karden00

Great to see this stuff still powering onward!

2nd ed chaos space marine mighty hero in terminator armour and (I think it was called a power field?) a wargear card that gave you a 2+unmodifiable save against anything, iirc. Oh I forgot. You could also upgrade him to a level 4 mastery psycher. Again, iirc. I never once killed the fugger.

Oh man, another rule of cool: I’m honestly not even sure how I feel about this one. It came about as I was pondering a topic from a while back about someone wanting 20k, and another frater said “that exists, it’s called Dune.” It reminded me of the great expanse of time between us and 30/40k, and how, especially in the HH, we get little references here and there to literature that predates our real world, modern era. Like the Ultramarines quoting Clausewitz, or Perturabo knowing about Da Vinci, or I don’t remember who talking about Shakespeare. Or a religion called Catheric. While I never quite hate mentions like this, I’m never entirely comfortable with them either. Given the great son of time, even though there is technology, I usually think that there should be no way that we modern readers should have any familiarity whatsoever with the setting, even if all we are getting are throwaway mentions.

Guilliman in space was 100% win. Iirc, it wasn’t that the ship was in high atmosphere at all, but that the ship had its own pocket of very light atmosphere around it. Guilliman said “Primarch biology helped, but...” Other rule of cool moments? Angron holding up a warhounds foot for a little bit( and damn-near dying in the process) or Lorgar pulling Thunderhawks out of the sky.

And we thought they would never make a mode for Beast Krule. Well done!

It’s all in the title. Since 5th, I’ve had amazing success with these units. I have 7 of them, and would run tornado and typhoons as basically highly mobile gunboats. They could move modestly and still onload, say, two crack missiles and a multi melts shot, or if I was feeling particularly nasty, two multi melta shots. They generally enjoyed a high survivability rate, which always struck me as odd, seeing as they far more often than not really brought the pain. I don’t really play anymore, may never play a game of 8th, at this rate. Does anyone still use these bad boys?

...I guess you could say that the three of them...got fisted...

Ultramarines.

I think the Pharos device was still in action when these happened. Errr. Yo dude, I don’t think that the Pharos was ever stated to have been in play during those three events. Those stories take place well before the Heresy, and it was in the Heresy that the Pharos came into the picture. Before Magnus made a giant hole in the webway, The Emperor was powerful enough to guide the Astronomicon from a distance, though it was taxing for him. After "Magnus did nothing wrong", The Emperor has to remain on the throne to keep the broken webway portal from ripping Terra apart and filling it with daemons, and also because it might be the only thing keeping him pseudo alive after Horus crippled him. So during the early Great Crusade, Emperor could leave Terra if he wanted, even for extended periods, no problem. Also, it's warp magic, it doesn't have to make sense in realspace. It just has to make sense in the warp. So in realspace, it might be twirling around like an unbalanced top, but in the warp, its an unmoving light. Hmmm that seems fairly plausible, and I’d be willing to buy it. Can you cite your sources for this one?

Alllllllso..... What happens when the emperor leaves Terra? Wolf of Ash and Fire, First Heretic, Nikaea..... You can love these stories, as I do, but you can still object to the lack of consistency, and you’d never be wrong to do so.

I dont imagine those worlds produced quite that many legionaries at any certain point in the Crusade. Remember, lots of the original legionaries came from Terra, not those death worlds. Then again, 90,000+ people isn't a shockingly large number, when you think in planetary terms. Sure, it takes a lot more than 90,000 aspirants to get to 90,000 legionaries, but even if youre looking at a 4-1 ratio, 370,000 young males across an entire planet shouldnt be that hard to come by. We would have to go pretty far back in our own pre-history to have trouble with that. Buuuut you also have to consider that that could mean 370,000 young men not making babies, as Battlestar Galactica would say..... Is it possible this wasn't the most thought out setting of all time....?

