"Tallarn: Executioner" by John French

Prompted by the wide-scale re-release of this previously limited-edition novella, and the announcement of a full-length Tallarn novel coming soon (released before I finished the review), I decided to jump back in time and review this – absolutely one of the best Horus Heresy novellas so far. Better even than ‘Aurelian’ or ‘Prince Of Crows’? It’s not a competition… but yes, I think so. Let’s look at why.

PEW PEW PEWWWW

In 40K, Tallarn is a desert wasteland, homeworld of the Tallarn Desert Raiders, its surface near-uninhabitable. In 30K, despite Graham’s ‘False Gods’ line “My mouth’s as dry as a Tallarn’s sandal”, Tallarn is a temperate ‘jewel world’, prosperous and thriving in its economy and environment. All that will soon change. At the novella’s beginning, (which, thanks to ‘Black Oculus’, we pretty much know follows on from the events of ‘Angel Exterminatus’) we see the Iron Warriors fleet burst into existence, jumping from… elsewhere. They translate in disarray; Perturabo’s flagship, the Iron Blood, even smashes a lesser vessel out of the way, leaving it to die. It’s implied here that the Iron Warriors turn their deadly attention to Tallarn simply because it is the closest system to where they’ve ended up – yet there have been hints elsewhere that there is a deeper motivation to the actions of the IV in their stubborn persecution of the world. I suppose we’ll need to wait and find out. Once there, they virus-bomb the planet, leaving millions upon millions dead – but not managing to extinguish all life on the world, due to Tallarn’s extensive subterranean network of tunnels and installations.

The book has a rather interesting format. It’s split into six chapters, each one of which follows our group of characters for a short time period during the beginning of the Tallarn war. These chapters are very ‘ground level’, focusing on these soldiers’ experiences and rather narrow view of the planet-wide war. Between each chapter, there’s a page of wider context, telling you what happened in the weeks or months between these little moments. (This concept – personal narrative, then some macro-view inserts – is also used by John to great effect in his Tallarn audio drama ‘The Eagle’s Talon’.) In the Limited Edition novella there’s a helpful timeline insert to show you the exact timeframe of how long the war dragged on – but those of you buying the standard edition should have no difficulties following the chronology.

Our heroes here are a mix of people who, through various means, have avoided the terrible but quick death caused by virus-bombing. They have survived to become soldiers, whether they wanted to or not. Actually, Lieutenant Tahirah is already a soldier, an officer in the armoured formation the Jurnian 701^st. She drives a Leman Russ Executioner (hence the novella’s name) called Lantern. When disaster comes, they are working far below the Sapphire City. Stranded on the world awaiting deployment for twenty-seven months, she and her unit are getting jumpy, bored and frustrated. They are about to get more than they bargained for. Sharing the underground complex are the Chalcisorian 1002^nd, whose sergeant Brel is another primary character. Plagued by old war injuries which left him with debilitating headaches, Brel is a real piece of shit, sort of a cross between Joaquin Phoenix in ‘Buffalo Soldiers’ and the venal Meryn from Gaunt’s Ghosts, yet somehow surpassing them both in roguish scumbaggery (he makes quite a dramatic first impression). Lastly, Akil is a wealthy merchant prince who trades in the Sapphire City, whose most pressing concerns are that the end of the Great Crusade will impact negatively on Tallarn’s economy. Journeying home through a more proletarian area of the city, he intervenes in a brutal mugging, saving an (apparently) helpless old man from two thugs. Akil’s kindness will have a profound effect on Tallarn’s fate. While there are other significant characters, these three are the ones we spend the most time with, and John works excellently within this small cast at contrasting their character traits. Outside of his extra-legal shenanigans, Brel is like a hunter, relying on instinct and feeling out the battlefield to get the drop on his prey. The moment where he cuts his machines’ systems and lies in wait, using the other tanks in his squadron as bait, shows us just how cold a bastard he can be. Tahirah is more by-the-book, a promising soldier now doomed to an ugly, unwinnable war, and her frustration at this is a powerful motivator – not always in a good way Akil is a bit of an audience substitute, in that he is no solider: relatable reactions to the situation, like fear, guilt and anger, are mostly supplied by him. However, there is more to him than we can see at first glance.

