Let's Read the Horus Heresy: Main series tier list and thoughts

So that's it! I've read or tried to read 35 out of the 54 main series Horus Heresy novels, plus five Primarch series novels. I've divided them into three categories here: the novels I feel you must read if you're into this stuff, the ones I suggest you do read if the subject is of any interest to you, and the ones I would say don't read.

Must read:

Horus Rising

Legion

The First Heretic

Betrayer

Do read:

Galaxy In Flames

Flight of the Eisenstein

Mechanicum

A Thousand Sons

Nemesis

Fear to Tread

Shadows of Treachery

Scars

Vengeful Spirit

Path of Heaven

Tallarn

Titandeath

Alpharius: Head of the Hydra

Sanguinius: the Great Angel

Don't Read:

Battle for the Abyss

Fallen Angels

Deliverance Lost

Know No Fear

Unremembered Empire

Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter

**

After I finished Sanguinius, I took a bit of a break to collect my thoughts.

First of all, the Horus Heresy books were better than I expected. As I said in my very first post in this series, on Horus Rising, great literature this ain't. But it was definitely entertaining, more so than I had thought, even at times a bit emotional. So again, if you're into Warhammer at all, I really do recommend giving these books a shot.

Way back when I read False Gods, I talked about the way the Imperium in Warhammer used to be a 2000AD-esque parody dystopia, but these days are very clearly the good guys. Reading the whole series only reinforces this point. Nothing about this is satire, and the Emperor and the Imperium are very clearly the good guys, and Horus and the traitors are the bad guys. Sometimes there's a little bit more nuance than that, but then we go right back to very black-and-white good guys-bad guys tropes.

At worst, the series veers into leering misogyny and actual fascism; at best, there's positive representation for minorities. So in this sense, these books are very much a Games Workshop product. As I've said before, the company very clearly can't decide if they want to throw the bigots out of the fandom or dogwhistle to them.

**

From a fluff standpoint, so to speak, the Horus Heresy novels do a great job filling in a lot of background for basically everything to do with Warhammer 40,000. I now kind of have opinions and feelings about all of the legions, when before this reading project, I couldn't even have named all of them.

To adapt one of my favorite pieces of reasoning ever, the Iron Hands are the most boring and forgettable legion, which is a distinction the Ultramarines lack, making them officially the most boring of all legions.

So did we learn why the Horus Heresy happened?

Not really.

I mean okay, due to a Word Bearers plot, Horus got stabbed by a demon and went on a weird vision quest? Which somehow made fully half of all space marines suddenly hate the Emperor? No, to be honest, this is like Fallout 3 and 4 in that the main plot really doesn't make a whole lot of sense at all, but it's not really why we're here.

Now, some falls are very understandable. In First Heretic, the Emperor spectacularly humiliates Lorgar and the Word Bearers, and they go off to find gods that want to be worshipped. In Shadows of Treachery, we learned that the Night Lords were basically starting their own Curze Heresy. Then there's Angron and his World Eaters, not to mention the Emperor keeping everyone in the dark about his big secret project, which leads to Nikaea and sending the Space Wolves to attack the Thousand Sons.

So yes, it's called the Horus Heresy, but by the looks of things, the Emperor had at least four legions fully ready to rebel or in fact attacked by his loyalists without Horus doing anything. This leads to what must be the biggest theme of the whole Horus Heresy: Emps is a Really Shitty Space Dad.

**

To very briefly recap, Emps is an angry New Atheist who hates magic and the Warp, so he uses magic and possibly some kind of pacts with warp entities to make twenty* super-supersoldiers, the Primarchs. Each has a personality of their own and there's at least some notion that each of them represents some aspect of humanity or whatever. The Primarchs are then snatched up by the Chaos gods or something and scattered all over the galaxy.