What about the lost Legions (II & XI)? They were destroyed... Yes, it would almost certainly take more than a single Legion to destroy another Legion, but it could be done. The Salamanders and the Raven Guard were nearly destroyed at Isstvan V. If Corax hand't been rescued it was almost certain that Angron would have killed him and his remaining warriors. Just because Legions aren't destroyed in the fluff (except for the II & XI), doesn't mean that they couldn't be. I recon most of the Legions could be destroyed in a fairly conventional manner. If the Emperor had decided to sanction/destroy the Night Lords or World Eaters I recon they would have been destroyed. There'd inevitably be some survivors, but those survivors wouldn't be specifically trained to operate outside of the regular Legion chain of command in the same way as the Alpha Legion is. Surviving Night Lords or World Eaters would become pirates and Blackshields, where as surviving Alpha Legion would still be able to operate effectively. The Alpha Legions' whole 'thing' is that they're able to continue to operate even if their chain of command has been disrupted or destroyed. It's a bit of a cliche but the whole "cut off one head and another grows in its place" was the Alpha Legions' greatest quality even before they became the MI6/CIA Legion when they were introduced to the series in Legion. The Alpha Legion doesn't need the same numbers or resources as other Legions to remain an effective force. Yes, they were capable of conquering worlds in the standard Legion manner, but they weren't exclusively reliant on standard Imperial tactics in the same sense as the Ultramarines, Sons of Horus, Imperial Fists, Iron Warriors etc. The were perfectly capable of operating as individuals or smaller squads/cells to achieve their conquests. Exodus conquered twelve worlds with a single shot. This is an extreme example, but it demonstrates that the Alpha Legion are able to do more with less. When it comes to sanctioning/destroying a Legion, only Legions with significant asymmetric capabilities would stand a chance of surviving as an effective force. In my opinion only the Thousand Sons and the Alpha Legion would be capable of surviving an Imperial sanction. Edit: also, how do you bring the Alpha Legion to battle? If another Legion was given Imperial authority to sanction/destroy the Alpha Legion it's not too much of a stretch to imagine that the Alpha Legion would find out and simple go to ground, dispersing their forces all across the galaxy. Even if the 'execution' Legion managed to catch the Alpha Legion by surprise I can't imagine that the Alpha Legion sails around as a unified Legion that could easily be cornered and destroyed. The highlighted sections are what matter. First and foremost, the idea of legions being too vulnerable to other legions entirely kills the motivation to collect said legions. Every example of one legion gaining dominance over another legion is almost always qualified by several factors, be it surprise betrayal, where the unsuspecting forces had, on paper, enough to put down the ambushers, had they not been traitors, (Isstvan, Calth) or there were significant force multipliers at work, (Prospero, Thramas [Tchulchulchultchulchululua]). When such multipliers are at work, it is repeatedly demonstrated in fluff that legions can certainly be brought down low.

I feel like Angron might be being sold at least a little short? He is in a degenerative state, he is getting worse. So whatever condition he was in at the time of the first rebellion at Nuceria, he is worse now. But everything he did on Nuceria seems to have been done with a half decent idea of what to do and what not to do in war. Then again, he wasn’t up against fellow, healthy, Primarch’s. I dunno.

I think we can all agree that at a minimum, there is a wealth of data that can tell us a few things for certain. 1) Primarchs, though extremely potent, cannot be invulnerable, or else the plot armour would be comically overdone. There would never be any stakes and any battle with a Primarch would be a forgone conclusion. 2) All respect to the BL team, but this late in the game, I think it’s fair to say that there doesn’t seem to be a lot of consensus when it comes to the limitations of a Primarch’s abilities/survivabilities. In most of the cases where we see Primarch’s vs Marines, there seems to often be a lot of nuances at play, and factors that influence outcomes. But how do we go from RG (who I am sorry, all fanboy aside, is Not on the lower end in terms of Primarch standards) not knowing if he could’ve followed the swing of a SW, to an UM centurion wounding Horus of all people, to Corax lighting up the Gal Vorback like it’s nobodies business, to Fulgrim beating Avatars and Grav Tanks, to Curze running circles around Wolves, Scars, UM, DA, BA, etc. Maybe it’s better this way? Maybe it’s better that exact abilities and limits are not strictly defined, but Primarch’s fulfil the role the plot demands of them, and are rather elastic as a result.

there were a few excerpts, I forget where, but Guilliman watched how fast these wolf guard unsheathed and swung there weapons, and He doubted himself thinking that even he, a primarch would be unable to evade such swift and skillfull warriros @Ogun, I appreciate your perspective, thanks! I have to admit, I certainly read that scene and scoffed, and although I did notice the nuances, I didn't think too much about them because I didn't think the nuances were strong enough. Again, I admit, it wasn't strong enough for my liking, totally subjective. I've understood that any Space Marine should have a deference to a primarch that goes down to the genetic level. I was going to retort the point that @Triszen made, and I am pleased he picked up on it. I remember Unremembered Empire as being, if not quite full of references to how badass the Wolves are, then at least Abnett didn't pull any punches when it came to highlighting their potency. To the point where Guilliman, a primarch doubted he could follow the swing of a space wolf... ... ... Honest to goodness, that bothered me so much more than the Alpha Legion scene, which to me seemed plausible and, frankly, more thought out. More thought out than a primarch doubting whether or not a space marine could wing faster than he could see it... I know it is not terribly relevant, but I hope the good mods will let me air that <3