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Horus Heresy

2017-01-19T04:42:20Z

2605:6001:E7D1:6C00:19FB:22D1:5521:4DC0: Ferrus Manus was loyal to the Imperium.

[[File:zbrothers.jpg|200px|thumb|right|It was pretty much ''this''.]]
:''[[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."]]'' 
:- The [[God-Emperor of Mankind]], [[Not as planned|getting exactly what he wanted.]]

The '''Horus Heresy''' 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 rail-roaded 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 murder the Emperor himself and cut the head off the proverbial snake and win 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 gribbles he had been allied with disappeared and the now Chaos Marines that had followed him sulked back to the [[Eye of Terror]], starting the [[Long War]].

Because the Emperor was fucked up to the point where he had to be permanently attached to a life-support machine known as the "Golden Throne" just to survive, logic within the Imperium gradually decreased, eventually turning into the [[Grimdark]] empire it is today. And it was already pretty damn grimdark.

== [[Warhammer 40,000]] Fluff ==
The Horus Heresy screwed almost everyone's plans (except the Chaos Gods' of course) and changed the flavour of the Imperium's Grimdark from Stalinist Soviet "if you breathe a word about religion, we rape you with knives" to Catholic [[Inquisition]] "if you breathe a word about the ''wrong'' religion, we rape you [[Exterminatus|or your whole planet]] with knives" unless you can find an Ecclesiarch to come and say: "nope, that's just another aspect of the Emperor". Don't count on this happening without hefty "donations".

The heresy lasted for several years (somewhere between seven and ten) and was fought all over the galaxy. The following are the most important battles and campaigns during the Heresy:
*[[Battle of Isstvan III]]
*[[Prospero|Burning of Prospero]]
*[[Drop Site Massacre]]
*[[Betrayal at Calth|Battle of Calth]]
*[[Shadow Crusade]]
*[[Thramas Crusade]]
*[[Signus Campaign]]
*[[Battle of Phall]]
*[[Battle of Tallarn]]
*[[Siege of Terra]]

Following the Siege of Terra, Horus was permakilled, Big E was interred onto the Golden Throne, the surviving primarchs freaked out trying to figure out what do now that daddy was in a coma, the 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]]. ''' OH SWEET JESUS NOOOOOOOOOOOOGLARBLBLBLBLBLBLAAAARRRKSSHHHGLARBLBLBLBLBLBLLB'''

Ahem, as he was saying, The more recent edition (2010) is 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, who's only saving grace was the awesome card art that would appear in the Horus Heresy artbooks anyway.)

== The Book Series ==
For the last 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]], [[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]].

{{Template:Spoilers}}

=== Books I - X ===
*'''''Horus Rising:''''' A prologue story, introducing us to the series and Garviel Loken who will grow into a very significant character. 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?". [[Erebus]] steals the '''MURDER SWORD''' from them.
*'''''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, Horus being reviled and forgotten) he decides to make war on the Imperium to [[FAIL|prevent]] all this from happening.
*'''''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 "dies"
*'''''Flight of the Eisenstein:''''' the other side fo Galaxy in Flames, Nathaniel Garro escapes and gets marooned in the warp fighting daemons, eventually gets saved by [[Rogal Dorn]]. The first bit of the novel is so far 'the Death Guard's novel'.
*'''''Fulgrim:''''' one of the more forgettable stories in the series. Attempts to tell the story from 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 McNiel though, and it has an awesome quote from Fulgrim "My Emperor's Children. What beautiful music they make." .
*'''''Descent of Angels:''''' This is the Heresy book that isn't about the Heresy, instead focusing on [[Zahariel]]'s time on [[Caliban]]. It also portrays [[Lion El'Jonson]] having to deal with some social awkwardness. Hints that the Great Crusade does more harm than good.
*'''''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 who ruined it.
*'''''Battle for the Abyss:''''' The book is so bad that other authors tried to retcon it out of existence. This book is so bad that you would have it was cobbled together from [[Matt Ward|Wardian fluff]] stitched together by [[C. S. Goto]]. Reading this book may, in fact, cause brain cancer so you should avoid it if at all possible. Everyone dies, so it does not affect much. The only thing you need to remember is [[Lorgar]] built a fuckhueg space ship and filled it with Dreadnoughts, and it failed miserably.
*'''''Mechanicum:''''' Tech Priests 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 by using divine golden light to heal machines and know Everything and one tech priestess tries to harness this power. Contains a lot of Titan awesomeness and [[Imperial Knight|Knights]] badassery.
*'''''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.
** '''''Wolf at the Door:''''' The Space Wolves kill some dark eldar and are the defenders of everyone who does not defy the Emperor.
** '''''Scions of the Storm:''''' The Word Bearers destroy a human civilization that has crystal cities, crystal robots, and lots of lightning. This is also later a chapter of ''The First Heretic'', but narrated from a slightly different point of view then.
** '''''The Voice:''''' The Sisters of Silence investigate a Black Ship that became derelict in the Warp.
** '''''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 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 more different than the old warlords who waged crusades and holy wars in the past to push their own agendas on other people.
** '''''After Desh'ea:''''' The War Hounds meet their primarch. Angron demeats 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.

=== Books XI - XX ===
*'''''Fallen Angels:''''' the sequel to Descent of Angels, is actually two stories rolled into one book that never converge. 1. The Lion fights a war to reclaim some Ordinatus devices and then hands them to Perturabo to gain his trust, not realising that his brother has already turned. 2. [[Zahariel]] and Luther clean out a daemon cult on Caliban... but not really.
*'''''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 telling his father, breaking the Golden Throne in the process. Space Wolves come knocking shortly after. Tragedy ensues.
*'''''Nemesis:''''' [[Malcador the Sigillite]] invents the [[Officio Assassinorum]] Execution Task Force and sends six assassins to kill Horus. They fail, but in the process slay a shapeshifting daemonic counter-assassin sent by Erebus. While it is a decent book and we learn a lot, it didn't contribute much to the overall plot. On the more [[rage|vitriolic side]], the writing is a bit underwhelming in places; highlights include calling a pariah a psyker, another pariah with a contrived possession, and Horus uttering one of the most cliche one liners out there.
*'''''The First Heretic:''''' [[Lorgar]]'s turn to get a back story and generally considered one of the better books in the series. While you make 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. Signifcant 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. An civilian 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.
* '''''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. (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.
** '''''Forgotten Sons:''''' A [[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. Oh, and to send the message that neutrality will be punished. The [[Iron Warriors]] were doing weird shit on that world for years beforehand, and was probably the more deciding factor than the lulz.
** '''''The Last Remembrancer:''''' Horus sent one 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, Iactone Qruze makes his first appearance since forever, but nobody gives a shit about Iactone Qruze.
** '''''Rebirth:''''' Mangus'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 trolling 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 roll a natural 20 on stealth checks no matter how ridiculous it would be, and that the Alpha Legion ''once again'' can outtroll everybody when they fuck things up for the World Eaters. 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 his PTSD he had since killing Loken and Torgaddon 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 in a hellhole of a world, 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, wreck the fortress, and get the hell out of there by hijacking one of the Iron Warriors warships via teleportation. An Ultramarine big wig 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 it 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 in with the Imperium Secundus. And 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 that", and left alone a fortress with no space or warp conveyance, and arguably little strategic value in iteslf, in the middle of nowhere.
** '''''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, Kurze 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 Kurze 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 badass among primarchs, until Kurze goes to his old fallback of strangling a fucker, and things get more even. Their respective honor guards go at it in the meantime, and 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. ''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|therapy]]. 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.]]''" After a time, he gets busted out by some convict space marines from the Traitor Legions. Why they do this is explained by the Thousand Son sagely stating "Just because." They name themselves the eponymous Outcast Dead and try to get the hell off of Terra. 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.
*'''''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) had 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''. 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 that 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 let 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 for the endgame: steal the genetech, kill some Ravenguard, get the fuck out before anybody knows what the fuck. 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 the 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 on a note with Alpharius Omegon deciding that while their plan for saving the galaxy was still good, they decide working with Xenos isn't working for them.
*'''''Know No Fear:''''' The Ultras are still ignorant about Istvaan and the civil war erupting around the galaxy, and are on muster at Calth with the Word Bearers [[troll|on orders from Horus]] to go kill some Orks together as a conciliatory gesture. They were 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 fuck up in the ship yards that leave the Ultramarine forces blind, deaf, and crippled. They use the confusion to say that the Ultras ''still'' fucking them over, and take the chance to open not only a can, but entire cases of whup 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]], but in a moment of self-aggrandizement, he holds back 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 Paeron's main heart with an unpowered lightning claw]]. 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, expositioning to the underground war. Special features of this novel include Guilliman not being a cock, [[Ollanius Pious]] 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.
*'''''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; Kaesoron is still an angry badass; 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 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, 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 warp engine 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.