Some of them end up in fairly benign environments, at least for the Warhammer 40,000 universe; they're adopted by some kind of parent (I think invariably father) figure, and grow up to be more or less decent people. Others end up in pretty terrible circumstances, like a cyberpunk dystopia where they become the Crow, a Mad Max planet where they're adopted by the Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah, or worst of all, Space Rome where they become a Spartacus who's bioengineered to be constantly angry.

Meanwhile, Emps sets out on the Great Crusade for Science and Rationalism, which slightly weirdly involves pretending that daemons and such don't exist, and he starts finding the Primarchs. Perhaps strangely for a New Atheist, Emps's method in dealing with his kids seems to be the Matthew Principle: the ones who had everything good are treated good, while the worse the world and situation they ended up in, the shittier Emps seems to treat them.

With some of the Primarchs, it's difficult to understand the whole thing at all. If you're an angry atheist who sets out to make up some guys, why do you then make one of them Theology Guy? And then when he goes and does theology, why is your solution to publicly humiliate him and his entire legion? Similarly, you hate magic, so you made up Magic Guy, and when you decide you now need to do a Super Secret Magic Project, you specifically refuse to tell Magic Guy, and then send your drunk furry enforcers to murder him. And all of that makes a lot more sense than the way Emps treats Angron. He even leaves Goth Guy on his own to sulk.

So yeah, the main overriding theme of the Horus Heresy is that Emps is a Shitty Space Dad, and if you want a single cause for the whole damn Horus Heresy, that's it. I suspect that this forms part of the appeal of the series: men can read and think about fatherhood and feelings if the dads and sons are wearing power armor in space.

**

I'm not done with this stuff yet, of course. There's the whole Siege of Terra series yet to come, and an entire sequel series to that called the Scouring is just getting started. And yes, I will be reading them. I bought the Siege of Terra books as they came out, and the first Scouring book is by Chris Wraight, whose work I've quite liked.

And I suppose that's my final word on the Horus Heresy novels: I've read 40 of them, and I'm going to read more. Part of the reason is that I've been reading about Space Marines and everything Warhammer since, I think, 1992, and I'm not going to stop now. The Warhammer 40,000 universe is such an impressive accretion of lore by now that it has a life of its own, entirely independent of what Games Workshop wants to do with it. And so far, the Horus Heresy novels have been a really good addition to that giant pile of lore.

Hell, they even gave Abaddon a personality.

*hail hydra

Epic: Let's Paint World Eaters

Back in 2018, when I got back into painting miniatures with Star Wars: Rebellion, I found that for whatever reason, I really like painting dirty white. Then I liked the World Eaters captain Skraal in the otherwise pedestrian Battle for the Abyss, as well as the bonding between Angron and Khârn in After Desh'ea. And the World Eaters are really good in Legions Imperialis.

So, when I was painting my Word Bearers, I decided to try a World Eaters livery on a spare command stand. However, I felt that an ordinary command stand would be boring, so I swapped the two bolter marines for spare sergeant models. I did a weapon swap between the plasma gunner leader and one of the assault marines, which I think worked quite nicely.

I gave them an Ivory base coat, with Medium Blue shoulder pads and various details, followed by a Smoke wash.

I like how this looks! I also decided to try the legion colors on some Spartans, and again, the result was delightful.

I also accidentally some Contemptors.

So as you can see, I got a bit carried away. When I got my Termites, I also painted two of them in World Eaters colors.

And finally, when Shaun gave me two Mastodons, how was I supposed to not paint one of them white?

The idea of a World Eaters Mastodon is simply irresistable. I could put the Contemptors in it.

**

I was thinking I'd wait for some more World Eaters-appropriate infantry until I continued this project - surely we must get Despoilers or something at some point - but I think it was the Mastodon that tipped me over into painting a full demi-company.

This also meant finishing the assault detachment.

And some Rhinos, of course.

So, let's call this the 117th Company, II Battalion, 11th Chapter of the World Eaters. I also did a couple of Terminator stands.

