Let's Read the Horus Heresy 27: Vengeful Spirit

The dead of Dwell were screaming.

 - The Horus Heresy: Vengeful Spirit, Graham McNeill

After the White Scars, I'm taking a gamble on Graham McNeill and Horus. This one's set on Molech and I've got the Adeptus Titanicus expansion named after it, so I expect Knights. We haven't actually seen that much of Horus and his legion, so I kinda miss them.

**

The plot of Vengeful Spirit is basically that Horus thinks there's something very important to the Emperor on Molech, so he's scheming with Fulgrim and Morty to get it. Meanwhile, Malcador and Leman Russ are scheming to kill Horus, so they order ex-Luna Wolf Gavriel Loken to gather a special team to assault Horus's flagship.

If the latter plot sounds pretty much exactly like Nemesis, that's because it is, only Nemesis was better. Loken's team is made up of loyalist marines who are all completely forgettable, except that the contrarian Iron Warrior is called Tubal Cayne. The whole Loken plot is frankly quite boring and meaningless, and the book would have been better without it.

The part where we follow Horus and his new Mournival is much more interesting. It feels a lot like Horus Rising, but with the tragic absence of all the best Luna Wolves. In fact, a lot of the whole thing is practically a direct sequel to Flight of the Eisenstein, which isn't a bad thing at all. McNeill's Horus is light-years better than in False Gods.

The aerial assassination attempt on Horus made me want to get some Fire Raptors for Legions. But while the idea of various loyalist marines randomly attacking Horus like Cato assaulting Inspector Clouseau is very funny, wouldn't you think that if Horus is going to spend quite a bit of time ensconced at a strategically important facility, it would occur to someone to have at least some kind of anti-air defenses, or even surveillance radar, around? Especially since soon after, we're given detailed descriptions of the air defences on Molech.

Luckily most of the middle part of the book is dedicated to the Sons of Horus and the fighting on Molech. For some reason, the initial battle Horus leads is a practically suicidal frontal assault on a strongly fortified loyalist position, and most of the other fighting doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. I will say that the boarding shields definitely make me want to build some breacher squads. It says a lot about GW's priorities that we got a new edition of Horus Heresy before we got all of the troop choices in plastic.

The fighting is good, though, and Horus's schemes make for good epic space opera. It feels like ages since the plot's properly advanced, and now it has. There's good stuff with Knights and Titans and so on, even if the goings-on in Knight House Devine are quite sordid. That and the sheer length of the book are more than a bit Fulgrim, but this is much, much better. I think Vengeful Spirit could have done without about half of its sideplots and characters, but as a Horus Heresy novel, it's actually quite good.

**

So here we are: Horus is on his way to Terra and I'm recommending Graham McNeill and avoiding Dan Abnett. It's a strange old galaxy.

Epic: The Ikteros Pattern Basilisk

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a Legions Imperialis army must be in want of artillery. So obviously my Solar Auxilia need some Basilisks. But there's a problem: I can't tolerate the miniature in Legions at all.

**

The so-called Mars-Auxilia pattern Basilisk is an Earthshaker gun on a Leman Russ chassis. Or more accurately, it's an Earthshaker gun sticking out of a turretless, slightly extended Leman Russ hull, and I think it's ludicrous even for a Warhammer vehicle.

If you look at the layout of a Leman Russ, the engine simply has to be at the back of the hull. With the turret, sponsons, driver's position and hull gun, there's really nowhere else it can be. So on the Mars-Auxilia Basilisk, the breech where the gun is loaded, the fighting compartment around it, and the ammunition, would all need to be exactly where the engine is. This seems to be confirmed by the large door on the back of the vehicle.

I can't make this make any amount of sense, and even if it somehow did, that fighting compartment is just way too damn tiny. More to the point, that thing doesn't look anything like a proper self-propelled gun. Compare, for instance, the Armageddon pattern Basilisk, which does. I think I need to try to do something about this.

**

The Basilisk hull is made up of a top and bottom bit.

I cut the top of the fighting compartment off with a hobby knife, which was fairly easy.

