Warhammer 40K Fluff Discussion XV: You Must Be THIS Tall To Witness The Grimdark

[The Glyphstone]

The last I remember seeing, the closest thing GW has to a canonicity policy is the rather inane non-statement "Everything is canon, but not everything is correct."

[Mystic Muse]

Question about the Horus Heresy.

I've started listening to the first audio book, "Horus Rising." And, to be honest, I already don't like Loken or his holier than thou attitude toward this woman who is asking about Horus.

Is this a case of "things get better as you go." Or if I'm put off is it better to give up now?

[Cheesegear]

"Everything is canon, but not everything is correct."

What is this? 4th Ed.?

No. GW's current policy is to raise as many questions as possible, and answer none of them explicitly.

"All Primarchs are Psykers and/or have special abilities." I forget who said it.
Okay, cool. Gonna delve further into that? Because it's really, really stupid if it's true. Oh...You're never going to bring it up ever again?

"The Emperor had an expiration plan on all of the Primarchs."
That's interesting. ...Oh wait. Malcador was probably lying. Gonna ever bring it up again? No? Cool.

Who is Cypher's patron? Who cares? Why write a story when you can allude to a story?

Can you please bring back The Red Angel? He seemed like a really big deal when he was introduced...Oh. Okay. Shuffle him off to the sidelines. A dog is fine, too.

Do a lot of world-building. But write no stories in the world.

Is this a case of "things get better as you go." Or if I'm put off is it better to give up now?

The first three novels are really, really bad. Honestly I don't even know why they started the Series that way.

The Heresy novels vary wildly in quality. Any given book can be divided into one of three categories;
1. Proper progression of the timeline,
2. A character study into a specific Primarch (and most people only care about 2 or 3), or
3. Hard filler.

How many character studies can you write when the number of characters you have (18), is finite? And that's not even including that most people aren't going to care about 15 of them.
Black Library also can't progress the timeline every novel because then they can't milk it forever...Which is exactly what they're doing.
Which means that most Heresy novels are simply put...Filler.

What you want to do is run through a synopsis sheet of each book to see if it's something you want to read. I've done a few in these threads, myself.

[Drasius]

The first three novels are really, really bad. . some of the better ones in the series.

FTFY.

Cheese is spot on about the 3 types of books though. Different people like different stuff though (unsurprisingly), I know Garro gets a lot of love, but as far as I am concerned, the only thing worse than a Garro book is either a Nick Kyme book or anything involving the shattered legions. Unfortunately, the heresy is filled with all three.

A Thousand Sons is generally recognised as one of, if not the, best book in the HH, though plenty of people will argue that Master of Mankind is better. I'm fairly sure that you could look back a bit and find a discussion between Cheesegear and myself around which books we both liked and would recommend to others (I'm stuck using a phone or I would link it).

[Wraith]

Cawl being Arkhan Land was just some stupid fan theory that a bunch of people managed to share the exact same lack of imagination to think of simultaneously because apparently a whole faction should only have one important member or something. That and the bizare idea that the solution to a new character being too much of a Gary Stu is to make an old character even more of a Gary Stu by combining them together.

On the one hand.... fair enough. I didn't say that I was surprised that there were more than one named Mechanicus character, only that it hadn't been made clear to me which is which.

On the other hand, I give you Codex Space Marines.
The Imperial Fists have Captain Lysander and..... yeah.
The White Scars have Kor'sarro Khan and.... yeah.
The Raven Guard have Captain Shrike and.... yeah.
The Salamanders have He'Stan and.... yeah.
The Iron Hands have.... uhh... Hold on a minute while check my notes....

While not necessarily the prime example, I hope you can see that and forgive me for following the obvious pattern and seeing a "stupid fan theory" as actually plausible?

FTFY.

No, no - Flight of the Eisenstein is the fourth book, not quite in the first three. Close though

Also Horus somehow has time to stand in ceremony in every planet he takes and wait for everybody to walk to him and personally pledge their loyalty.

One by one.

All the billions/trillions of population.

Unless he sends one of his dudes in disguise to do it for him. It's a pretty significant plot point in Nemesis that he really does only spend time doing things which are specifically important.

"All Primarchs are Psykers and/or have special abilities." I forget who said it.

I want to say it was Gav Thorpe, as he was the guy who invented Corax being able to turn not-Invisible, but I won't swear to it.

How many character studies can you write when the number of characters you have (18), is finite?