Due to my misreading of key factors of the story background, and the way the timeline insert is laid out, I thought ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ took us through most of the battle for Tallarn. The novella actually finishes about a month after the hostilities commence; we have around a year of war left before the Iron Warriors withdraw. Chronologically, your next trip into Tallarn should be ‘Eagle’s Talon’ and ‘Iron Corpses’, in that order, followed by ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ which deals with the last half of the war. ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ may be little use as an overview of the largest tank battle in galactic history, but it’s a superb introduction to the Tallarn arc – I’ll need to go back to the other stuff before I review it, but my feeling at this time is that it’s the best Tallarn fiction by a long, long way.

There are similarities here to ‘Know No Fear’ and ‘Legion’ – two fairly lofty comparison points. ‘Know No Fear’ in the brilliantly tense writing of the action sequences; while much more ‘low-stakes’ than the planet-spanning dust-up of Calth, the tank battles here are just as capable at keeping you on the edge of your seat. As for my beloved ‘Legion’, the similarity is in the book’s almost exclusive reliance on unaugmented human personnel. The Iron Warrior antagonists and the loyalist Space Marines who flock to Tallarn later in the conflict are not shown as characters. The Traitors are just represented by their sealed war machines. While the spectacular cover image of burning Terminators disembarking from a damaged Land Raider certainly happens, it’s not really a fair representation of the majority of the action. Notably, no Space Marine is given a single line of dialogue.

The Black Library book other than this I remember having great tank combat was Dan Abnett’s ‘Necropolis’, and Dan’s a pretty high benchmark for a Black Library author wanting to write a compelling action sequence which also builds on characters. To be honest, I don’t read much non-Black Library combat-heavy stuff, so there’s likely more mind-blowing sci-fi tank battles out there – but ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ certainly did it for me. However, the action almost feels more like submarine combat – tanks in thick fog, unable to see their opponents until they’re on top of them. The fact that these skirmishes are rather small scale (barring a slightly out-of-place, but utterly visceral, confrontation with a Titan) gives them a desperate intimacy we don’t see a lot in books from this publisher. I guess this leads to the only concern I had about ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ once I’d finished ‘Executioner’: that if, as John had stated, it was going to take a much more ‘widescreen’ view of the Tallarn war, with a larger cast and larger battles, perhaps this intimacy would be lost. ‘Ironclad’ is fantastic, I’ll say that now – but it’s no ‘Executioner’.

The plot here is intriguing and well-layered considering the relatively sparse page count. The tension of that last denouement is handled masterfully, and to cap it all, there’s even a ‘post-credits scene’ to rival any Metal Gear Solid game. The fact it’s called ‘The Hydra’s Dream’ would seem to prove that the shadowy organisation operating from within the Imperial survivors’ camp is made up of operatives from the Alpha Legion – an assumption that John’s subsequent Tallarn work has borne out.

‘Tallarn: Executioner’ is beautifully written. I’d enjoyed ‘The Last Remembrancer’ quite a bit, but this was what convinced me John French was a top-tier Black Library writer to watch. He does not have the bleak humour of AD-B, but nor does he have that writer’s occasionally embarrassing fits of over-emoting. I doubt that, for example, Aaron could have handled the tragic-heroic ‘face turn’ of Brel without making it much more melodramatic. (Christ, I’m using wrestling terms to denote plot points. I listen to the Giant Bombcast too much.) John’s work is cold and clinical when it needs to be yet can also bring some poetic beauty to things. Whether it’s the description of the virus-bombing of Tallarn – in some ways, a more disturbing one than the ‘Galaxy In Flames’ murder of Isstvan, due to its matter-of fact brevity – or the relationship between the survivors, or the bittersweet moment of the poison fog clearing enough for Akil to see the moonlight over his dead world… Well, John’s got that quality that I will – while hating myself to use such a cliché – call cinematic. It certainly doesn’t pull its punches; many of the non-combat scenes leave you just as shaken as the high-stakes tank fights. By showing us the quality of the Sapphire City – not sci-fi beauty, but conceivable modern beauty – John gives its desolation that much more of an impact. When we were told that Isstvan III and the Choral City were once beautiful, did it really sink in? We only ever saw them as the backdrop to a war.