*'''''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 whole fleet and what was left over from a third of the Imperial Fists's fleet after a warpstorm were ran them" ashore" and left them drifting and isolated in the backwater Phall system. Despite having the superior numbers, more and bigger guns, suicidal expenditure cohorts, and the power of a raging hatred boner, the Iron Warriors were losing to the Imperial Fists's 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 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 the first of the two depictions of Perturabo, and clearly the worst of the two as he's shown as a cold-hearted Saturday morning cartoon villain with rage control issues. The second story line follows [[Sigismund]] as he follows Rogal around the Imperial Palace, while he was ordered to command the fleet on its way to Istvaan and got 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 job of commanding the fleet. When he eventually opened up to Rogal, this 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 how Curze, even if you buy that he was a murderous paladin of justice and order through fear rather than just a fearsome murderer, is getting pretty fucked up in the head and lives with the knowledge of his demise haunting him, which isn't that great for his sanity. It also involves him beating up Rogal Dorn, killing some Imp Fists and Emp's Children terminators with his bare 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 brought half of the Legions with him, and is partly 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 to the close of ''The Dark King''. (Don't ask how he got them. Really.) Also the (*Name Drop*) Lightning Tower is the important card that comes up, signifying a [[Siege of Terra|destruction of fortifications]] and/or a [[Imperium of Man|change of thinking through sacrifice]].
**'''''The Kaban Project''''' - Right before Istvaan, techpriest Pallas Ravachol is working on a top secret "Kaban" robot project on Mars realizes that the project has achieved sapience and is in fact a form of strong 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 awaiting to escort the Ravachol off site the next morning. Ravachol, thinking there were few ways this could 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. 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 the Malevolus's forge, the 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 the Malevolus and the assassin are letting him run. As he gets out the door, he meets the Kaban machine, <s>and through the power of friendship, the Kaban decides to side with the good guys, and the day is saved.</s> Except this is the dark, gritty universe of 30K where brother turns against brother. Chrom told the Kaban Machine that it and Ravachol couldn't be friends for realsies, because 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. End story. 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, and 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 he 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. It is however only barely 20 pages long, so you might as well read it anyway.
**'''''Prince of Crows''''' - A novella featuring the Thramas Crusade viewed from First Captain [[Sevatar]] of the Night Lords. With the Night Lords's forces all but shattered by the Dark Angels, Curze in a coma 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 and 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]] & [[Fulgrim]] raid a [[Eldar|crone world]], Fulgrim gets made into a daemon prince. Is 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. And because it has canon-rape on par with C.S. Goto with ghosts of aspect warriors and spirit-constructs '''inside an eldar planet left inside the Eye of Terror''', despite both of this things being invented after the Fall and Eldar only come in Eye of Terror riding a Wraithknight to harvest raw material for their soulstones, death of Lucius at the hands of Mary Sue despite it was mentioned more than once he was undefeated during HH, his unexplained ressurection, deaf Iron Hands legionare somehow being immune to sonic weapons which may shatter rocks and rotating Shadowsword turret on top of that.
*'''''Betrayer:''''' Lorgar and Angron rampage over the Ultramarines 500 worlds. Lots of references to Angron's past and his Butcher's Nails are killing him slowly. Turns out one of the Ultramarine worlds was his own Homeworld, so he destroys it and Lorgar makes him into a daemon-prince. Also remember the Furious Abyss? Lorgar has two more. Also focuses on Khârn and Argel Tal being bros, until Erebus decides to intervene.

* '''''Angron:''''' An anthology about <s>Lorgar</s> <s>Horus</s> <s>Dorn</s> <s>Malcador</s> <s>the plumber for the Golden Throne</s> Fuck, we can't remember. It often gets passed over in the official lists, since it's actually a republish of older short stories: '''After De'shea''', '''Butcher's Nails''' ''(print format)'', and '''Lord of the Red Sands''' ''(which was initially a standalone release,'' even later ''republished in'' The Imperial Truth'')''.
*'''''Mark of Calth:''''' Another set of short stories, though all focussed 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.
**'''''Calth That Was''''' - The story focuses on an Ultramarine Captain and Co. and on a Word Bearers commander and his Dark Apostle. Longer-than-the-rest-story short, Word Bearers try to kill 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 killing his mentor with dark powers. A kind of nice story that shows the <s>degredation</s> enlightenment of the Legion.
**'''''The Traveller''''' - A group of human survivors are stuck in a cave, one of them hears dark whisperings and starts executing everyone for being heretics.
**'''''A Deeper Darkness''''' - A story about an Ultramarine who likes to [[pretend]] his bolter rounds are dice who has fun times with his friends in the dark.
**'''''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.
**'''''Athame''''' - A narrated story of the history of a knife, though not one from the '''MURDER SWORD'''. That's about it... totally... right.
**'''''Unmarked''''' - Ollanius Pius and friends is 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.
*'''''Vulkan Lives:''''' What happened to Vulkan after the Dropsite Massacre? He got made Konrad Curze's bitch. Plenty of fun with dining implements and an awesome ending involving a hammer. Not one of the best HH Books though is a somewhat necessary read for continuing the plot arc. Remember the Shattered Legions crew from ''Angel Exterminatus''? Now you get a new group that is far more bland and less distinct.
*'''''The 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.
*'''''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- the Chaos Gods give it to him by sending him to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball Z. 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 (though the Chaos Gods have been claiming this throughout the series). 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 <s>Pathos</s> <s>Python</s> 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 a little better written (which means it's still pretty bad). It is actually the prequel to a book outside of the Horus Heresy series.