And drilled a little hole in the bottom hull.

I then glued together the two hull halves.

And glued a cocktail stick in the hole to hold the roof up at the proper height.

This makes for what looks like an appropriately sized fighting compartment to me.

It leaves a bit more to be filled in on the left side.

Then it was just a matter of a little green stuff work, finished off with some putty.

This, then, is the Ikteros pattern Basilisk. It's not the prettiest thing I've ever made, but I think it's perfectly adequate on the tabletop.

Produced on forge world Ikteros, home of Legio Venefica, the Ikteros pattern mounts a substantial fighting compartment on the Leman Russ hull, keeping the crew and their ammunition supply safe while allowing room to work the gun.

Ikteros pattern Basilisks are fielded by the Yat-Kha Shock Cohorts of the Solar Auxilia, who appreciate the vehicle's capacity for sustained operations in hostile environments.

**

This was a fun little conversion to do! It may not be the prettiest thing ever, but I'm happy with it and it was a good learning experience with green stuff. I've already found a Solar Auxilia sub-cohort to be an excellent allied formation to include, and I'm definitely bringing the Basilisks in my next game as well.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 26: Scars

He rolled onto his front, coughing blood between broken teeth.

 - The Horus Heresy: Scars, Chris Wraight

We're here with Chris Wraight, who I've read a couple of short stories from that I liked, and the White Scars, the space Mongolian horde of Warhammer. I have to admit that I know practically nothing about the White Scars other than what I just said, but I do have an abiding interest in all things Mongolian, so why not play some Hu and give this a shot.

**

Scars follows several characters, starting with two neophyte Marines and going on to include the primarch, a female Departmento Munitorum officer, and a Librarian, or whatever it was they call them in the White Scars.

The Librarian, separated from the rest of the legion, ends up traveling with a motley crew of Salamanders and Iron Hands. There's a fun detail when they capture a Word Bearer ship:

The Word Bearers had done something very strange to their machines.

They no longer output binaric derivatives, but seemed to operate on a base-four internal mechanic, the reason for which eluded him completely.

I assume it's base-four because of the four Chaos gods, and I love it.

There's a couple of slightly silly scenes in the book, but overall I think it's well-written and I like how the story slots in to the general Horus Heresy narrative. The White Scars have been off on their own, so when the Heresy starts breaking out, they don't know what's going on or who to trust. They face off against the Alpha Legion, go to Prospero to see what happened to the Thousand Sons, and as all this is going on, the warrior lodges in the legion are mounting a coup. It's good stuff.

What I didn't expect is that Scars goes into what happened at Nikaea quite a bit. Apparently one of the few pre-existing details about the White Scars in the Heresy was that Jagathai supported the Librarius, and here they end up being one of the legions - along with the woofs, of all people! - who refused to disband their psykers. I said before that Nikaea seems to have been a terrible mistake, and there's a suggestion here that Horus actually engineered the whole thing, or at least set it up to fail, to some extent. It makes sense, but still leaves us with the question of what on earth were Emps and Malcador thinking.

**

Anyway, Scars is just a really good Horus Heresy novel, and an excellent deep dive into a legion that I really knew nothing about.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 25: Unremembered Empire

That phantoms should haunt Macragge, after all the horrors that had been recently visited upon the planet and the five hundred worlds it held in fealty, came as no surprise to anyone.

 - The Horus Heresy: Unremembered Empire, Dan Abnett

It's Abnett and the smurfs again. For some reason, Unremembered Empire was re-released in the middle of my reading project, which meant I had to wait for it and pay double the price of a regular Horus Heresy novel. This did make me wonder if it would be worth it.

**

I like that not only does the book start with a Shakespeare quotation in the 31st millenium, but that he's also present in the text as Shakespire. I also absolutely love that the title of a ruler of Ultramar is Battle King. It sounds so childish, which means it's perfect for the Ultramarines.

However, there's a lot of other stuff here that I don't love. As with Know No Fear, the Ultramarines are incredibly boring. They're all like utterly average video game NPCs, and the worst part is that Abnett's caught a case of Gav Thorpe and gives us Guilliman's endlessly boring internal monologues. Things spice up a bit when the Lion and his legion show up, but on the whole, the home side is playing yet another snoozer.