Easy! Put more Space Wolves in EVERYTHING!!! YOU CAN'T KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT THE SPACE WOLVES!!!!!!

[deuterio12]

Unless he sends one of his dudes in disguise to do it for him.

That would have some funny implications because Cawl himself was there "swearing" his allegiance too and got the impression that Horus was super-duper-evil and he could never work for a dude like that and started planning his escape.

For somebody that's supposed to be super charismatic, Horus sure sucks at that in the novels.

Easy! Put more Space Wolves in EVERYTHING!!! YOU CAN'T KNOW TOO MUCH ABOUT THE SPACE WOLVES!!!!!!

Space furries do everything better than everybody.

There, it's all that there's to know about space furries.

-Better at religion than the Word Bearers.
-Better at magic/psykery than the thousand sons.
-Better at boarding ships than the emprah+custodes.
-Lemon Russ was the only one who fought Horus and got away being in better shape than a corpse.
-Better at X than (insert group that's supposed to be really good at X).

[tyckspoon]

Space furries do everything better than everybody.

There, it's all that there's to know about space furries.

-Better at religion than the Word Bearers.
-Better at magic/psykery than the thousand sons.
-Better at boarding ships than the emprah+custodes.
-Lemon Russ was the only one who fought Horus and got away being in better shape than a corpse.
-Better at X than (insert group that's supposed to be really good at X).

Better at mutating than Chaos..

[Brookshw]

-Better at X than (insert group that's supposed to be really good at X).

Ooooh, now here's a game to play!
- Better at eating than Tyranids
- Better at being smelly than Nurglites
- Better at playing make believe than Orks

Who's next?

[Wraith]

That would have some funny implications because Cawl himself was there "swearing" his allegiance too and got the impression that Horus was super-duper-evil and he could never work for a dude like that and started planning his escape.

I suppose there's the usual "different writers say different things" excuse, but very broadly speaking he gets less and less charismatic as the Heresy continues. At the very beginning he was hardly different to his days as Primarch of the Luna Wolves; after the influence of his brothers becoming Greater Daemons and his time spent in the Warp for 200 years of "training" his inspirng aura is instead more horrifying and his temper far less tolerant of minor issues.

-Better at X than (insert group that's supposed to be really good at X).

They ain't better at close combat OR berserker fury than the Blood Angels, if Fear To Tread has anything to say about it.

[Cheesegear]

Is this a case of "things get better as you go." Or if I'm put off is it better to give up now?

1. Horus Rising
2. False Gods
3. Galaxy in Flames Honestly I hate the first three. They're badly written and the characters all suck. I don't think Black Library truly understood how far they were going to run the Heresy series, so nothing really in the first three novels really counts for anything. Horus Falls in a way that makes zero sense. Erebus is a colossal douche. Fulgrim and Fabius Bile are doing a thing. Great. You're all caught up. You miss out on Saul Tarvitz. But since he never, ever appears again...If you don't read the first three, you'll never read about the greatest character in 30K.

4. Flight of the Eisenstein Honestly this book is where the Series took off, with Nathaniel Garro getting his own solo adventure, as opposed to being Tarvitz' bro4lyfe.
5. Fulgrim
6. SKIP
7. Legion
8. SKIP
9. Mechanicum I think it's important. Mechanicum is also the point where books in the Horus Heresy start making NYT Bestsellers' Lists.
10. SKIP

---

11. SKIP
12. A Thousand Sons
13. Nemesis Skip if you want. But I enjoyed it.
14. The First Heretic
15. Prospero Burns... Yeah. I know. It's about the Space Furries. But it's still really good anyway.
16. SKIP
17. The Outcast Dead Skip if you want. But I enjoyed it. It's Seven Samurai.
18. Deliverance Lost
19. Know No Fear
20. SKIP Except for Reflection Crack'd

---

21. Fear to Tread
22. Shadows of Treachery This is the only short story compilation I can really recommend. The big positive in this book's favour is that every short story started as a fully scripted Audio Drama. Which means they're not just cash-grabs for authors who haven't written anything in a while.
23. Angel Exterminatus I've heard only good things. But honestly I skipped it and I don't feel like I missed out on anything... But that's probably 'cause the entire book was spoiled for me.
24. Betrayer... IMO one of the best, if not the best book so far.
25. SKIP
26. Vulkan Lives It sucks. But joke's on you, it's actually important so you have to read it.
27. Unremembered Empire
28. Scars Skip if you want. I enjoyed it.
29. Vengeful Spirit
30. SKIP

---

Here's where it starts getting real bad. After Vengeful Spirit which is clearly the starting point of everything...GW is just milking it now...