Finally, Silence and Lantern, the names of the two primary engines in the squadron for most of the book, correspond, oddly enough, to the weaponry of Mortarion: his huge scythe is called Silence, and he wields a large unidentified pistol called the Lantern. I’m not sure of the significance of this allusion, but since John French helped to write ‘The Horus Heresy: Betrayal’ where Mortarion’s wargear was named, I’m pretty confident it was intentional. The scout vehicle, Talon, might be a nod to John French’s buddy AD-B’s ‘Talon Of Horus’ book.

As I originally asserted, ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ is one of the very best Horus Heresy novellas so far. ‘Aurelian’ and ‘Brotherhood of the Storm’ are certainly on its level, but cut from their associated novels, could they stand alone? I strongly doubt it. And as much as I enjoy all the other novellas Black Library has produced for the Heresy, none of those come close. ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ is the complete package – ‘Ironclad’ is a great sequel, but ‘Executioner’ almost needs no continuation. 10/10

New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.

"Scars" by Chris Wraight

Sometimes… Shit, sometimes… I think ‘Scars’ might be my favourite fuckin’ Horus Heresy book ever.

o shit look over there son

Let’s not throw other books under the bus. There are close competitors. ‘Prospero Burns’ is a poem, an experiment with style which is divisive in the fanbase, but which I love unreservedly. ‘The First Heretic’ was a complete surprise, not a flawless one, but it brought emotional depth to some of the most cartoonish villains in the lore. And then Aaron did that again with a whole different Legion in ‘Betrayer’, also refining the structure of ‘The First Heretic’, trimming its narrative fat. ‘Legion’ is fucking amazing – but it’s so short, and as the series goes on it feels more and more like it doesn’t belong, perhaps even that its presence hurts the series in some way; it makes all other Alpha Legion appearances so disappointing, and its vision of the Crusade is so far from everything else we’ve seen (yet, I think, so much better than most of the other stuff as well). The same pitfall, in a way, befalls ‘Horus Rising’ – every time I read it, I get mad at the serious drop in almost every aspect of the story’s quality that happened when ‘False Gods’ came around. I’ll argue at length for ‘Angel Exterminatus’ being an underrated classic – but it’s not my favourite. I’ve grown fonder and fonder of ‘The Unremembered Empire’ for its distinctive writing style – but it’s not my favourite.  ‘Know No Fear’ has, I believe, the best action sequences in the whole Heresy, no contest, but it’s probably not my favourite. Probably not. That one’s a strong contender, though.

But ‘Scars’? This book has some serious pull.

First off, don’t read this without reading ‘Brotherhood of the Storm’. Since ‘Brotherhood’ is now available in ‘Legacies of Betrayal’, even you ‘I won’t read anything but the numbered novels’ crazies are going to have no excuse to skip this masterpiece. Between ‘Brotherhood’ and ‘Scars’, there’s a switch from first-person to third-person which readers may find jarring at first, but it’s a necessary step considering the drastic increase in ‘perspective’ characters in this book.

The book begins with a prologue which cuts between Tamu (a youth on Chogoris) and Haren (a Terran boy from the region of Skandmark, which is a great name for a fake-Nordic place). The two boys are on completely different worlds, but their lives run parallel. The prologue takes you through their days as Legion Aspirants, Haren hoping to join the Luna Wolves, Tamu being a potential White Scar. Tamu forms a companionship with Yesugei the Stormseer, and Haren suffers the agony of not quite making the grade for his preferred Legion. As the two of them prepare for ordination into the White Scars, they must choose new names as part of the ritual of Ascension. Tamu becomes Shiban, and Haren becomes Torghun. Shock! IT WAS TWO KEY CHARACTERS FROM ‘BROTHERHOOD OF THE STORM’ ALL ALONG!

I don’t think the Heresy has ever really explored the Aspirant process as thoroughly as Wraight does here. It works brilliantly, not just as a re-introduction to these characters, but as an explanation for their attitudes.