In addition to the space marines, John Grammaticus from Legion is here, but sadly his side plot here isn't at all interesting either. He's also teamed up with a sidekick who I swear is the silliest character in the entire Horus Heresy series. He's like a terribly written Marvel UK character, and just takes so much out of the Grammaticus scenes.

I'd say the best part of the book is definitely Konrad Curze, who is honestly shaping up to be one of my favorite primarchs. I am all the way here for Curze butchering smurfs like the Crow. But even his scenes are let down by the frankly silly Cabal stuff, and the even sillier constantly regenerating Vulkan. I'm just going to decide that for canon purposes, none of that happened.

**

But here we are: this is the second Dan Abnett book in a row that I do not at all recommend reading. It was definitely not worth the price.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 24: Legacies of Betrayal

I remember much of what he said even now, but we all learned quicker from example than words.

 - Brotherhood of the Storm, Chris Wraight, in The Horus Heresy: Legacies of Betrayal

Apparently Black Library were reworking Unremembered Empire when I was going to buy it and it wasn't available, so I skipped ahead to the Legacies of Betrayal anthology.

**

The book kicks off with Chris Wraight's White Scars novella Brotherhood of the Storm. I've actually been reading about Mongolia and seen several movies set there recently, so I had mixed feelings about White Scars fiction. But I liked this, and I'll have to consider reading the full-length novel.

After the novella, there's a whole swathe of short stories, some significantly shorter than usual. I won't go through all of them, but I'll give some examples of what's in this anthology.

 - several decent Iron Hands stories; I can't help but feel that all these badass Iron Hands stories are trying to make up for how stupid McNeill made them look in Fulgrim.

 - a nautical story by Guy Haley, featuring a sailboat and the Alpha Legion.

 - two genuinely good Gav Thorpe war stories where he's in a proper old-time Epic mood: Honour to the Dead is just excellent, and the other one has a Capitol Imperialis.

 - Aaron Dembski-Bowden with Butcher's Nails, another superb story of Angron, Lorgar, Khârn, Lotara Sarrin and the Ursus Claws.

 - a Shakespearean monologue from Horus, by John French

And lots more, none of it bad.

**

Shockingly, I think I'd recommend reading this anthology. There were lots of good stories in there.

Epic: The Battle of Asculum Towers

After their bruising defeat in the battle of Basilica 953371, the Word Bearers of the Morbid Fane chapter face a new enemy: an entire damn Titan Legion. I've wanted to try pitting my space marines against an army of Titans ever since I got my hands on Legions, and my friend Aaro was kind enough to oblige me. Neither of us took this too seriously; both of us had a lot of fun.

**

Because I knew I'd be facing Titans, I invested in some neutron lasers by splitting a box of Cerberus tank destroyers with a friend.

One of my favorite units in old Epic were always the tunnelers, because they're just so silly. I love them. I even built one in 28mm, and I think there should be a mission in Darktide where you're deployed in a Termite. So when a friend asked if I wanted a box of 8mm Termites on a pretty steep discount, well, you bet I did.

Three Termites are enough to transport a tactical detachment and attached HQ, so that'll get us started.

In total, I brought my two demi-companies of infantry, an armored company and a sky-hunter phalanx with two pairs of Land Speeders and Javelins. The allied contingent was an Auxilia armored company of a Leman Russ Vanquisher squadron, two Valdors and a Shadowsword.

My opponent brought an Axiom maniple of a Warlord, a Reaver and two Warhounds, and borrowed two of my Questoris Knights and an Auxilia sub-cohort.

**

We set up my Titanicus terrain for some Legions action. I need some smaller terrain pieces! These were designed for a game where the smallest thing on the table is a Warhound Titan.

We rolled for a mission and got Stronghold Assault, which meant two neutral objectives and one objective in each player's deployment zone. For secondary objectives, I picked Breakthrough and my opponent chose Control the Battlefield: I'd have to pass some secretly pre-selected units over his table edge, and he'd get victory points for each table quarter he controlled.