=== Books XXXI to XL ===
*'''''Legacies of Betrayal''''' Another anthology, though this time it's a bit of cheat, and they just consolidated several pre-existing stories; 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 hunting the Alpha Legion, 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.
**'''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''' - about Ultramarines and an innocent woman and child trying her hardest to follow them to safety.
**'''Butcher's Nails''' - A good one to read, Angron & Lorgar go on the Shadow-Crusade and come to an understanding whilst fighting Eldar.
**'''Warmaster''' - Horus considering how much of a badass he is while chatting with Ferrus Manus's skull.
**'''Kryptos''' - Somewhere in the Galactic East (either Thramas Crusade or Imperium Secundus), Nykona Sharrowkyn and company go find a warp code interpreter that will let them intercept garbled enemy communications.
**'''Wolfs Claw''' - Bjorn the Fell-Handed needs a replacement arm, but the Iron Priests are too busy, but he happens to find a nice fancy relic one just lying around.
**'''The Divine Word'''
**'''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 a Thousand Son, ends up meeting Ahriman.
**'''The Eightfold Path''' - Kharn and the World Eaters realise that too much rip and tear is leading them [[Khorne|down a damning path]], but they're already too far gone.
**'''Guardian of Order''' - [[Cypher]] and [[Zahariel]] discover that the Ouroboros (banished in Fallen Angels) is coming back
**'''Heart of the Conqueror''' - Angron's Navigator gets a bit uppity about being made to turn traitor, despite having been picked for the job as the angry man's chauffeur by the Emperor himself
**'''Censure''' - Aonid Thiel killing time and Word Bearers in the Underworld War on Calth, writing notes on his armour that will eventually get written into Guilliman's draft of the [[Codex Astartes|Codex]]. Get's 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.
*'''''Death and Defiance''''' Yet another anthology
**'''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.
**'''Howl of the Heathworld''' - Space Wolves get sent to Terra to watch over Rogal Dorn so he doesn't start using psykers, its a pointless task and everyone know it. Also offers insight into the Wolves naming conventions.
**'''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.
**'''Virtues of the Sons''' - Sanguinius forsees that he will not always be in charge of the Blood Angels, but worries about the Red Thirst causing havoc with his sons futures. So gets Amit to duel Kharn and Azkaellon to duel Lucius in hopes they'll learn something. Azkaellon learns to let the rage out a bit and Amit learns a modicum of restraint.
**'''Gunsight''' - The Vindicare Assassin from Nemesis is still alive and on Horus' flagship, its about him spending years waiting for the opportune moment to get a shot, but he starts going mad while he waits.
*'''''Blades of the Traitor''''' yet [[What|ANOTHER]] anothology
**'''Daemonology''' - To and fro' story about [[Mortarion]]. On Terra he discovers the initial construction of the Golden Throne and gets told about Emp's plan for removing psykers. In the "present day" he captures a daemon and starts practising sorcery on it.
**'''Black Oculus''' - A short story about Navigators describing what it's like travelling in the warp.... basically it's [[Grimdark]].
**'''Chirurgeon''' - [[Fabius Bile]] narrating about his history, and what happened about the gene-flaw that almost wiped out the [[Emperor's Children]].
**'''Twisted''' - '''Maloghurst''' gets a story about him uncovering plots against Horus and gets wrapped up in intrigue. It actually shows him as a really clever bastard and a bit of a badass.
**'''Wolf Mother''' - [[Perpetual|Alivia Sureka]]'s kids get captured after their escape from Molech and she teams up with [[Knights-Errant|Sevarian]] in order to get them back. Lots of coolness on Sevarian's part and we also get to see that Perpetuals can resist possession.
*'''''Tallarn: Executioner''''' - A novella about a vehicle squadron (Leman Russ Executioner, Vanquisher and a Salamander) having to deal with the toxic surface in the weeks after the surface bombardment and then come into contact with the Iron Warriors. Also the Alpha Legion have a hand in things, like they always do.
*'''''Tallarn: Ironclad''''' - Part two of the Tallarn story.
*'''''Deathfire''''' - 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 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
*'''''The Wolf King ''''' - The Space Wolves find themselves set upon by the forces of the Alpha Legion before they can recover from the Razing of Prospero and are hounded to the edge of the Alaxxes Nebula. There the Alpha Legion beat the ever-living shi...stuffing out of the wolves whilst Russ locks himself in his room and sulks. Russ eventually summons his new favourite Bjorn to join him and they have bit of a heart to heart about what a bunch of morons they were in allowing themselves to be manipulated so easily by Horus. By the end Russ is back to his old self and celebrates by massacring every Alpha he can get his hands on even if it’s clear that his defeat is inevitable. Fortunately for the Wolves helps comes from a hidden armada of Dark Angels ostensibly "loyal" to [[Luther]], but unaware of the Horus Heresy or of the whereabouts or actions of the Lion. Russ borrows gear and manpower from them in exchange for info on current events which most likely finds its way back to Luther and sets the "Destiny of Caliban" in motion. Russ then heads for Terra.
*'''''War Without End''''': Anthologies Without End.
*'''''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.
*'''''Eye of Terra''''': Another anthology.
*'''''Path Of Heaven''''': Sequel to Scars. The White Scars have been fighting traitor legions for a few years but are starting to show the strain. They finally make a shift 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.
*'''The Seventh Serpent:''' a novella about the Shattered Legions going up against the Alpha Legion; a simple premise made awesome by sheer depth of Alpharian plot twists: They had been manipulated by Alpharius into fighting a battle against Loyalist Alpha Legionaires.
*'''The Silent War:''' Guess What?! It's ''another'' anthology of stories that GW have already sold indidually as audio-books. So value might be had for those who hadn't listened to them.
*'''''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 has to abuse RAW to destroy a city on Macragge in order to catch him, which results in his disgrace and we find that it is Guilliman who breaks the Lion Sword. 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 Terra. Dorn kills him. Yes, Alpharius is now dead. And not a fake either, but the real Alpharius. 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.

=== Books XLI onwards ===
*'''''The Master of Mankind''''' The Emperor is a dick. We all knew this, but now it's set in stone. Emperor states to Arkhan Land that the Primarchs are tools and he views them with a scientific but detached fascination. Referring to them as numbers but content to allow the fantasy of being their "father" and therefore canonizing his shitty treatment of them and justifying the traitor Primarchs outrage. He actually seems to care more for his Custodians than he does any of his other creations, but they don't consider him to be a father. Drach'Nyen is also revealed to be the Daemon created when Caine killed Abel. In the end he 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 a countless army of Daemons; The Greater ones either flee or fight him (only to get swiftly destroyed) whilst the lesser ones die just by looking at him. Despite this, Drach'nyen nearly kills him, and it is confirmed that fate has indeed decreed that Empy will die at the daemon's hand. But how will it feast on the Emperor's tattered soul when Abaddon lacks arms to plunge it into his chest? Also known as Master of skubkind.

== The Tabletop Wargame ==
[[Forge World]] is producing a new line of books and models (''in addition to'' [[Imperial Armour]] and [[Warhammer Forge]]) to allow players to fight battles from the Horus Heresy in [[Warhammer 40,000]]. This includes rules and models for the [[Primarchs]] (both pre- and post-fall, for the Traitors) as well as ancient vehicles. No [[xenos]], unfortunately. Presumably this came about because GW felt that they just weren't making quite enough money from die-hard marine/chaos players and figured they could literally buy a dump-truck full of gold plated cocaine each if they made a version of the game that requires only Forge World minis AND thousands upon thousands of them. Still worth it, though.