This section also features probably one of the best paragraphs ever: “Many of [the Aspirants] had been taken from the Asiatic hive clusters. Haren disapproved of that. After Unity the Imperium was meant to have moved beyond racial and ethnic stereotyping, so the fact that the V Legion remained mired in the physiognomic traits of their backwater world was an irritant.” Sure it’s a nice indicator of Haren’s frustration and arrogance, but it also lampshades the idiocy of a whole Legion of Space Mongolians. (There are elements of other real-world cultures in the White Scars Legion. Torghun uses a tulwar, an Indian sword; Shiban wields a guan dao, a Japanese weapon.) When Black Library were selling ‘Scars’ as an episodic e-book series, I only had to buy ‘Prologue’ to feel confident it would be worth waiting for the hardback and reading it in one sitting. After this, you might assume Shiban and Torghun will be the main characters here. Unfortunately, I feel Torghun is never really explored or shown to the same degree as Shiban. I did find Torghun a really interesting character so I would have liked more exploration of his motives, but hey, whatever. It’s possible that could be an element of whatever comes next in this story arc.

After the prologue, we skip forward and follow the events of ‘Brotherhood of the Storm’. Ilya Ravallion is preparing to leave Chondax, concerned by the inability of the Astropaths to make contact with the rest of the Imperium. Meanwhile, Shiban is on Phemus-IV, and discovers the bodies of a White Scar patrol group mysteriously assassinated months ago – a great tie-in to ‘The Serpent Beneath’. And Torghun is creeping over to a Lodge meeting to get hella crunk. At this time, Yesugei is on Chogoris, musing over the Edict of Nikea. He comes to the conclusion that he must have guidance from the Khagan to unpick this knotty issue, and though he had been ordered to remain on the homeworld, he resolves to find his Primarch and appeal to him regarding the Edict which he believes to be a mistake. Unfortunately, due to suspicious Warp-storm activity, shit’s kinda rough and his journey will not be an easy one. It feels like by this point in the Heresy series, I should be rolling my eyes and looking at my watch whenever there are sequences where clueless loyalists scratch their heads at the strange Warp phenomena restricting their movements, but Chris does well in making this seem like a fresh new storyline.

Then, the ‘wild card’, unexpected for fans of ‘Brotherhood of the Storm’ but perhaps unsurprising given Chris’ authorial history: we cut to the Space Wolves. Their spirit darkened and bruised after Prospero, and worsened by learning of the betrayal at Isstvan, they’ve realised they have been manipulated and used. Gathering at the Alaxxes Nebula to repair their fleet, they ponder their next move. As Russ orders them to return to Terra, their plans are complicated by the arrival of the Alpha Legion. It’s really cool that we get – ostensibly – a sequel to ‘Prospero Burns’ as some bonus content to a book about a completely different Legion, and it gives Chris a chance to expand on the not-entirely-positive relationship between the V and VI Legions.

But that’s not all! Then we have a meeting on Terra between Dorn, Constantin Valdor and the Sigillite, where they discuss their possible options for squashing this rebellion, and Malcador drops this jewel: “You brothers – such a nest of rivalries. I warned him to make you sisters, that it would make things more civilised. He thought I was joking. I wasn’t.” As someone who has a shitload of aunts, I would say that perhaps Malcador is not completely correct there, but I love that line. And then (yes, there’s more), back with the White Scars fleet, we get a reintroduction to another character from ‘Brotherhood of the Storm’ – Jaghatai Khan. He’s grown closer to Ilya and she no longer feels like she’s going to have a heart attack when she sees him, though he’s still an extremely intimidating presence. He’s also given much more time on the page than he was in ‘Brotherhood of the Storm’; in fact, you could argue he is one of the main characters in this book – and I think that’s as it should be, with this being his Legion’s first novel.

Now, my intro covers a rather small portion of ‘Scars’, and I think you’ll agree that’s a lot of characters and a lot of plot strands for the first three chapters of a book. As I read it, I was flipping out – could Chris keep this many storylines in a manageable, tight story? As it turns out, he doesn’t need to; many of the storylines are dropped quickly. The Terran intrigue is just a nice bonus, a reminder that Chris probably writes Malcador better than anyone else. We don’t see anything like that again. And the Space Wolves strand is a major plot device, but doesn’t persist through the whole book, though it’s an opportunity to get some more Bjorn character development. As for Torghun, he does some pretty significant stuff, but in terms of page count he’s a secondary character we don’t spend much time with. No, ‘Scars’ really just carries on with the characters (and plot strands) of ‘Brotherhood of the Storm’, with a much greater presence from the Khagan. In fact, the Fifth Primarch is the driving force behind the book’s narrative, which is as it should be. Torn between his duty to the Imperium, and his independent nature, the Khan would rather find things out for himself than blindly carry out an order from his brother, whether that’s Dorn or Horus.