31. SKIP Except Butcher's Nails.
32. SKIP
33. SKIP
34. Pharos
35. SKIP Except for Aurelian
36. Path of Heaven... This book is legit.
37. SKIP
38. Angels of Caliban The first Dark Angels' novel that is actually worth anything since ever.
39. Praetorian of Dorn
40. SKIP

---

After Praetorian of Dorn, the Solar War has effectively started. So basically if it doesn't involve anyone who wasn't at the Battle of Terra, you're skipping it.

41. Master of Mankind... Another truly unskippable book.
42. Garro You can skip if you want. I enjoyed it. Garro is weird in dead-tree form, because his story was being written chronologically between Flight... and Vengeful Spirit, so if you're reading 'in order', Garro comes like...10+ books after the titular character's storyline is even relevant. Hell, Garro was even released after Praetorian... How does that make sense?
43. SKIP
44. Crimson King
45. Tallarn Skip if you want
46. Ruinstorm
47. SKIP
48. SKIP
49. Wolfsbane
50. SKIP

...Not read 51. Slaves to Darkness yet. The synopsis makes me feel like it's an important read anyway.

[Wraith]

I don't disagree with any of your list Cheesegear - I want that preamble noted.

I will say, however, that the definition of "important" is... fluid. Cheese is right in saying that Mechanicum is important, for example, but only half of it is relevant. The bit about the Cult splitting down the middle and how the coup takes place is HUGELY important to the Heresy; the other half of the book, which is a sub-plot about a Scooby Gang going for a jaunt into the lower levels of Mars and never coming back for various reasons, is completely pointless.

Similarly, Vengeful Spirit is important because it tells how the Gods start to lay favours upon Horus to prepare him for the confrontation with his father.... But that in itself isn't all that notable and could be safely assumed to happen "off camera", having a whole book dedicated to it is very indulgent.

There are 51 books in the main series; you probably only NEED to read about 10-15 of them in order to understand the story and find out where all the important players are at any given time, and the rest is micromanaging. For example, I found that you could read Galaxy In Flames OR Flight of the Eisenstein and you're not going to miss any plot to speak of. Same with A Thousand Sons/Prospero Burns and (sometimes to a lesser extent) any of the Anthologies, which tend to be recaps or subplots from the novels.

[Cheesegear]

There are 51 books in the main series; you probably only NEED to read about 10-15 of them in order to understand the story and find out where all the important players are at any given time

Going off of Black Librarium's work, and my own list of what's worth reading...

Mainline the first five; Horus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames, Flight of the Esienstein, Fulgrim... Go to Vengeful Spirit and Path of Heaven

From False Gods; A Thousand Sons, Prospero Burns... Go to Path of Heaven and Wolfsbane

From Flight... Go to Praetorian of Dorn

From Fulgrim; Angel Exterminatus... Go to Vengeful Spirit and Path of Heaven

From Mechanicum... Go to Master of Mankind

From A Thousand Sons... Go to Master of Mankind.

From The Outcast Dead... Go to Master of Mankind

So...There's 15 novels that are worth reading, not including the Imperium Secundus/Shadow Crusade storyline, which is pretty much separate from everything else happening...

Start at The First Heretic, Know No Fear, Betrayer, Unremembered Empire, Pharos, Angels of Caliban, Ruinstorm

[Cikomyr]

What is this? 4th Ed.?

No. GW's current policy is to raise as many questions as possible, and answer none of them explicitly.

"All Primarchs are Psykers and/or have special abilities." I forget who said it.
Okay, cool. Gonna delve further into that? Because it's really, really stupid if it's true. Oh...You're never going to bring it up ever again?

"The Emperor had an expiration plan on all of the Primarchs."
That's interesting. ...Oh wait. Malcador was probably lying. Gonna ever bring it up again? No? Cool.

Who is Cypher's patron? Who cares? Why write a story when you can allude to a story?

Can you please bring back The Red Angel? He seemed like a really big deal when he was introduced...Oh. Okay. Shuffle him off to the sidelines. A dog is fine, too.

Have they finally explained where the Blood Ravens came from? I know someone told me it was the surviving loyalist Thousand Sons captain, but now it turns out he became Janus and founded the Grey Knights instead. So wtf?