The Crucius deployment was simple: line abreast, with the Warlord standing on the objective. Titans may not have any tactical strength to control contested objectives with, but it doesn't matter if they can kill everyone before they get close enough!

As for me, I deployed my infantry in the dubious shelter of the buildings, and the tanks in what I think of as a Team Yankee/World War III parking lot. I really just wanted to throw my tanks at the Titans and see what happens.

My strategy is going to be to secure the neutral objectives and hope the Titans' firepower isn't enough to kill everyone.

**

As the first turn started, the traitor army surged toward the towering loyalist Titans, which hung back and opened a devastating fire.

One of the first casualties was my Shadowsword, defeated in a volcano cannon duel by the Crucius Reaver.

The first fire phase also marked the Legions debut of templates, as the Warlord opened fire with its quake cannon.

Some follow-up shots from the Warhound skulking behind the fuel tank nearly wiped out the Leman Russes, with the sole survivor breaking and fleeing.

Traitor return fire knocked down some void shields. At this rate, the butcher's bill would be steep.

Victory points:

Loyalists: 0 VP

Traitors: 0 VP

**

Undaunted, the traitors pushed for the neutral objectives. 

On the right, the Contemptor Dreadnought Talon Septuaginta centesimae mortes secured their objective, while one tactical detachment and the missile launcher marines hoofed it over to the left.

Enemy fire knocked out half of the Contemptors and blew up a Kratos.

On the left, the loyalists destroyed a Valdor and one of the brand-new Cerberus tank destroyers, as well as two Predators, sending the survivors fleeing off the battlefield! Traitor fire knocked down the shields on the Crucius Reaver and damaged it slightly.

The casualties keep mounting, but we've captured an objective!

Victory points:

Loyalists: 0 VP

Traitors: 4 VP

**

It's Turn 3 and my army looks a lot smaller than it used to.

This is the turn I sent in the Outflanking Sky-Hunter Phalanx, to see if I could get in a couple of multi-melta shots on an unguarded Titan's rear armor.

As the skimmers moved in, the Crucius Warhound on my right redeployed, and the Auxilia infantry garrisoning the buildings charged!

The Contemptors shot down half of the charging infantry and finished off the rest in mêlée, but the Javelins on my right and one of the Land Speeder squadrons were wiped out!

On my left, the loyalist Reaver made an about turn to destroy my Javelins.

On the right, the heroic Contemptors were destroyed by the Warlord Titan. My Kratoses knocked down the void shields on the loyalist Warhound and damaged its hull.

While the losses piled up, the neutral objectives stayed in traitor hands.

Victory points:

Loyalists: 0 VP

Traitors: 12 VP

**

Turn 4 opened with a charge order for the damaged Warhound, but as it strode into the overwatch fire of Kratos squadron Behold! his mercies flourish, the barrage of lascannons was too much for it to withstand, and the Warhound toppled over.

In the enemy rear, the Termites emerged and disgorged a Word Bearers Tactical detachment to secure the table quarter.

My army was looking dangerously thin on the ground!

Especially after the surviving Warhound wiped our a Predator squadron.

On the right, the Word Bearers surrounded the Auxilia infantry as it wiped out my Land Speeders, and at the moment of their triumph, slaughtered the loyalists with bolter fire.

I'm so proud of this, it's the most villainous Word Bearers-y thing I've ever done in a wargame.

Victory points:

Loyalists: 0 VP

Traitors: 20 VP

**

After Turn 4, it was pretty obvious that I was going to win on victory points, but we were enjoying the game so we played until the end, although nothing much really happened. On the last turn, the Warlord blew up the last surviving Kratos, and only a batch of lucky saves stopped my Whirlwinds from scoring an engine kill on the second Warhound.

Final score:

Loyalists: 7 VP

Traitors: 35 VP

**

So, this was not a 100% serious game of Legions Imperialis. But it was definitely 100% fun, and, I think, a successful introduction to Legions for my esteemed opponent. The amount of firepower coming off a Warlord Titan is absolutely hilarious, and the sheer intimidation of one of them standing on an objective is awesome. I have to get one of my own.