The Space Wolf/Alpha Legion confrontation is great, but a relatively brief account. Wraight’s void war was impressive, but I admit I enjoyed it more when Bjorn and his pack were fighting the Hydra face to face. And Bjorn’s angry interrogation of the dying Alpha Legionary, and his confusing answer… it’s so great. I honestly feel that by giving the Alpha Legion an almost non-speaking role, Chris has taken the first steps on the road I wish all the Heresy writers would travel: pulling it back to the remote and mysterious characterisation of ‘Legion’. As a bonus, Leman Russ has a fight against a Contemptor Dreadnought which ends so gruesomely, it actually made me nauseous. But the Space Wolf strand quickly draws to a close, with the VI forced back into the Alaxxes nebula and driven to seek aid from the White Scars – aid which Jaghatai denies them with a frostily polite message mentioning that they must go investigate the reported demise of Prospero. I don’t doubt this moment will be a point of contention when the Wolf and the Khan meet again – but it also sets the Wolves up brilliantly for the Alaxxes fight, something we can hopefully expect in novella form later this year.

With the second part of the book beginning, Yesugei joins the Shattered Legions in their fight, which is a good opportunity for him to discuss corruption and sorcery with the more tunnel-visioned Bion Henricos. (Yes, Bion Henricos. The shadow of ‘Little Horus’ continues to loom over the minds of other Horus Heresy writers, though Chris seems much less indebted to it than Graham.) There’s a telling scene where Yesugei horrifically tortures a captured Word Bearer, before being stopped by a Salamander – Yesugei’s apparent ruthlessness switching quickly to his capitulation and shame when the error of his judgement is pointed out, makes me like him (and the Salamander) even more. It also shows that even the most powerful of the White Scars are nowhere near as intractable as many Legion command elite. It says a lot about their Legion’s character.

Though Torghun and Shiban’s scenes here slow the pace a little too much – especially considering this Legion’s predilection for speed – the Khagan’s quest to find out what happened to his beloved brother Magnus more than makes up for any shortcomings elsewhere. It also leads to one of the most devastating scenes in the book: Jaghatai confronting the shade of his brother Magnus in the ruins of Tizca. Not content with defining one Primarch’s character, and redefining the character of another Primarch who had previously been rather undeveloped (we’ll get to that later), Chris actually writes yet another Primarch to a very good standard as well. There’s no dramatic change in Magnus’ attitudes from what’s previously been written about him, but his dialogue and his characteristics just seem more well-thought out and subtle than the rather one-dimensional wizard king in Graham McNeill’s book. As for their unexpected regard for each other, it’s written in a way that makes a lot of sense – it’s established fairly early on that some seem to think Jaghatai has the gift of psychic powers – Yesugei and Magnus among them. I really like the idea of Primarchs who you’d never think would get on ending up as best bros, so this is a great development. Not only that, but Chris’ Ahriman is excellent as well, much more in line with the John French books. I know I’ve banged on about being disappointed in ‘A Thousand Sons’ before, and most HH fans love that book so this probably won’t stand out as much for them. I have faith that ‘The Crimson King’ could be a fantastic book, so I’m not going to start clamouring for Chris Wraight to write all the Magnus stuff from now on… but it’s a great expansion to his character, one I hope McNeill takes a few cues from.