**

I'm a little uncertain of how to play World Eaters in any game, really. If you read Betrayer, you really get the impression that the post-Nails World Eaters are barely an army any more, but rather a horde of maniacs. In Legions terms, they should only ever be allowed Charge orders, or maybe something like being able to take normal orders on turn 1, but then only Charge or March on turn 2 and only Charge from then on.

For these guys, I'm going to decide that they're a separate group from Angron's main fleet, so they haven't been implanted with the Nails yet and can operate more or less like normal Marines. At least to the extent the World Eaters ever did.

Soon I'll have the opportunity to see how they do on the tabletop!

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 40: Sanguinius

Now he was running, properly sprinting down the corridors.

 - The Horus Heresy: Primarchs: Sanguinius: The Great Angel, Chris Wraight

I liked Chris Wraight's White Scars novels, and I've already started painting some traitor Blood Angels for Legions Imperialis because of Fear to Tread. So I chose Wraight's Sanguinius to be the last Horus Heresy novel I read before moving on to the Siege of Terra series.

It's funny that I just mentioned remembrancers when talking about Alpharius, and here we are starting Sanguinius with one. Disgraced remembrancer Avajis Kautenya is sent to meet Sanguinius and chronicle the deeds of his legion. He's gotten in trouble before for being too critical, and he's told to be as critical as he can be here. So he travels with the Blood Angels, watches them go to war, and just does the whole remembrancer thing as if this was Horus Rising all over again.

Other than starring the Blood Angels, Sanguinius is also like Fear to Tread in that you know what's coming, even though the protagonist doesn't, and it still works. I mean everyone at least a little bit familiar with the fluff knows what the terrible dark secret of the Blood Angels is, but it doesn't matter because the story's written so well. It's also a perfect volume to end this stage of my project on, as it starts with the Horus Rising vibes and ends on an epilogue set after the Heresy, when the Imperial cult is being set up. Very entertaining, highly recommended.

Let's Play Warhammer Renaissance: The First Sheep Raid of Dudesdale

I have had the great pleasure of playing my first game of Warhammer Renaissance! We played a 1000-point game, with two players on each side: I brought a 500-point Khorne warband and allied with the Skaven to fight the Bretonnians and their Dwarf allies, in what I have dubbed the First Sheep Raid of Dudesdale. We had an excellent time.

**

This was my army list:

Chaos Hero Thekla von Grauschädel - 135 points

 Mark of Khorne, additional hand weapon

The Scholars of Brass and Blood:

9 Chaos Warriors - 162 pts

The Moon Dancers:

5 Marauder Horsemen - 115 pts

 +10 standard bearer = 125 points

5 Bloodletters of Khorne - 80 points

For a total of 502 points. My Skaven allies fielded a block of Clanrats led by their general, a unit of Skaven Slaves, a Warpfire Thrower, some Poison Wind Globadiers, a battery of Jezzails and some Giant Rats.

For the objective, we rolled an 8 for Take the Relic: we would be fighting over an arcane landmark in the center of the table. Ordinarily, it would provide extra Winds of Magic cards to the first wizard to reach it, so we decided instead that the first character to reach it could draw a random magic item. One of the other players had brought some sheep miniatures, and they were placed in the middle of the landmark so we'd have something to fight over.

Here's how we set up the terrain.

We drew each player a random magic item or rune, as appropriate; mine was the rather underwhelming Silver Sigil Sword, for +3 Initiative. Our host also owns a full deck of Chaos Gift cards, so I would have them at my disposal - for better or worse! As this was such a small game, I would only draw one Gift per turn.

In proper Warhammer Renaissance fashion, we drew our deployment onto a piece of paper, and then both sides simultaneously deployed their units. Here's the Chaos-Skaven deployment and battle plan:

My Marauder Horsemen deployed on the far left, in hopes of flanking the enemy, with the Bloodletters and Chaos Warriors heading right up the middle to capture the objective. The Skaven infantry massed on our right, accompanied by the Warpfire Thrower and Globadiers, with the Giant Rats taking the right flank and the Jezzails in firing positions on the hill.

