rogal Dorn: The Emperor's Crusader===
Six decades into the Great Crusade, the Emperor orders Dorn to take his Legion into an area of the galaxy obscured by a colossal warp storm and bring it into compliance.

===Sanguinius: The Great Angel===
A disgraced remembrancer joins the IX Legion on campaign and learns more about the early days of the Blood Angels, possibly including some of their more unsavory secrets.

===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."

==Horus Heresy Character Series==

A subseries of novellas and short stories focusing on major characters from the Crusade and Heresy eras. Originally these were part of the Primarchs series until BL finally split them off into their own category.

===Valdor: Birth of the Imperium===
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===
Solomon Voss comes to interview Sigismund for the first time near the end of the Great Crusade, and Sigismund reveals why he believes that there will only be war in the Imperium's <s>grimdark</s> noblebright future.

Most of the novel is concerned with Siggy's backstory: he 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 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 an entire day until Sigismund was about to land the killing blow and Sevatar 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 as a child what he'd become, he'd still have said no. Voss further realizes that Sigismund is hoping to die at some point so he can escape the endless cycle of conflict. The book ends with Voss summarizing what Sigismund believes: there will always be war, because even if the Imperium pacifies the galaxy, it will still have to fight against the cruelty, savagery, and cowardice of human nature. Needless to say, later events proved Sigismund to be absolutely right in every possible way.

==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 mentioned below and more alarmingly, the lead-up to Adepticon 2022 announced that the Horus Heresy wargame was going to see a new edition, now written by the core GW design team. Warhammer Fest 2022 displayed their full intent, with a full box set (filled with plastic Beakies, two new Praetors, a Spartan, and Cataphractii Termies, all in plastic) as well as plenty of other updated models: new support squad weapon kits, reboxed 20-man kits for Mk. III and Mk. IV Marines, plastic Deimos-pattern Rhinos, Sicarans, and Leviathan Dreadnoughts, an updated plastic Contemptor Dread kit, and the brand new [[Kratos Heavy Assault Tank]], a heavy tank placed in between the Sicaran and Fellblade.

===First Edition===
'''Book 1: 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.

'''Book 2: 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.

'''Book 3: 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.

'''Book 4: 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.
'''Book 5: 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.

'''Book 6: 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).

'''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.

'''Book 8: 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, two new squads, and an entire slew of relics that interact with Psykers and Daemons.

'''Book 9: 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 proved to be the last of the black books for the first edition of the Heresy tabletop, as GW announced a new edition of the game at Adepticon 2022.

====Condensed Lists====
The Istvaan Campaign Legions (ICL) and Legiones Astartes Crusade Army List (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 LACAL is basically the generic 30k Space Marine "codex", whilst the ICL contains all of the collected rules for the legions from Books 1-3, including their units, characters and wargear. 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 Taghmata 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.

====Exemplary Battles====
Starting in Fall 2021, GW started publishing a series of free PDFs for the Horus Heresy tabletop which contain mini-campaigns based around battles from the Heresy that have been mentioned in the novels or black books but weren't big enough for a book of their own. These PDFs also include fluff and rules for Legion units that haven't been given any yet, along with photos and conversion tips for said units. These tips boil down to "buy tons of Forge World stuff while you still can", 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; GW has confirmed that the PDFs released prior to the launch of the new edition have been written to work with both sets of rules.

*'''''[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]]. 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.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/AmPdr3yMZbvggCND.pdf The Breaking of the Perfect Fortress]''''': Raven Guard storming the III Legion's Perfect Fortress on the world of Narsis, previously mentioned in ''Deliverance Lost''. Includes rules for the Deliverers, Terran-born Raven Guard who were trained under Horus and still prefer to use Terminator armor and shock-assault tactics. They're Stubborn and get teleportation transponders for deep-striking, but their main rule is Corax's Shame, representing the fact that Corax wasn't fond of his brutal Terran sons. They get +1T against attacks that cause Instant Death and cannot be deployed within 18" of Corax, nor can he ever join them. If you take Deliverers as part of a traitor force, they instead gain Hatred against Corax.