And speaking of writing Primarchs excellently… the brief flashback to Ullanor, just after the Triumph and Horus’ ascension to Warmaster, sees Fulgrim, Mortarion, Sanguinius and the Khan having a nice family get-together. Buried (and not-so-buried) resentments don’t take long to ruin the gathering. It’s a masterfully written scene, and makes me regret that Wraight didn’t have the opportunity to feature Primarch interaction more heavily in his books. I’m almost tempted to add another one to the list of ‘Chris might be the best at writing this Primarch’ characters: Sanguinius. Unfortunately, in a great deal of Heresy fiction, the Angel has come across as a little fey and – not stupid, but rather naïve, and perhaps lacking in charisma. More sullen than angelic. Here, Wraight shows him as (in Nick Cave’s words) a lovely creature, a conciliator amongst his passive-aggressive brothers with little in the way of guile or malice. This conversation is also a telling illustration of the Khan’s attitudes to the Imperium itself. He does not believe that Horus should have been elevated to Warmaster, not because he distrusts Horus or wishes the role for himself, but because he doesn’t think such a positon should exist. ‘Scars’ is littered with little moments like this showing the Khan’s “fuck the Feds” attitude; there’s a very telling flashback where Yesugei remembers the Khan back on Chogoris denouncing the very prospect of an Emperor able to conquer everything.

Abnett’s Russ and Guilliman, AD-B’s Lorgar, Graham’s Perturabo… The list is impressive, yet this late in the game, it feels like the redefinition of a Primarch is less and less likely. Somehow though, Chris managed it for the Khan, not just redefining his character, but his role in the Horus Heresy. Wraight began to show his skill in this arena in ‘Brotherhood Of The Storm’, and continued into ‘Scars’ (and ‘Daemonology’, for Mortarion). Something in me hopes he gets a crack at Alpharius next, as of all the eighteen Primarchs, the XX seems the most in need of a helpful push at the moment – yet if Wraight stays with the Khagan, I will be far from dissatisfied.

Jaghatai and the Magnus-shade’s conversation is one of the best moments of the book; it reads like an eloquent apology for the intensely stupid actions Magnus’ character has been funnelled into during the series. Yet it’s also a harsh reality check for the Khan, who’s been focusing so much on the horror which has befallen his closest brothers – Magnus and Horus – that he hasn’t quite allowed himself to see the wider context. A side must be chosen. Oh, man. What a downer this book is getting towards the end. It’s like the big homie Randall said, life is just a series of downer endings.

But could… wait, could Chris just… throw in a late-novel game-changer featuring a Primarch who’s been woefully underused so far? And perhaps write one of the most emotionally resonant Primarch confrontation we’ve had in the series so far? (OK, Angron and Lorgar v Guilliman in ‘Betrayer’ is pretty great too.) I’ve already gushed about this in other reviews, so the shock (and spoilers) should be low by now. But when I saw Mortarion show up in this book, it felt like Christmas had come early. I was like OH SHIT SON YOU AIN’T EVEN HAD TO DO THAT! BOOK WAS ALREADY A SOLID 9! Not only is this a great fight scene (unstoppable forces vs immovable object, Spiderman vs the Hulk) it’s a wonderful confrontation of the two brothers’ viewpoints. The Khan’s disdainful verbal excoriation of Mortarion’s self-aggrandisement is rather cutting, but I think if we look at how things played out, Mortarion had a better grasp of how things would play out on a wide scale. I strongly recommend reading ‘Daemonology’ right after you finish this book, and then reading the Death Lord’s scenes in ‘Vengeful Spirit’ – it makes a horrible kind of sense now.

I feel like I’ve compared a lot of Heresy books’ endings (favourably) with The Empire Strikes Back. With ‘Scars’, my feeling is more of ‘A New Hope’. The characters are beginning to realise the stakes, they have won a significant victory, but they know a long hard road is ahead of them. Their optimism is cautious, but it’s still there. I hate saying it, because I genuinely like the Scars so much as characters, but I can’t wait for the V Legion to go down the dark paths we know are waiting for them on this long Heresy road.

When I finished ‘Scars’ for the first time, I might have given it 9/10. I was annoyed that the Space Wolf/Alpha Legion strand was truncated so abruptly, and that all the Primarchs listed in the Dramatis Personae didn’t take a more central role. Knowing the overview of the book, and giving each plot strand the added attention it deserved, I found it to be as perfect a Heresy novel as we’ve ever had. Yes, there were a few moments where I was a little less engaged – Torghun and Shiban’s dance around the Lodges should have been shorter by a few scenes. But it’s packed with superb sequences which stand as highlights of the entire series.