=== Betrayal ===
Forge World starts big, as their first book covers the battles on Istvaan III, in which [[Horus]] sent the remaining loyalist elements of the [[Sons of Horus]], [[Emperor's Children]], [[Death Guard]], and [[World Eaters]] to the surface, ostensibly to rout the anti-Imperial resistance that had taken hold in the capital city, and then fired [[Exterminatus]] torpedoes (of the life-eater virus bomb variety) onto the city to wipe them out.

Unfortunately for Horus, not everything went as planned; not only did the loyalist Death Guard frigate ''Eisenstein'' escape to the [[Phalanx]] with word of Horus's betrayal, but loyalist elements on other ships were able to disrupt the bombardment and warn the loyalists on the ground that it was coming. Between the disruption, the warning, and good old-fashioned [[Space Marine]] toughness, only a third or so of the landed force had actually died. Horus would have fired another bombardment, but [[Angron]] and his traitor World Eaters jumped the gun and made planetfall; the other traitors were left with no choice but to deploy themselves and destroy the remaining loyalists personally.

''Betrayal'' contains a [[Great Crusade]] Legion army list (for which we have a [[Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Space Marines/Legion List‎|tactica]]), and rules for special characters and units from the [[Sons of Horus]], [[Death Guard]], [[Emperor's Children]], and [[World Eaters]] Legions, including their [[Primarch]]s (even [[Fulgrim]], who was not actually at the battle) and several major characters from the book series such as Garviel Loken.

===Massacre===
The infamous Drop Site Massacre is the focus of the next book, where seven Legions are sent to crush Horus’ rebellion, only for four of those to turn on the other three and crush them utterly. The books storyline is essentially just the ''first day'' of the battle, leading up to the death of [[Ferrus Manus]].

Massacre contains additional rules for special characters and units from the [[Iron Hands]], [[Night Lords]], [[Salamanders]] and [[Word Bearers]] Legions including their Primarchs and several more major characters from the book series make their debut such as Sevatar, Eidolon, Erebus and Kharn.

===Extermination===
Focusses on the second half of Istvaan V, as well as the Battle of Phall between the [[Iron Warriors]] and [[Imperial Fists]]; and on that note, it includes rules for those two Legions, as well as the [[Alpha Legion]] and the [[Raven Guard]].

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

===Inferno===

In <s>late 2016.</s> <s>early 2017 (Because FW can't keep to schedule)</s> <s>December 2016</s> February 4, 2017, will come 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.

== 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.

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

{{40k-Timeline}}

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

Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka

2017-01-19T04:41:13Z

2605:6001:E7D1:6C00:19FB:22D1:5521:4DC0:

[[Image:GHAZGHKULLVSDAHIVE.jpg|right|350px|thumb|That is the greatest Ork warlord to ever live? He's about to get his ass whooped by an old man.]]
Ghazghull Mag Uruk Thraka, '''the Beast of Armageddon''', is the Warlord of one of the largest [[Ork]] [[WAAAGH]]'s in existence. AND E IS DA BIGGEST AND DA BEST BOSS OOO SMASHES ALL DA UMIES, AND ANYFING ELSE WOT WANTZ TA 'AVE A GO!

Being from the overtly political days of [[Rogue Trader]], he's also very obviously named after then-prime minister [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher Margaret "Fuck Yo Unions" Thatcher]; similarly to Thatcher's "Iron Lady" moniker, Ghazghull has been referred to as the "Iron Ork". Take this as you will.

==Overview==
Ghazy started out as an Ork of very little standing or prestige in the Goff's Klan on the planet of Uruk, where he also got his name 'Uruk', Yeah, we thought it was a LoTR reference too (why can't it be both?). Anyway, this meant that he was at least slightly tougher than the regular git, but hey, who's counting?

Anyway, an unknown group of Spess Mehreens were forced to attack the Orks in Uruk. Oh, poor Ghazghkull fought, but a bolter round tore into his skull, destroying over 30% of his skull and pulping most of his brain. Rough, considering that like most Orks, he had little there to begin with. After the Spess Mehreens systematically left Uruk, Ghazghkull was found by a particularly... creative Painboy known as Mad Dok Grotsnik, who rebuilt the small Ork's head with adamantium for shits and giggles. (They don't call him ''Mad'' Dok for nothing.)

Apparently metal plates unleash psyker potential within Orks, because Ghazghkull had some visions from Gork and Mork, convincing him he was blessed. So yeah, Orks can be religious too. So, after this, he became delusional- sorry, I meant [[derp|DESTINED FER GRAET FINGZZZ]] and rose to become Warboss of his tribe after a short period of 6 years. Guess he needed to check in with his Ork Minister. Anyway, here's where the lulzy shit starts going down. A year or two later, Uruk's sun began to die, killing boyz with radiation from severe solar flares. However, conveniently enough, a massive Space Hulk appeared and provided Ol' Ghazzy a chance to be someone for a change. (Apparently [[Eldrad|the dick]] had something to do with this, as otherwise the WAAAAGH!! would have headed straight for [[Ulthwé]] instead and we all know how much the [[Eldar]] would prefer that other people fight their battles for them.) He decided to get all them boys on Uruk together and made for that Space Hulk. [[FAIL|It failed to start up several times]]. In the warp of all places. Which also meant they got to whack some daemons while they waited. 
The daemons may not have found these incidents as amusing as the Orks did.

<blockquote>"Travellin' through space is boring. Well, boring unless da hulk yer on is full of dem gene-sneakers, or a base fer da chaos lads wiv da spikes, or already has Boyz on it. Or if humie lootas come callin', that's always good fer a bit a sport. Or unless yer have a mutiny or two to pass da time, or unless strange fings start happenin', which dey usually do when yer out in da warp. One time we had some bloody great ugly fing come straight out of Weird Lugwort's 'ed! It butchered half da lads, that was pretty entertainin'. Come ter fink of it, space is a pretty good larf. And that's before yer find yerself a nice world ta crush!" 
~ Bigmaw, Orks on Space Flight</blockquote>

Anyway, they finally managed to reach [[Armageddon]], kicking off those massive wars we all know and love. They were all great failures, especially considering how consistently Ghazghkull would get fucked over by Yarrick during the Second Armageddon War. Then the SPESSSH MEHREEENZ arrived and it all went about as well as you would expect things to go for the Orks when the Badass Catholic Space Nazi Warriors of the Imperium decide to get their act together. Then the Third War for Armageddon started and Ghazgkhull got his ass kicked by an old man with an oversized and silly looking looted Power Klaw. What the fuck? He ends up fucking up the entire planet, and withdraws simply because he got bored. Sometime between all of this, Yarrick swore to avenge the dead of Armageddon and kill Ghazgkhull. A rather strange thing to hear from a Commissar, but ol' Yarrick is hardly a conventional specimen.

Ghazgkhull developed an... equally unhealthy relationship with Yarrick, regarding him as '[[gay|the bestest 'umie evar]]'

And that's all there was to him for about twenty years, till 7th edition. It just seemed falling on his ass twice wasn't enough for da big boss no mores, so the Games Workshop team *gasp* advanced the storyline.

Well, just Ghazghkull's storyline.