I apologize for the improvised movement trays! Facing us were the forces of Dudesdale and their Dwarf allies:

In the center were the dwarves, with one unit of infantry led by their general, and a unit of Thunderers, as well as a Flame Cannon on the hill. The Bretonnians deployed a huge unit of archers on the left flank, next to some foot knights, with five crossbowmen on the hill and a regiment of Knights on the right.

I have to admit that my heart sank when I saw the Bretonnian Knights in their panoply directly opposite my samurai rabbits. I didn't think there was any way I was going to win that fight, so at this point my hope was to draw the knights out into jezzail range, and maybe at least tie them up for a turn so that the Bloodletters could get at them.

Dudesdale won the die roll to go first, and we got the game started!

**

Turn 1

Seeing the Khorne runes and the seething mass of rats before them, the Dudesdale forces opted to not move, except for the archers on their left taking position on the hill.

All the action was in the shooting phase. The crossbowmen on the hill let loose at the Bloodletters, only to see their bolts burst into flames midair as the daemonic aura easily repelled the attack. The dwarf Flame Cannon took aim at the Chaos Warriors, and the dwarven gunnery was dismayingly exact.

Two Chaos Warriors fell.

On our turn, we advanced into the teeth of the enemy fire. The rat-men surged forward while my Chaos Warriors made contact with the objective, and the Moon Dancers used their Fast Cavalry mobility to skirt around the edge of the woods, keeping the abandoned watchtower between themselves and the enemy knights.

The jezzail teams fired at the flame cannon, hitting both the machine and the crew, but failed to score any wounds. Meanwhile, my hero being the first to reach the arcane landmark, she secured the magic item hidden there, which turned out to be the Shield of Ptolos.

**

Turn 2

Again, the Dudesdale line stood and waited for us to come to them, with the single exception of the knights, who, with appropriate Bretonnian hauteur, advanced at a stately pace slightly past the watchtower.

The ensuing shooting phase was pure murder. The crossbowmen took down three Bloodletters, and the archers and Thunderers cut a bloody swathe into the Clanrats. The flame cannon scored another direct hit, and I failed all my saves, leaving five Chaos Warriors knocked out of the battle! Luckily my units passed their panic tests.

When our turn came, Khorne decided he had had enough, as I drew Lose Gifts, immediately discarding the only other card I held. To be honest, I couldn't blame him; I thought the battle was over after that shooting phase.

Still, we weren't going down without a fight. While the remaining Chaos Warriors and Hero took cover by the ritual stones and the Bloodletters marched on, our flankers charged. The Skaven Packmaster drove his Giant Rats up the hill and into the Dudesdale archers, and with a resounding rabbity banzai, the Moon Dancers charged the Bretonnian Knights!

In the shooting phase, the Skaven jezzail teams switched targets to the crossbowmen, knocking down three and forcing a panic test, which the survivors failed.

On the right, the Giant Rats killed an archer, but lost the combat by a considerable margin and fled, which caused the Skaven Slaves to panic!

On our left, the Marauder Horsemen lost one of their number, but brought down two Bretonnians.

That was enough to win the combat, and the Bretonnians promptly failed their break test and fled off the table!

I tried to restrain the Moon Dancers, but they also failed their Leadership test and galloped off the table in pursuit!

**

Turn 3

At the start of turn 3, I had a total of five models left on the battlefield. Everyone else was playing Warhammer, I was suddenly playing Age of Sigmar.

On the Dudesdale left, the archers charged the Poison Wind Globadiers in front of them, who fled into the woods. In the center, the dwarf infantry advanced and the flame cannon hit the Chaos Warriors once again, killing one of the two survivors. Thekla was also hit, and even the Shield of Ptolos couldn't protect her, and she fell.