I honestly can’t wait for the next ‘Scars’ novel – from my conversation with Chris Wraight at the Weekender, its publication before the end of 2015 doesn’t seem completely impossible at this point – but it’ll be bloody difficult for him to get better than this. 10/10

New to PurpleHeresy? Head on over to the index page to see a more chronological list of the Horus Heresy reviews on this blog.

Horus Heresy Weekender - Part Six: Conclusion

Day Two

Garro: Knight-Errant

Before the speakers came in, some enterprising soul changed Laurie Goulding’s name to ‘Saul Tarvitz’ on the Powerpoint document. We all chuckled.

In attendance were Laurie Goulding, John French and Jim Swallow. This seminar was partly to promote the new 20 minute audio drama ‘Garro: Ashes of Fealty’ which was a new exclusive drama for the ‘Garro: Knight-Errant’ audio drama pack. We were told it ties into ‘Flight Of The Eisenstein’ more overtly than the other Garro dramas. It was described by Jim as a story of “faith versus reason”, focusing on Garro’s apothecary comrade who is trying to find a cure for Nurgle’s Rot. It also will go into the story of the loyalist Death Guard on Terra who were on the Eisenstein and weren’t named Nathaniel Garro. Jim assured us there is a longer plan for those characters, they haven’t been forgotten, and things will not go well for all of them.

On the subject of Knight Errant dramas, John French then brought up ‘Grey Angel’. John saw Garro as Jim’s character, so rather than doing a Garro story he decided to write a character who’d been done by other authors before. At the time, Black Library also wanted to pick up the trailing Caliban thread.

This led into a general discussion of the Knights Errant as an ‘organisation’ and it was emphasised that Garro isn’t necessarily that central to the way they work – they don’t just follow him around in a line like baby ducks. Answers to questions like “How many are there?” and “How long have they been around?” and “Does Garro know them all?” are probably going to be kept deliberately vague. 

Malcador sees his operatives as tools. There are things Malcador is surprised by – he’s not omniscient. (Case in point, the end of ‘Garro: Shield Of Lies’.) Jim said Garro is trying to find himself and find his purpose. That can create tension between he and Malcador, which is fun to write.

Malcador isn’t necessarily the villain. He definitely isn’t a straightforward, upright guy, which can make him appear to be villainous, in comparison to Garro. Jim likened Garro to Captain America (which I think kind of embodies his appeal).

Q&A

Q: Will the Knights Errant be featured further in the Heresy series?

A: Yes. (laughter) (I’m not sure what the person who asked this question was actually expecting.)

Q: Will we get more explanation/exploration of Malcador’s backstory?

A: At some point, the writers and editors for the Heresy had a meeting with Alan Merrett about the Sigilite’s definitive backstory. It was “too far”. It’s got some stuff which may never be used in the Heresy series. It was described as “chillingly awesome”. The authors also spoke on how they thought Malcador was a useful ‘Emperor substitute’ character, since it’s not possible for the Emperor to show up and say stuff most of the time.

Q: When you write recruitment stories for the Knights Errant, do you prefer it to be a Loyalist or Traitor Legion?

A: There are lots of warriors in the Traitor Legions who are starting to think “I’m not really sure about this ‘stapling a baby to my hat’ thing”, so the Traitor stories are often more fun as there is that additional conflict. Someone said they’d love to write about a loyalist Legionary who doubts their commanders and ends up switching to Horus’ side.

Q: Are there any plans for a Macer Varren solo story?

A: Jim: There are no plans, but it’d be fun. World Eaters are great to write, as they’re so raw, and Varren is just an angry Gerard Butler. (Laurie remarked he looks a bit like Gerard Butler on the ‘Sword Of Truth’ art.)

Q: Any more stuff about the secret base on Titan forthcoming?

A: There are plans to do more with the Titan storyline, though it might be a while before we see that.