[Professor Gnoll]

Have they finally explained where the Blood Ravens came from? I know someone told me it was the surviving loyalist Thousand Sons captain, but now it turns out he became Janus and founded the Grey Knights instead. So wtf?

ADB talked about this a bit- apparently GW pretty much told the writers flat out to stop dropping hints about them , and especially to stop implying they were Thousand Sons successors. So not only do we not know, we probably never will.

[Cikomyr]

ADB talked about this a bit- apparently GW pretty much told the writers flat out to stop dropping hints about them , and especially to stop implying they were Thousand Sons successors. So not only do we not know, we probably never will.

....... WHY?!?!

Its almost they dont care what their fans are interested in.

[Renegade Paladin]

Because they're trying to leave the door open for people to create their own backgrounds for their armies, which they feel means they should resolve as few things as possible so as to leave more room for players to have their own answers. Which makes for bad storytelling when you don't care about that and just want a good novel.

[LeSwordfish]

Also, they drop so many hints their Mystery Boxes are starting to look like Mystery Shrinkwrap.

[Cheesegear]

Its almost they dont care what their fans are interested in.

It's almost like the Dawn of War games died in a horrible fire...

Revuel Arvida was a clearly Plot Relevant character. Then something happened last year, where he had to be hastily written out of the story for reasons.

Arvida should have 'died' at the Battle of Terra, against Magnus. Magnus being like "You little ****..."

Magnus: You side with them over your own Legion. You're not my son.
Jaghatai: *Comes out of the smoke and rubble* ...Then I claim him as my son. *Draws sword*

The Jaghatai does what Russ couldn't, and that is proving once and for all that Jaghatai is the best fighter, without boasting about it like Fulgrim or Russ. With Arvida holding back Magnus' powers. Just...Have Jaghatai kick the **** out of Magnus (and/or Fulgrim) in silence, in front of like...Eight (?) other assembled Primarchs, in defense of his adopted son, and then have Arvida at the end, jam an Athame blade into Magnus or Fulgrim...The effects of which are catastrophic...For Arvida. The Flesh-Change goes out of control...But instead of turning into a Spawn, the effects of the Athame, combined with the expulsion of a Daemon Primarch does...Something else to Arvida.

Arvida grabs Jaghatai, saying "I don't want to go..."
Jaghatai says "I'm sorry, son."

Arvida ascends/transcends and becomes Ianus.

That's how my Arvida goes out. Not in a basement, as part of a short story that no-one will read.

[deuterio12]

It's almost like the Dawn of War games died in a horrible fire...

Cadia Dawn of War Stands!

(personally it was gone death with a whimper than an horrible fire, with the devs literally going "meh we don't care anymore", III already looked like trash from the first preview where Gabriel Angelos was doing jumping acrobatics in freaking terminator armor)

[Wraith]

It's almost like the Dawn of War games died in a horrible fire...

Revuel Arvida was a clearly Plot Relevant character. Then something happened last year, where he had to be hastily written out of the story for reasons.

GW have been in this position before; owning an IP full of characters that were written, fleshed out and ultimately "owned" by non-GW writers.

The same thing happened with Malal, which is why they now only have 4 Chaos Gods. Dawn of War might not have been the critical and commercial blockbuster that everyone had hoped for, but it had been going on for long enough, and in the hands of Relic long enough, that GW very likely decided to nip it in the bud before someone started making a perfectly logical argument that "Blood Ravens" and their associated characters might not be entirely their property any more.

It's just a guess, I'm not a copywright lawyer or anything like.... But it seems at least partially plausible, on top of the dimishing metacritic scores. The last thing they'd want would to be tied to a failing franchise and have to potentially fight legal battles to take control of it just before it died entirely.

[Cheesegear]

Cheesegear's List of Heresy Books to Read

This list is only so I have a post I know to link back to.
It's a list of all the plot-relevant books...Some are more well-written than others.