See, Ghaz left Armageddon to go find something he wasn't quite sure of. Then, he had this revelation from Gork and Mork, telling him he was to create a galaxy-wide Waaagh! Ghaz had a space battle with Yarrick and Helbrecht, but got away after Gork and Mork themselves spoke through his Weirdboyz to announce to all the Orks present that Ghazgkhull was indeed the Prophet of the Waaagh, leaving his humie boyfriend in the dust. Ghazghkull, now determined to unite the orks under the Great Waaagh, went around the galaxy, thumping heads and getting orks in line. Then he went to Octarius and intervened, killing all the tyranids on Octarius and, essentially, driving over Hive Fleet Leviathan's testicles in a battlewagon. He let the empire of Octarius and its overfiend know he was the prophet of the ork gods and would bring an eternal Waaagh to the galaxy. Now endless orks flock to Octarius to join the fight against the remaining tyranids, turning the whole area into an endless war of attrition against the tyranids just as Armageddon is against the Imperials. Get that? With pretty much every major ork concentration between Armageddon and Octarius is united under Ghazghkull, he is on his way to uniting the ork race. Oh yeah, and he can psychically sense big concentrations of orks so he knows where to go.

Nowadays, unfortunately, he doesn't get ta have a proppa scrap like he used to. Oh, sure, it'd be ''nice'', but organizing all the orks together into one titanic WAAAAGH! isn't going to happen on its own. There's authority to delegate, multiple fronts to manage, the occasional orky bit of improvisation... It's a good thing he's actually turning out to be a genuinely genius strategist and tactician or it'd all fall apart on him. But, when he does take to the field, he's still the most dangerous ork around.

Some consider Ghazghkhull to be the Warhammer 40K to Warhammer Fantasy's [[Grimgor Ironhide]]. But he's not nearly as Mary Sue-ish. Possibly.

It is worth noting that Yarrick, Ghazghkull, and Old One-Eye are all essentially takes on the same old fishing story about the one that got away. It's also worth noting that Mag Uruk Thraka means "I am Slaughter" heavily implying Ole' Ghaz is on the way to becoming like [[The Beast]].

==Tabletop==
Ghazghkull used to be '''''the''''' Ork HQ. He was the only Ork character with Eternal Warrior, and he had 2+ armor and a 5++ in the form of Cybork body. With Fleet and Fearless in 5th edition, this guy was bad fucking news. In addition to that, if you called a WAAAGH using him it would last TWO TURNS and he would have a 2++ for the duration of that. And anything in his unit that had Slow and Purposeful, including him, could run during the WAAAGH. Though it was admittedly cheesy, especially for Orks, it fit the fluff and it was so awesome no one really cared since he costed as much as a [[Land Raider]]

Then 7th Edition happened.

Among the list of gut punches and groin kicks include:
*Cybork body became a pathetic ''6+ FNP. And he lost an extra attack.''
*His WAAAGH only lasts one turn now. And is changed from auto-running 6" for the whole damn army to just allowing him and the squad to run and charge (which can still find some use but not nearly as good as it used to be).
*''Moved to Lord of War slot.''
*Expensive price kept the same despite the nerfs.
* Actually with his supplement, he can call a WAAAGH!!! every turn granting him a 2++ save EVERY TURN.

This is practically the equivalent of taking [[This Guy]] and punching him in the face, clipping off one of his testicles, and throwing him in jail for something he didn't do and didn't deserve.

Don't get me wrong, he's still no slouch. He can tank and kill most HQs in the game and is still the most powerful Ork character. Sadly, enough focused fire can take him out, and even Abbadon or a well-equipped Hive Tyrant can take him out one-on-one. The sad part is despite the nerfs to his WAAAGH, he'd still be good if he were just an HQ. Now as a Lord of War, he's thrown into the unfair category of Titans, Super-Heavy tanks, and Gargantuan Daemons. As flattering as that sounds, he is ''horribly'' underpowered as a Lord of War. He can't be redeemed as long as a generic warboss with da lucky stick is better and 2 times cheaper. And that very lucky stikk is taken from the cold, dead grasp of legendary Makari who used to hang out with Ghaz...

==Awesome Quotes==
"I'm da hand of Gork and Mork, dey sent me to rouse up da boyz to crush and kill ‘cos da boyz forgot what dere ‘ere for.

I woz one of da boyz till da godz smashed me in da ‘ead an’ I ‘membered dat Orks is meant to conquer and make slaves of everyfing they don’t kill.

I’m da profit of da Waaagh an’ whole worlds burn in my boot prints. On Armour-Geddem, I led da boyz through da fire deserts and smashed da humies’ metal cities to scrap. I fought [[Commissar Yarrick|Yarik]], old one-eye at Tarturus, an’ he fought good but we smashed iz city too.

I’m death to anyfing dat walks or crawls, where I go nothin’ stands in my way. We crushed da stunties on Golgotha, an’ we caught [[Commissar Yarrick|old one-eye]] when da speed freeks blew da humies’ [[Baneblade|big tanks]] ta bits. I let ‘im go ‘cause good enemies iz ‘ard to find, an Orks need enemies ta fight like they need meat ta eat an’ grog ta drink.

I iz more cunnin’ than a grot an’ more killy than a dread, da boyz dat follow me can’t be beat. On Pissenah we jumped da marine-boyz an’ our bosspoles was covered in da helmets we took from da dead ‘uns. We burned dere port an’ killed dere bosses an’ left nothin’ but ruins behind. I’m Warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka an’ I speak wiv da word of da gods. We iz gonna stomp da ‘ooniverse flat an’ kill anyfing that fights back. We iz gonna do this coz’ we’re Orks an’ we was made ta fight an’ win!"

All were found scrawled on the side of an Imperial Titan in legible Gothic. We suspected his good buddy "Clever" Nazdreg helped him with that. However the next quote comes from the memories of Yarrick himself as Ghazghkull (Chains of Golgotha book) releases him... HE SPEAKS IN FUCKING HIGH GOTHIC!

"A great fight! My best enemy. Go to Armageddon, make ready for the greatest fight!"

==See Also==
* [[Orks]]
* [[Makari]], Ghazghkull's late banna-wava.
* [[Yarrick]], Ghazzy's favorite humie
* [[Octarius War]], shitstorm Ghazzy is on his way towards

{{Ork-Gitz}}

Creed

2017-01-19T01:30:35Z

2605:6001:E7D1:6C00:19FB:22D1:5521:4DC0: /* Fall of Cadia */

{{awesome}}

[[Image:Creed.jpg|thumb|right|And you thought [[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs]] was manly.]]
[[File:Tzeentch's_True_Form.png|thumb|right|What Creed Pretends to be.]]
'''Ursarkar E. Creed''' is a Lord General of the [[Imperial Guard]] and the current Lord Castellan of [[Cadia]] who is such a tactical genius he may somehow infiltrate ANY unit onto a battlefield (as if it were using the Scouts special rule). Even vehicles. Even SQUADRONS of vehicles. Apparently even [[Titan]]s. [[What|The only thing his genius can't handle is cavalry, since it wouldn't make sense for them to be scouts.]] This can cause considerable confusion and consternation to opposing forces as, for example, a 45 foot tall Warhound reveals itself from behind a small bush (hey its a SCOUT titan), or they notice that the door they just attempted to open was in fact a Baneblade, leading them to curse the tactical genius of their enemy with cries of "CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!".