I now had three models on the battlefield! Luckily, at the start of our turn, the Moon Dancers returned and galloped for the hill. Since my lone surviving Chaos Warrior couldn't claim the objective all alone, she and the Bloodletters charged the dwarves. On our right, the Clanrats charged the Bretonnian foot knights.

In the shooting phase, the Skaven Warpfire Thrower supported my fight in their inimitable way by firing into the mêlée, broiling some dwarves. The jezzails fired at the Dwarf Thunderers, but to no effect.

My daemons and Chaos Warrior did very little damage; in return, the dwarves killed the last Chaos Warrior and one of the Bloodletters. The last daemon failed its break test and disappeared into the warp, no doubt to face Khorne's fury.

Meanwhile, the Clanrats wiped out the foot knights!

The exuberant ratmen charged on as far as the hill, not realizing that this put the entire enemy army behind them.

**

Turn 4

The dwarf infantry advanced to the objective, while the archers continued their pursuit of the fleeing Skaven, charging and wiping out the giant rats. Meanwhile, the dwarf crew frantically wheeled around the flame cannon to shoot at the oncoming Marauders, but for the first time in the battle, they missed, overshooting the Moon Dancers completely.

On our turn, the Skaven Slaves continued to flee, blocking the line of sight of some of the jezzail teams on the hill.

The clanrats reformed and made for the Dwarf Thunderers, while my Marauder Horsemen charged the Flame Cannon.

The Warpfire Thrower team fired at the Dudesdale archers, hoping to make them flee off the table. Eight of them died in the flames, but the archers passed their panic test.

The jezzails sniped one of the dwarves holding the objective, and in the close combat phase, the Moon Dancers avenged their fallen comrades by wiping out the flame cannon crew.

Their overrun move carried them straight into the flank of the Dwarf Thunderers!

**

Turn 5

The homicidal (raticidal?) Dudesdale archers charged and wiped out the last remaining Poison Wind Globadiers, while the dwarves reformed to face the enemy. In the close combat phase, the Moon Dancers tore into the Dwarf Thunderers, killing half of them and sending the survivors fleeing.

On our turn, the Skaven Slaves fled onto the hill and created an almighty mess with the jezzail teams.

The Clanrats charged the dwarves, determined to seize the objective or die trying.

Unable to charge, the Moon Dancers moved to contest the objective and flank the dwarves if the game went to a sixth turn.

The mêlée was bloody but inconclusive, and when we rolled for a sixth turn, we didn't get it, so that's where the game ended! As darkness began to fall, both sides beat a retreat.

With both sides wreaking carnage on each other, our victory point totals were closely matched. And since both sides had one unit close enough to contest the objective, no victory points were awarded for it, making the game a draw.

**

That was a very hard-fought and eventful game, and we had a great time. I want to thank my opponents and my ally for an excellent game, and I'm very impressed by how smoothly the rules worked. We set up and played the game in a little under four hours, which is kind of impressive.

Since we had a lot of small units, mêlée combat was especially deadly, with units breaking or even being wiped out in just one round of combat. This also really underscored how important it was to get the charge! In general, there's a very authentic Warhammer feel where anything can happen based on the luck of the dice, and I love it.

As for my army, I'd have loved to have seen my Chaos Warriors or Bloodletters in action properly, and maybe if I hadn't failed so miserably in rolling saves, it might have happened. But then again, they absorbed all that firepower, which let the others get to close quarters.

My Marauder Horsemen were clearly the stars of the show, and I'm beyond delighted by their performance. Getting the charge against the Bretonnians was key, and clearly Khorne rewarded their bloodthirst. I'm pretty sure I want more Marauder horse, and also more infantry! Maybe a larger block of Marauders wouldn't be so easy to annihilate at range. Also, maybe a mounted character would actually have made it into combat!

**

To sum up: Warhammer Renaissance is great, and I can't wait to play more of it.

