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New Lost Legions background by Rick Priestley


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I agree that having the lost legions as being completely lost in 40k is a good idea. Being the distant past, you can put in lots of little exceptions, contradictions, and mix ups to add flavors. Maybe there was really there was really more legions and Primarchs because 20 legions for a galaxy wasn't really enough and several got lost in the fighting. Maybe some of the Primarchs and legions have got their mythology wrong and things like the Iron and Imperial Fists really being from the same source happened. It's good to leave yourself room to change and grow.

 

However...

 

D&D has gone through several changes since the time of Uncle Gary. It is the collected works of many people and explores different settings and even times in some of those settings. While it had several downs, I'd say that D&D has continued to improve from what it was when Gary Gygax was shown the door. Even 4th Ed.

 

Things changed, new people took over for 40K, they brought in new things, and went different directions. Whether you like the way things are going or not, it's going to happen (I will probably have to deal with Chaos Primaris, for instance). My problem with 30K and the lost legions is that they went back to explore the time period they were from and don't, except to say "we don't talk about them". Including the traitors to the Emperor. This is not satisfactory as there would still be records, people who would have known about them but hadn't gotten the memo that they weren't to be mentioned, gossips, rumors, slip ups, etc. Avoiding the subject but occasionally showing a little ankle to cause a scandal is just bad world building. They should have been dealt with. You can still keep a decent amount of mystery behind them and speculation about what happened. Hell, if the Emperor was canny and never gathered all of his Primarchs together at once in the story, you could have had Horus speculating that there was only ever 18 Primarchs/legions and that the lost were creations by the Emperor so that the others were more hesitant to try to betray him before hand (something the Emperor nixed once he made Horus Warmaster). What if the lost weren't really lost, but in reserve by the other side, waiting for the right moment to strike, might even crop up from time to time. There was no luxury of having a veil of myth and legend that grew over 10,000 years after several periods of great devastation.

 

Yes, it might ruin some of GWs fans personal projects and many would probably would be underwhelmed by what they got of the lost. I'm personally underwhelmed by the loyalist SM legions and a few Chaos ones already. Look at things like UM or SW hate that already exist while the setting continues to thrive. I think actually getting some real details on the lost because GW decided to delve into the HH won't kill the game.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Secondly, while the Battle of Phall does have Perturabo beaten, that's because he'd operated on the assumption that Sigismund would be leading the fleet, and had planned accordingly, not realizing that it was Alexis Polux who was given command, a Marine with amazing levels of skill when it came to fleet engagements. It's also implied that if the Imperial Fists had stayed and fought, they would have been overwhelmed, but as it was, they managed to repel the attacks of a Primarch organized to fight an aggressive, confrontational opponent, but ended up fighting one of, if not the, best non-Primarch naval commanders in the Great Crusade deployed in a well-designed defensive deployment. Shortly after this occurred, the Imperial Fists received orders to withdraw, and only through sacrificing a decent portion of their fleet were they able to break away.

If the Fists stayed... The Captain who breached Perty's throne room had a teleport transponder on him. His mission was delivering it and he did. Had they stayed, there would've been a literal thousand Terminators teleporting right in front of Perturabo and spilling all the dakka in his face.

 

Perturabo knew that not only he lost to a non-Primarch in void combat, but also he was beaten by somebody who was able to conceptualize "a shifting Labirynth", his greatest siege creation that he showed off to one of his brothers in another novel (can't recall where), successfully apply the premise not in 2D (floor, walls), but in 3D (void combat) and at the same time devise a successful gambit which would've resulted in his death.

 

That's why he smashed the cogitator screens - because Alexis Polux bested him so completely.

 

Glory to the Crimson Fist.

 

 

[snip]

In practice, the distinction that you describe is the use of an utterly unreliable narrator. Priestley's beef seems to be that events started being presented by reliable narrators, as undeniable fact and mystery was lost.
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  • 2 years later...

Very disappointed that this is not a new thread. This is not a bump because it is at the top as I write this.

 

1. The reply by N1SB is a really good history of the setting. There were some fun comments to read in this thread. It’s this one

 

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/350591-new-lost-legions-background-by-rick-priestley/?p=5173524

 

2. If you like deep history and fitting old background into a modern version you should read this index apocrypha about Adeptus Astartes unit IV ‘Spacewolves,’ based on the rogue trader version of the space wolves.

 

https://warofthefalseprimarch.blogspot.com/2021/07/index-apocrypha-spacewolves.html?m=1

 

Thank you for reading please don’t bump old threads.

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