He's also a manly-looking cigar-chomping motherfucker with a coat so huge its collar obscures all peripheral vision. Presumably he wears it due to a lack of power armor, which normally fulfills this function by virtue of [[pauldrons]]. In addition to that, he also carries not one, but TWO motherfucking [[Hellgun|hellpistols]] in combat, just to show everyone that he's that pimping. He is currently aligned with <s>Tzeentch, Oh fuck.</s> {{BLAM}} [[Emperor|The Emprah]], since Creed is too much of a Tactical Genius for Tzeentch's pussy ass to handle, and he knows this.

<s>As of 6th Edition, his tektikal jinyus has failed him and Failbaddon is fucking shit up all about Cadia and Segmentum Obscurus in general.</s> <s> {{BLAM}} {{BLAM| Creed's genius remains indisputable, GW are just desperately trying to pretend that Abaddon isn't the big fat failure that we all know that he is.}}</s> <s>nope he's simply waiting for the best opportunity to reveal that what Abaddon previously thought was Cadia is in fact a carefully arranged group of Imperator Class Titans. [[Just_As_Planned|Just as Planned]].</s> As of Fall of Cadia, Abaddon finally gets a sort-of victory as Cadia is destroyed (not conquered) though much of the Imperial forces is able to evacuate due to the heroic sacrifice of Creed and the Cadian 8th (although rumor has it Trazyn manages to capture him for his collection before the planet blows up with him on it). Creed's tactical genius and plot armour make him the Imperial Guard equivalent of [[Marneus Calgar|Papa Smurf]], though being just an ordinary human otherwise makes him less (or more, depending on how you view it) of a Mary Sue.

No but seriously, apparently the 13th Black Crusade got retconned by GW. Turns out the results of the worldwide campaign were a flop so they're going to try again, which is a part of the fluff-upheaval they've been talking about.

As far as we know, Creed has one son, but as revenge after his loss in The Great Game, Tzeentch did a Primarch and fired his son into 1980s Illinois, where he was found and given the name of Kevin McCallister.

==Creed & 4chan==
Creed has woven his very essence into /tg/ through the tactical skills he possesses. /tg/ is now clearly known to stand for Tactical Genius, and not Traditional Games as many have previously thought. Only a tactical genius could accomplish this. Likewise, only a tactical genius could have hidden the entire Cadian 8th in 4chan's interwebzserver boxes to surprise ambush the maintenance shift and bring 4chan down.

In fact, it's probably the best meme /tg/ has created for some time now. Seriously, sometimes one might believe that it could have only been started by some kind of tactical geniu-

CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!

<div style="text-align:right; font-style:italic;">..........Tactical genius hrrrrr......</div>

==FALL OF CREED==
{{MattWard}}
Sadly, due to [[Matt Ward|this douche]], Creed is no longer the Tactical Genius extraordinaire, as his ability has been co-opted by the Fifth-Edition [[Grey Knights]], who can Scout up to three units. God ''damn'' it, [[Games Workshop]]. That said, the original CREEEEEEEEED!-like ability was the ''Second Edition'' generic Imperial Assassin; before the Polymorphine wargear card was replaced with one specific to the Callidus Assassin, it wasn't entirely abnormal for a Gretchin to suddenly become an Imperial Assassin in Terminator Armour riding a bike.

In Creed's defense, this is at least fluff-inconsistent; the [[Grey Knights]] are highly brainwashed troops, who obey every single command to the letter, without showing personal initiative. Creed, on the other hand, gets to work with Imperial Guardsmen, who, unlike Grey Knights, actually have an in-game mechanic for following orders, they do it so much. Also, Creed isn't using bullshit tricks like being psychic or [[Khornate Knights|killing off a ton of friendly Adeptae Kitchenates to fight demons]].

Besides which, the [[Grey Knights]] can't scout vehicles, so Creed is still the only source of Titans hiding behind waist-high fences.

Also, who do you think taught them their Tactical Genius to begin with?

==RESHUFFLING OF CREED==

And then in Sixth Edition happened. Creed's power became a IG exclusive Warlord Trait. Now any Guard Commander <s> who rolls right </s> who was, in fact, Creed all along is a Tactical Genius. Also, Creed gets to roll for two Warlord Traits now, so he gets double chance to Outflank shit compared to everyone else. It should be noted that the Warlord Trait in question works on D3 units from the same <s>Codex as Creed - so no more outflanking Titans, but maybe outflanking cavalry. All in all, not all is lost.</s> It says from the same primary detachment! Slap that Imperator in you LoW slot, and you are good to go!

==Writefaggotry!==
"So. Fresh bunch'a recruits straight off the regimental home world, huh? Got your heads full of propaganda and not much else, lemme bet. Well, listen to me and listen good, kids - probably half of what you know is nothing but ambull-shit, and you'd better get that through your heads now rather than getting a traitor's lasbolt through your head on the battlefield. Now, you pray to the Emperor like you should, and if you don't the Commissar'll blow your head off, and that'll be a mercy compared to what I'll do to ya if I find out 'fore he does - but don't be thinkin' for a second that recitin' the Litany of Protection makes you invulnerable on a battlefield.

Sure, you'll hear stories about brave Guardsmen that charged enemy positions armed with nothin' but their lasguns and their bayonets and won - and I'll even admit that probably a couple of them are true, but in an army that numbers in the billions one or two of ya are bound to get lucky every now and again, so it don't really say much. No, kids, they might make for inspirin' stories, but fanatical charges aren't what win battles. Battles are won by determination and tactics. Lemme tell you about this one time our regiment was servin' under the command of General Creed.

Never a finer tactician has the Imperial Guard ever seen than that General Creed, let me tell you. He came up with plans so devious and cunnin' you didn't even have a hope of figurin' out how he'd done what he'd done 'less he explained it to ya himself. We were fightin' on Kavara IV, what'd used to be a good Imperial world till the taint of Chaos found its way down there and turned loyal citizens into traitorous scum. At the time we'd been shipped off, we thought we were just gonna be helping the local PDF put down a small insurrection, but what with the ways of the warp by the time we got there it'd turned into a full on rebel uprisin' and all the nobles were already dead or in hidin', and another army led by General Creed had arrived to bring it back under control - we'd been missin' so long they thought we'd been lost to the warp, you see, and sent another off in our place - so we wound up joinin' forces an' bolsterin' their ranks.

Now, we got deployed into one of the urban centers that'd been taken over almost entirely by the heretics, goin' through clearing buildings of resistance and tightenin' the noose around their filthy necks. Only been gettin' minor resistance until a couple of hours in, when we stumbled across a fortified plaza that hadn't been in none of the intelligence reports. So there we were, pinned down by enemy fire, usin' rubble for cover and hopin' to the Emperor that'd we get some artillery support soon, when all of a sudden there's a tremendous rumblin' off to the right, soundin' like a column of tanks comin' up towards the buildin' we'd just cleared.

We weren't gettin' nothin' about armored support on the vox, so we was sittin' there shittin' ourselves wonderin' where the traitors had got tanks from, when all of a sudden the front of the buildin' just collapses out onto the street and a damn Baneblade rolls right on out in front of us. One blast from the main gun and it turned the heretic's position into a crater. The vox lights up and we get ourselves a message - "Armored Support courtesy of General Creed", they say. Now that's tactics, kids - we never saw it comin', so those traitors sure didn't. The application of overwhelmin' force at just the right spot at just the right moment'll turn the tide of any battle in your favor.