Since neither side managed to secure the objective, the sheep went unclaimed. I imagine that all armies will have sent their people to recover the wounded and salvage any equipment they can; certainly Khorne won't let his warriors escape his service that easily. The next dawn will reveal a scorched and bloody battlefield, and grazing around the standing stone, some very confused sheep.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 39: Alpharius

I am Alpharius.

 - The Horus Heresy: Primarchs: Alpharius: Head of the Hydra, Mike Brooks

The Alpha Legion are still one of my favorite legions, but I haven't really formed a very solid picture of Alpharius yet. Mike Brooks is here to fix that.

**

Way back in Horus Rising, the remembrancers attached to the Luna Wolves played a prominent part in the story to highlight how superhuman the space marines were. Beyond them, the Primarchs were mystical, almost otherworldly.

Several years and a pile of novels later, the space marine point of view is the default, and Primarchs are too often just boring. I complained about this when I read the Primarchs anthology, although there are worse offenders. At first, Brooks's Alpharius comes off the same way: distant, impersonal and mundane.

In the first part of the book, which owes a lot to Dan Abnett's Blood Games and Praetorian of Dorn, young Alpharius tests the defenses of the Imperial Palace. It's not bad, but it's also not great. The story picks up when Alpharius is secretly united with his legion and goes crusading. Of course, because they're the Alpha Legion, they can't just be crusading, but have to have a secret sidequest, which leads them to join the Dark Angels in the Rangdan Xenocides and fight the Slaugth.

This second part of the book is much better, and makes the whole thing worth reading. There's good stuff here, including a welcome nod to the gambit roulette nature of the Alpha Legion's cunning plans when unrest they've fomented on a planet threatens to derail their super-secret mission. Also of note is an entirely positive portrait of a same-sex couple with a child, which is a welcome change from the quasi-fascism of some Black Library authors.

I already liked Alpharius and his legion; now I like them more. Alpharius goes on the Do Read list.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 38: Konrad Curze

Corpse-grey Tsagualsa turned under the light of a sickly star.

 - The Horus Heresy: Primarchs: Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter, Guy Haley

As I've said before, reading the Horus Heresy books has made me into something of a fan of the Night Lords and their incredibly goth primarch. So when I looked at the list of Primarchs novels, I had to get the Curze one.

Sadly, this was a mistake. Konrad Curze has the dubious distinction of being the only Horus Heresy novel I've read that has nothing of substance to add to the Warhammer canon whatsoever. It takes Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Night Lords trilogy, rehashes the things it said about Curze, and fills in a few bits that weren't explicitly spelled out by Dembski-Bowden, while adding nothing that would matter at all.

This book came out in 2019; the Dembski-Bowden novels were published 2010-12, and the omnibus came out in 2014. So barely five years after the omnibus, Black Library puts out this boring executive summary of what Curze was like in it. Why they did this I cannot conceive.

In general, I feel that a book shouldn't be critiqued for what it isn't. I mean this in the sense that this is the book the author chose to write, and criticism should assess that book, instead of saying they should have written something else. In this case, though, I'm breaking my rule, because of how bad this particular decision by the author is.

As I said, Curze sulking on Tsagualsa (which I keep thinking is Tsathoggua) has already been covered in the Night Lords trilogy. So far, the other Primarchs novels I've read were set before the great events of the Horus Heresy, but not this one. That's what I don't get at all. I mean yes, Curze's backstory as the Crow on planet Cyberpunk Gotham has already been told, but surely not all of it. We've barely had any glimpses into the Eighth Legion before the Heresy, or how Curze shaped them in his image. You'd think this would be significant, because by the time we properly meet Curze in Shadows of Treachery, he's already on the brink of starting his own personal Curze Heresy. So in this case, I do feel a strong sense of disappointment that the Primarchs novel on Curze chose to cover no new ground at all.

So yeah, not worth your time or money.