* '''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/TLbrp4me5GEfL37Q.pdf The Scouring of Gilden's Star]''''': Word Bearers vs Blood Angels fighting over a ''Hamlet'' reference last seen all the way back in 1989. Has rules for the Word Bearers' Procurators, basically assault squads led by evil Apothecaries who [[Blood Ravens|steal gene-seed]] and desecrate corpses to summon daemons. They give boosts to friendly psykers with the Harbinger of Chaos, Diabolism, and Anathemata disciplines and award an extra VP every time they Sweeping Advance an enemy unit.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/6i9CeSwKmbWmzac4.pdf The Battle of Trisolian: Vengeful Spirit]''''': Taking a page from the ''Wolfsbane'' novel, this portrays the part of the [[Battle of Trisolian]] when the Space Wolves broke into Horus' flagship during Russ' attempt to kill Horus before he reached Terra. Introduces the Space Wolves' Jorlund Hunter Pack, assault marines that can temporarily supercharge their flamers, and the Sons of Horus' Chieftains, an elite retinue of junior officers who specialize in hunting down characters.

*'''''[https://www.warhammer-community.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/3mVvZrTG9XOWeVxv.pdf The Axandria IV Incident]''''': Imperial Fists, Custodes, and Sisters of Silence raid a Thousand Sons repository world not long before the Siege of Terra, and the Thousand Sons actually score a win this time by evacuating their data stacks before the loyalist forces can trash them. Includes rules for Numerologist Cabals of the Order of Ruin, Thousand Sons Techmarines and tacticians who used divination to generate battle plans and predict enemy movements. The Numerologist gains a special psychic power that gives him a geo-locator beacon and boosts the BS of two friendly Thousand Sons squads if he passes a psychic check. He also gets a special bubble-wrap rule that prevents him from taking any wounds no matter what until all his bodyguards are dead, unless he accepts a challenge.

===Second Edition===
The first two books for the new edition of the tabletop were revealed at Warhammer Fest 2022: the '''Liber Astartes''' and the '''Liber Hereticus'''. These are basically updated and combined versions of the LACAL and ICL books. Both books contain the rules for all non-Legion-specific units, while the Liber Astartes has the rules for the loyalist legions and the Liber Hereticus has the rules for the traitor legions, including their Primarchs, unique units and wargear, Rites of War, Warlord Traits, and faction abilities. The '''Legacies of the Age of Darkness''' PDF contains the rules for vehicles, units, and characters who either never had models or whose models are now out of production, including most of the Legion-specific special characters, Castraferrum Dreadnoughts, the [[Crassus Armored Assault Transport|CRASSUS ARMOURED ASSAULT TRANSPORT]], and all of the Baneblade variants. Later leaks, which Warhammer Community would confirm, revealed that there would also be books for the Mechanicum ('''Liber Mechanicum''') that would contain rules for the Taghmata, Knights and Titans as well as a book for the Custodes, Sisters of Silence, Solar Auxilia, and Divisio Assassinorum ('''Liber Imperium'''). Daemons of the Ruinstorm and Imperialis Militia/Warp Cults will get downloadable lists, and according to the Legacies PDF the Knights-Errant and Blackshields are being made into full factions. They will also continue to release the Exemplary Battles series; the previously released PDFs got a separate update PDF in order to work with the new edition. The tactics page for the Legions can be found [[Age of Darkness-Warhammer 30k/2.0 Tactics/Legiones Astartes Tactics|here]].

The core rules have been drastically modified with the addition of "Reactions", which make gameplay more dynamic. In addition to basic reactions such as Overwatch, each Legion now has an "Advanced Reaction" that can be taken in response to the opponent's actions. Furthermore, USRs have been rewritten to be more granular (e.g. Bulky, Very Bulky, and Extremely Bulky are now Bulky (2), Bulky (3), and Bulky (5), where the number in parentheses is how many models that unit counts as for the purposes of transport capacity) and the Psychic Phase has been removed in lieu of the pre-7th edition manner of resolving psychic powers.

==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==
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3170/horus-heresy-1993 Horus Heresy (1993)] at BoardGameGeek
* [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/63543/horus-heresy Horus Heresy (2010)] at BoardGameGeek

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