I took a look at that buildin' again as we were marchin' down the street in the Baneblade's wake, though. Funniest thing, the only hole in it was the one the tank'd made on its way out. How the hell we missed it when we were clearin' the place I don't know. How the hell Creed got it in there in the first place, I'm not sure I WANT to know - but let me tell you, pulling that off must've taken one hell of a tactical genius."

-Sergeant Karls addressing new recruits to the Hirian 204th, shortly before being relieved of duty and sent for psychiatric evaluation due to inexplicable urges to scream incoherently.

=== Tactical Genius ===
The forces of Chaos reigned victorious over the shattered city, littered with the wounded and dying Guardsmen of the Cadian 503rd. At their head, ready to deliver the killing blow to the last world between him and conquest, strode Abaddon the Despoiler himself, his Daemonblade screaming as it claimed the souls of a score of men, slashing through the staunch but futile defenses of his feeble foe. He had won. Finally, after all these centuries, he had triumphed, and begun to finish what that weakling Horus had started! And now, now it was time to put the icing on the cake, and finish off that arrogant son of a bitch Creed, as he routed like a coward nonetheless!

Beside him, his lieutenants roared in delight, cleaving through flesh and bone and steel alike, and his bodyguard made a mockery of Imperial pride. Demons from the warp, incarnations of the entropy of Khorne and Slaanesh hacked their way through droves of fleeing shock troopers, and a flanking force of the Night Lords penned in those who were left, trapping them in a great valley.

His final carnage began in a great valley, the product of a near miss by a melta torpedo. A miss that had spared the Imperials yesterday, but sealed their fates tonight! Abaddon flung himself into the fray, cleaving with full strokes the men who stood in between him and his prey, butchering wholesale with his men. The Cadians fought like men possessed, like monsters cornered. Abaddon's men were possessed, monsters in truth as well as metaphor, and so fought harder still. When the last corpse fell, it was Abaddon who laid it low, sending that cloak, that cigar spinning to the ground with a backhand from his mighty palm. The heavyset, gray-haired man lay flat upon the graying mud, and a pool of blood grew around him. Abaddon felt his breath quicken, and kicked the Castellan over, to see his face as the Daemonblade consumed his soul.

"I've won, Creed! I've beaten you, the Imperium is MINE for the taking! The galaxy shall burn! But not before I hear you beg, NOT BEFORE I HEAR YOU BEG!" His voice was torn with emotion, manic laughter struggled free of his throat.
The figure tipped over, to lay spread eagle on its back. Silent, broken, and dead. An old man, slain by a casual blow from an immortal warrior. Abaddon felt something leave him. The rush vanished. Creed was dead. He had won... Yes. He had defeated the hero of the Imperium, but Creed was dead. And without ever even knowing that Abaddon had won. The united leader of Chaos knelt down, and screamed at the square-jawed corpse, howling in anger, in the hopes that perhaps his fleeting soul could still hear his words. "I. HAVE. WON. CR-" He froze mid-word, as he realized that the crater was silent. He stood, and thought for a moment that his men were watching him. He was mistaken, for his marines, his warriors, his cultists... Even the demons, were staring open-mouthed, at the crest of the crater that they had swept into.

For one nanosecond. For one fleeting, cursory micron of an instant, Abaddon was confused.

And then he knew. He knew what he would see when he looked up to match their gaze. He knew what he would see when he looked up, and realized why Creed had led this defensive force personally, and why he had not boarded one of the Valkyries that had escaped, or a Chimera to flee. He looked up, to see the barrels of a thousand tanks, the crested figures of ten thousand men, the whirring shapes of countless hundreds of skimmers and fighters. He saw in the distance, the smoking ruin of his flagship drifting through orbit a hundred miles away, and heard all of a sudden the unjammed signals of panicked screaming coming in from every one of his officers and aides.

[[Image:EvenInDeathIStillCREEEEEED.jpg|thumb|right|''And he knew, without looking, the expression upon that fat old man's face, despite the shattered jaw and the broken neck.'']]

Abaddon saw, before his eyes, his Crusade crumble. And he knew, without looking, the expression upon that fat old man's face, despite the shattered jaw and the broken neck. And he felt his last emotion before the guns started firing, and the torpedoes struck, and the lascannon-bolts flew. Boiling up inside of him, he opened his mouth, and screamed.
And over the din of battle, though battle cannon roared and basilisk whistled, though lasgun cracked and Guardsmen cried out with tears in their eyes the name of their savior, no voice cried so loudly as Abaddon the Fool's, whose hatred of one man had cost him a victory that could have changed the galaxy, the one man whose name he now invoked. That magnificent bastard. That tactical geniu-

"CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!!!!!!"

===The Game===
The mortal moved his piece. Tzeentch, Lord of Change and Master of Destinies moved his. They were playing a game of chess. The stakes were high: if the mortal won, Tzeentch, all his daemons and followers would retreat to the Warp for all time and would never again attempt to harry the mighty Imperium of Man in any way be it directly or indirectly. If Tzeentch won (which, of course, he knew he would), the soul of the mortal went to Tzeentch. These stakes obviously seemed skewed in favor of the mortal, but there were several factors to consider.

The mortal moved another piece.

Tzeentch moved another piece.

Tzeentch had wanted this particular soul for what might have been 10 million years, or maybe 5 minutes. Who could tell in the Warp? The problem was, it was pledged to the accursed corpse-god on Terra. So Tzeentch had sought him out and challenged him.

The mortal moved.

Tzeentch moved.

Also Tzeentch, as Master of Fates, knew that he would win. He had to. He had been planning for this game for centuries before the mortal in question was ever born. He had watched, planned, schemed, and acted to ensure that the mortal would learn a certain chess strategy, one that he just "happened" to have a perfect counter to.

Another move by the mortal.

Another move by Tzeentch.

Finally, the idea of a Chaos God focusing so much on a single soul, or making such an enormous bargain was inconceivable, a fact that had never once changed, not even for Warmaster Horus. What was Tzeentch, if not the Lord of Change? So went the reasoning (if the thought process of a Chaos God can be called such) of Tzeentch.

The mortal went on for several turns.

Tzeentch went on for several turns.

Finally, the mortal got a smug look on his face. Tzeentch's beak curled into something resembling a smile.He held his head up high. The mortal moved a piece. Tzeentch spoke, in a voice that was ever shifting and could drive men mad.

"Mortal, do you not know who I am? Let me tell you. I am Tzeentch. The Changer of Ways. The Master of Fate. The Lord of Change. The Controller of Destinies. I have existed before the stars, and I will exist long after they have died. No mere mortal could possibly-"

Then Tzeentch spared a glance at the board.

"What is that pawn doing there?"

Tzeentch stared, utterly dumbstruck. His eyes bulged and his beak dropped. He saw the reason for the mortal's smugness.

[[Image:CreedvTzeentch.png|thumb|right|''Tzeentch let out a cry of rage. It was a cry that echoed throughout the Warp, driving Imperial psykers insane and Chaos sorcerers more insane.'']]It was checkmate.

A very small part of Tzeentch was glad. After all, being unintentionally defeated was certainly a change for him. Also, no longer interfering in the affairs of the mortal galaxy was definitely a change.