Warhammer Renaissance: Let's Paint Chaos Warriors

My main wargaming project right now is building a Warhammer Renaissance Chaos army from what I already own. I've already got some Khorne Daemons, and in Renaissance a Chaos army can be either Chaos Warriors, Beastmen or Daemons, or all three combined. Obviously that's the most fun, but at under 2000 points, it means the army has to be dedicated to only one Chaos god. So it turns out I'm building a Khorne warband.

**

My first unit is some Marauder Horsemen. I've previously used the Samurai Rabbits from Eureka Miniatures' excellent Pond Wars range for my Stormbun Eternals and the Loyal Zootopian Lancers. Reading some Usagi Yojimbo gave me an idea, which led me to Warlord's Samurai Horsemen. I was originally going to field them as Rough Riders in 40k, but now they have the perhaps dubious honor of being the first full unit to join my Warhammer Renaissance Chaos warband.

Stillmania compels me to name each unit and provide them with a background, so:

The Moon Dancers

Long ago, in the land of Nippon, six samurai were so consumed by the way of the warrior that they lived only for battle and killing. Their daimyo, sickened by their bloodthirst, banished them from his service, making them rōnin, warriors without a master. As their infamy grew, no-one in Nippon would retain their services. And so the six rōnin headed north into the Chaos Wastes, where they dedicated themselves to Khorne and now ride under his bloody banner.

Six Marauder Horsemen with a standard bearer are worth 138 points.

**

In addition to the horsemen, I also own a whole regiment of twelve Chaos Warriors, assembled and undercoated, who've sat on a shelf for so long that they were covered in a thick layer of dust.

Since our first game will be at 750 points, with a maximum points value per unit of 200, I can't field all twelve of them; ten Chaos Warriors add up to 180 points.

I think it's funny that I painted these specifically for Renaissance, which is basically an Oldhammer project, and I kind of accidentally made this the most grimdark unit I've ever painted. But I wanted them to look like proper fantasy villains, and I think I did.

The Scholars of Brass and Blood

Siegfried Totenbaum, High Professor of the Altdorf Polytechnical College, decided to experiment with an innovative new teaching technique called the group project. His students were divided into groups and told that their grade, and therefore their entire future, now depended on the success of their group project.

The first student death occurred two weeks into the project. Several fatal accidents followed, later escalating into outright murders and open warfare. Soon Totenbaum had been assassinated and the Polytechnical College was engulfed in flames. The only known survivors were a group of students who swore an oath to Khorne, overcame their enemies, and fled through the sewers as the College collapsed above them. They now roam the Chaos Wastes as warriors of the Blood God.

The obscure elven tome Totenbaum got his idea from, known by its Classical title Rota Magna, is believed to have been destroyed in the fire.

**

Now all I need is a character to lead the army. A while ago, Archon Studios made a 28mm He-Man miniature game. I bought it on a whim; I watched the Filmation animated show religiously as a kid. So here I was, thinking that I need a Chaos Hero with something I can plausibly pass off as an Icon of Khorne from the magic item list - and I remembered I also got the Teela expansion.

I think she looks pretty good in Khorne's colors!

Of course we have to give her a name, so:

Thekla von Grauschädel

Born in the lowly hamlet of Grauschädel in Reikland, Thekla was sent to work as a maid for a local wizard. Slaving away in his household, Thekla developed a passionate hatred for her master and all magic-users. One of the older servants taught Thekla to read, and in the wizard's library, she found tomes with rituals for the destruction of magic-users. The wizard was such a brutal master that many of his servants soon joined a cult dedicated to his murder, and with young Thekla's leadership, he was soon dead and his manor burned to the ground. Thekla and the other servants fled into the woods, where she soon became their leader. The cult activities continued, and Thekla eventually drew Khorne's eye and earned his mark.

**

Together with some Bloodletters, I now have a tiny Chaos army for Warhammer Renaissance, and I'm hoping to get to try a game soon!