Speaking of hilarious, this has to be the funniest case of new model syndrome I've ever had. Every single Titan-killer unit I got for this - the Valdors, Cerberuses and Shadowsword - promptly blew up or ran away. I think I got like one neutron laser shot off from one of the Valdors. I fully expected the Termites to somehow explode or scatter off the table.

On the positive side, the Kratoses were, once again, brilliant. They're becoming one of my favorite units, as they can take so much punishment while hurting the enemy. I'm delighted that the Ruin of the Salamanders supplement has been announced, as not only do the Saturnine Terminators look gloriously silly, but there are Fellblades and Glaives and everything, so surely a heavy armor formation like the Auxilia super-heavy company must be coming for the marines? I want Fellblades, but I also just want more Kratoses. Entire formations of Kratoses.

Oh, because of the insufferable people who claim the plural of codex in English is codices, my official suggestion for the plural form of Kratos is Kratices.

Another nice surprise was the Contemptors, who held up a lot better than I expected under fire. I'm also beginning to feel that every army could use an Auxilia sub-cohort. They're cheap infantry for sitting on objectives, what's not to like?

The more I think about it, the more I believe a Titan army could actually be viable, and would definitely be fun.

**

Legions continues to be great fun, and I'd like to thank my esteemed opponents for some excellent games. Here's hoping for more next year.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 23: Betrayer

Skane was the one to find the body.

 - The Horus Heresy: Betrayer, Aaron Dembski-Bowden

"If the Bureau of Ordnance can't provide us with torpedoes that will hit and explode ... then for God's sake, get the Bureau of Ships to design a boat hook with which we can rip the plates off a target's side."

 - Rear Admiral Charles A. Lockwood USN, Commander, Submarines, Pacific Fleet, at a 1943 meeting of the Submarine Officers' Conference, quoted in Clay Blair Jr., Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan, J.B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia and New York, 1975.

"Status on the ursus claws?"

 - Flag-Captain Lotara Sarrin

We're back with the Word Bearers and the World Eaters, conducted by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, who I think has to be the best Horus Heresy author by quite a margin. Betrayer is one of the books Games Workshop has kept in print, and it's a nice change reading a physical book again. I loved Dembski-Bowden's First Heretic, and have been looking forward to this.

**

Once again, Dembski-Bowden fully lives up to expectations. As grand and intoxicating as First Heretic was, this picks up where it left off, with the excellent addition of Angron and his equerry Khârn. Lorgar has some great interactions with Magnus and Angron, and Horus even phones in psychically, but the stars of the show are indubitably Khârn and Argel Tal, two of the most charismatic characters of the Horus Heresy. It's like being with the Mournival and friends in Horus Rising again.

If you remember the Super Star Destroyer from Battle for the Abyss, it turns out Lorgar has two more of them. The combined Word Bearers-World Eaters fleet tears through Ultramar, fighting smurfs all the way. Probably my least favorite feature of ADB's prose is when he pontificates on war, especially as I can't really not fact-check it as I read it. But the battle on Armatura is a delight of mil-sf. The way both the captain of the Conqueror and the Legio Audax titans have to work around the World Eaters' senseless rage is excellent, and I can barely describe my astonishment when the World Eaters get resupplied. Actual logistics!

The prize for best supporting character, by the way, definitely goes to Captain Lotara Sarrin of the Conqueror. I love her, and I hope she gets to bombard a planet soon. After Armatura, the gang heads to Nuceria, where they have a climactic battle for the ages. It's got everything from Warhound Titans fighting an Imperator to Erbs being horrible.

I could write so much, but I don't really want to. I strongly recommend experiencing Betrayer yourself. I feel that if any Horus Heresy books come close to transcending Warhammer fiction, this is one. For my money, Horus Rising, First Heretic and Betrayer are by far the best books in the series, and I'd say Betrayer is the best of the lot. Great characters, great war stories, great drama and tragedy. It's simply epic.