However, that was just a very small part.

Tzeentch let out a cry of rage. It was a cry that echoed throughout the Warp, driving Imperial psykers insane and Chaos sorcerers more insane. It was a cry containing a subconscious command. All across the galaxy, the daemons of Tzeentch vanished from the material world, never to return. His mortal followers began retreating, heading towards the Eye of Terror. All the Gods, daemons, and mortal followers of Chaos took notice. In the Warp near Terra, the mighty soul of the God-Emperor of Mankind himself took notice. He smiled, for he knew what it meant. It was a cry that was to echo in the Warp throughout eternity, long after the stars themselves died. It was the cry of a defeated god.

"CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED!"

==A Record of Historic Significance==
There is an example of real-world tactical genius that took place during granpappy's WWII, though it was performed not by a manly cigar-chomping motherfucker but rather by a man named Jasper Maskelyne, a British stage magician who was recruited by Britain's MI9 to assist with camouflage development. One account (which has had trouble being verified admittedly, but then many files are still classified from that era) claimed that he was able to hide an entire desert convoy by deploying ultra-bright "dazzle-lights" which blinded recon planes being used by the enemy. However, many of his claims have been thoroughly scrutinized and most seem to be tall tales.

Whatever the story may be the lesson to learn from it is never ask Creed to pull a rabbit out of his hat. He will instead pull a [[Slaanesh|Baneblade out of your ass.]]

There is also the story about how the Allies managed to dupe Germans into believing they are going to land their invasion at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pas_de_Calais Pas-de-Calais], at the narrowest point of the British Channel, codenamed [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Fortitude Operation Fortitude]. They built entire fake bases, complete with wireless traffic, nonsense but believable orders, and dummy transport aircraft, and placed General Patton at the "head" of this fake [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_United_States_Army_Group 1st US Army Group]. They also made use of captured German double agents, codenamed [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-Cross_System Double-Cross] ([[Alpha_Legion|XX]]) System, along with diplomatic channels with neutral countries, to feed Nazis more misinformation, and used [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra_(cryptography) Ultra] decryption to confirm they have fallen for it. Indeed, Hitler himself ordered to hold up some German divisions as a reserve for this fictional Calais landing, and Rommel gave the reinforcement of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Wall Atlantic Wall] defenses in that region top priority. It was so believable that when [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Neptune Operation Neptune] commenced and D-Day landings began, the Germans thought it was a diversion, not the main attack, and so did not commit their reserves until the Allies had already established a full front in Normandy.

So it can be said that the Allies managed to CREEEEEEED their troops into France.

===Fall of Cadia===
Creed loses a hand fighting Abaddon. And nearly loses life as the armless wonder chokes him. But an expertly infiltrated Celestine back stabs the Failure, and Creed lives. Despite Creed losing, you have to think about it this way; a human stood up to a Space Marine, in Terminator Armor, with the full power of Chaos powering him. *cough* Ollanious Pius *cough*

Creed stays back, alongside the rest of the 8th Cadian force, to hold off against the tide of Daemons as Cadia collapses into pieces. Later, he wanders through the destroyed landscape, succumbing to his wounds. Trazyn notices that a wild Creed appeared, and captures him in a pokeball. (Not the best end, but without Trazyn, Creed would've died in the Eye of Terror.) NOTE: This is not yet confirmed, although everyone thinks that Trazyn took him many also think that 'A metal giant in a scaled cloak' could also be [[Vulkan]]. Offering Creed immortality. But we shall know in the future if GW decides to bring him back for one last epic fight (probably future Siege of Terra).

Or it is Trazyn who is saving Creed to get his hands on Abaddon in the future, after all, he is currently playing the role of saviour, and it is stated Abaddon is the prize he wants for his collection...

==See Also==
*[[Vance Motherfucking Stubbs]] - <s>Who is tactically incompetent.</s> NONSENSE!!! There is nothing said about those one hundred [[Baneblade|Baneblades]] being lost. {{BLAM|That's heretical propaganda}}. The tanks were shipped all across the [[Imperium|Imperium's]] borders. ''And then lost''.
*[[Castor]] - His second cousin.
*[[Cadia]] - Where that motherfucker lives.
*[[Baneblade]] - His greatest asset
*[[Vlad von Carstein]] - His pupil in Warhammer Fantasy.

==External Links==
*[[Abaddon at the Therapist]]
*[http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/4544432/ sup/tg/ archive of the First Coming of Creed.]
*[http://www.facebook.com/pages/Flanking-the-enemy-hidden-behind-some-moss/Ursarkar-E-Creed/167568501474?created&v=info#/pages/Flanking-the-enemy-hidden-behind-some-moss/Ursarkar-E-Creed/167568501474?ref=nf He has infiltrated Facebook ! He is also a social genius !]
And twitter! @creeeeeeeeeeeed

==Gallery==
<gallery>
Image:TacticalSexyness.jpg|The tactical sexyness of one goddamn motherfucking tactical genius.
Image:1242252059504.jpg|Creed pulling off a Yo Dawg meme.
Image:Creedrules.jpg|Creed's "Tactical Genius" special rule.
Image:CREEEED.png|AVE IMPERATOR MOTHERFUCKERS!
Image:creeeeeeeed.jpg|Abaddon getting ready for another black crusade.
Image:Tacticageniuspool.jpg|Pool is closed due to Tactical Genius.
Image:1242230736718.jpg|Cigar chomping, manly motherfucker.
Image:1242252825237.jpg|If you think this is impossible even by 40K standards then you're doing it wrong.
Image:Ursakar_Hefner.jpg|Creed, after tactical geniusing himself into position of Judge in the annual Imperial Swimsuit contest.
Image:Creeeeeeed.jpg|Some speculate a Tactical Genius placed Demolishers in the servers.
Image:Creed-loliflanku.jpg| Problem, Failbbadon?
File:Warhammer-imperial-guard.jpg| Canon CREEEED!
Image:1242225473355.jpg|If I See That Fucking Warlord One More Time...
Image:CREEEED.jpg|Even heretics resent scouting Warlords...
Image:1242253576880.jpg|...then again it's their fault for turning away from the [[Emperor|Emprah]] and all.
Image:goodnewscreed.jpg|Good news everyone... BANEBLADES!
Image:CREEEEEEEEEE.jpg|Another crusade foiled.
Image:Thrawncreed.jpg|Some speculate Admiral Thrawn may be Creed.
Image:Creed.gif|TACTICAL GENIUS
Image:1242230900950.jpg|YOU HAS NO ARMS! YOUR TACTICS ARE INVALID!
Image:CreedvTzeentch.png| Where are your Gods now, Heretic?
Image:1243030681317.jpg|Kirby may be a possible lead on who Creed really is...
Image:1243333513695.jpg|"I WAS COPULATING WITH A DAMNABLE SLAANESHI WHORE?!?!?!".
Image:Cred.jpg|CREEEEEEED
Image:Currie.jpg|The Real Creed?
Image:Creedchoke.jpg|Creed choking someone.
Image:Tacticalgenius.png|How it went down
Image:TacticalSwarmlord.png|The reason Tyranids can never take allies.
File:Hammerspace_Titan.jpg| CREEEEEEED!!!
</gallery>

{{IG-Characters}}
[[Category: Awesome]][[Category:Meme]][[Category:Stories]]