Start Here
1. Horus Rising
2. False Gods ... You can read 14. The First Heretic at any time after, but before 19. Know No Fear.
3. Galaxy in Flames
4. The Flight of the Eisenstein ... You can read 42. Garro* at any time after, but before 29. Vengeful Spirit.
5. Fulgrim
7. Legion
22. Shadows of Treachery*

Solar War Preamble
9. Mechanicum*
12. A Thousand Sons
15. Prospero Burns ... You can read 44. The Crimson King at any time after.
17. The Outcast Dead*
23. Angel Exterminatus
28. Scars*
29. Vengeful Spirit
36. Path of Heaven
39. Praetorian of Dorn
41. Master of Mankind
49. Wolfsbane

Imperium Secundus / The Shadow Crusade
19. Know No Fear
21. Fear to Tread
24. Betrayer
25. Mark of Calth*
26. Vulkan Lives*
27. The Unremembered Empire
34. Pharos
38. Angels of Caliban
46. Ruinstorm

*Optional, but recommended

[Wraith]

I'm going to go ahead and say it: If you've read A Thousand Sons, you don't need to read Prospero Burns.

You might want to, if Space Wolves are your thing, but in terms of actual plot significance then it's a lot of time spent looking at their culture and mentality and not the actual plot. There's a little bit in there about how Horus managed to dupe the Space Wolves into thinking that they needed to execute, rather than kill Magnus but frankly it doesn't really matter - from the context of the other books, it's fairly obvious as to what happened and the individuals involved aren't all that important.

What little of the meta-plot that Prospero Burns does cover - the raising of the planet - is covered in greater depth elsewhere.

[LeSwordfish]

Is there a novel that covers the Istvaan V incident and the death of Ferrus Manus better than Fulgrim? As with Prospero Burns, the ratio of "character study of a legion you maybe don't care about" to "metaplot relevant stuff" is fairly low.

[Cheesegear]

Is there a novel that covers the Istvaan V incident

The First Heretic kind of deals with Lorgar, Corax and Curze.
Raven's Flight (Audio Drama or Shadows of Treachery) occaisionally features Corax wielding a Heavy Bolter like P90, with Deliverance Lost dealing with some of the fallout.

But that's it.

and the death of Ferrus Manus better than Fulgrim?

There are a handful of stories that are character studies on how certain Primarchs feel about Primarchs killing Primarchs, generally with Fulgrim and Ferrus being the explicit example...No-one ever mentions the time that 'Leman Russ already did it once' because why would GW elaborate on such a vague and leading statement?

Horus does a whole 'Alas, poor Yorick!' with Ferrus' skull.

But no. No other story deals with the actual beheading of Ferrus Manus.

[Brookshw]

So if each Kastelan's gun arms uses an external magazine, and it has no hands.....how is it changing magazines?

[Wraith]

They have more than two arms, and the non-gun ones have fingers with which to manipulate things.

Failing that... internal conveyor belts which pull fresh clips into position from a pocket under their armour? An automatic ejector to clear the spent magazine and then they slam/slap a new one into place from a raised holder at their hip? Or maybe they just don't bother - their Mechanicus handler has to budget their ammo conservatively, and if he gets it wrong he has to withdraw and get rearmed by Servitors (possibly while being chastised by his Boss for his own "negligence")?

The usual answer for 40k is "All or none of the above; it will vary depending on which individual machine that you're referring to".

[Platinius]

Unrelated to anything, I found this a while a go

Enjoy

[Drasius]

Just listened to the lords of Terra audio drama and holy crap, Malcador drops a bit of a bomb in his one.

The IW story is one of the worst ones yet though, I'd even recommend skipping it as a waste of time.

The Night Lords one is alright, but doesn't really add anything to the series.

Overall, pretty meh, but the couple of big reveals from Malcador mean it's not a hard pass, but I can't recommend it to anyone who isn't super into the lore.

[Voidhawk]

Just listened to the lords of Terra audio drama and holy crap, Malcador drops a bit of a bomb in his one.

Care to post spoilers, for those of us who enjoy learning how the plot develops?

[Cheesegear]

Care to post spoilers, for those of us who enjoy learning how the plot develops?

I assume he's talking about this...

"The Emperor had an expiration plan on all of the Primarchs."
That's interesting. ...Oh wait. Malcador was probably lying. Gonna ever bring it up again? No? Cool.

Not only does Master of Mankind paint The Emperor as one of the biggest *******s around, especially to his Sons.

But First Lord of the Imperium basically says that 'Primarchs killing Primarchs' was the plan from the start. However, The Emperor and Malcador simply miscalculated their endgame because they didn't factor in Chaos' influence, and thus their civil war - in which The Emperor himself kills all of his sons to pave the way for Mankind - was doomed to fail from the start.

The Primarchs and their Space Marines were never supposed to be part of the final Imperium.

However, Malcador is lying about one or more things he says during the story. You'll have to guess which, though. Decide for yourself. *spooky hands* *wink, wink*