Q: Any plans to do a Saul Tarvitz story? (groans)

A: It’d be really fun to do a flashback story, but there’s no (or very little) chance of bringing the character back to life in the current Heresy timeline. It was always the plan to bring Loken back from his apparent death; they have no such plans for Saul. Besides, Tarvitz did a significant job already, in slowing the Traitor advance and helping Garro flee to Terra. He fulfilled his role and perhaps bringing him back would cheapen that. However, it’s still fun to do ‘what if’ scenarios: How would events have differed if Saul and the loyalists had failed on Isstvan III? ‘Warmaster’ shows that Horus feels the events around this time are an endless series of mistakes and missed opportunities for his cause – but his ability to turn them around, to use them to his advantage…. Well, that’s why he’s Warmaster.

Q: If the Heresy series was being written on a blank slate and the ending wasn’t an issue, would you have changed the outcome?

A: Apparently, when this was starting out, Tony Cottrell asked “Why don’t we have Horus win? They won’t expect that.” However, they can confirm that’s not going to happen. Jim: “Yes, I enjoy destroying your sweet, sweet hope – your tears taste so delicious.” Laurie: “That was a bit sinister.”

Q: Will there be a Garro miniature?

A: They hope so, and they’d all like models for all the Knights Errant.

Q: Will there be any Knight Errant operatives from the Alpha Legion?

A: How do you know there aren’t now? (nervous laughter) The things which are appealing about the Alpha Legion are the things which make them very hard to fit into the Knights Errant. It would be difficult to trust any Alpha Legion warrior who was claiming to be a loyalist, and Malcador is not a trusting person anyway, so… probably not. However, when you think about it, the Knights Errant are a lot like the Alpha Legion, in that they wage war in the ways available to them, and not always in the most obvious way.

Q: In the wake of ‘The Watcher’, will there be Ison appearances in future Knight Errant stories?

A: Yes, that will be built on. Also that nearly-dead Space Wolf may be repurposed and show up later on. The Knight Errant organisation, such as it is, is a lot bigger and a lot more eventful than the stories take in, so there are a lot of stories like this happening all the time.

Conclusion

With the seminars finished, I slunk away into the night (well, mid-afternoon) deciding to forgo the closing ceremony.

How was the Horus Heresy weekender? Despite my general dislike for interacting with strangers, and general belief that some of the Heresy fans out there are complete monsters, I did enjoy myself for most of it, though I found it really tiring. If you’re thinking of going, I advise you go in a group of likeminded friends if possible – it’s much easier to cover a lot of ground with two or three of you checking out different things at different times. If I hadn’t felt a pressure to show up and pay close attention to every seminar, I might have been a bit less shattered when the night rolled around and been more intrepid in seeking out scoops from the BL authors, or getting into “bare bants” at the evening’s entertainment (the way this was scheduled and referred to quite coyly throughout day one made me think it was Laurie Goulding doing some Heresy-themed cabaret or something).

As for the people in attendance, they were fine. There was behaviour on display which I find massively annoying on forums (and in real life, as it turns out) like jeering when a character or Legion was discussed, or proudly stating that the novellas are a waste and money, but that stuff was fairly uncommon. I don’t love crowds, but it was rarely too claustrophobic an experience. I’ve learned by now that just because I share an interest with a big crowd of people, that doesn’t mean I’m going to feel a warm, fuzzy sense of kinship to them, and the Heresy Weekender was no different; I had some enjoyable (if short) conversations but I suspect I didn’t form any bonds which will persist throughout the ages.

For my intended purposes (mostly to get some exciting Black Library news and early releases) the Weekender was not a massive success. I’m tempted to try the Black Library Weekender later in the year, as I understand that has more of a book focus, but… ultimately, I think if Black Library really want to promote the Horus Heresy series in novel, rulebook and miniature format, they could stand to talk in a lot more detail and a lot more specifics about what is coming up. The fact I barely heard the words ‘Deathfire’ and ‘Crimson King’ at all over the whole weekend seems like an oversight.

It feels like this would be a perfect place to drum up publicity and enthusiasm for the 2015 schedule. Maybe they have yet to iron out what that actually is, but talking candidly about what everyone’s working on or even not working on, and what will be released this year, seems like something they could emphasise a bit more.

At least there was no “only available at this event!” shenanigans with Black Library here. With ‘Tallarn: Witness’ released as an ebook this week (think of how long most of us had to wait to read ‘Serpent’ and ‘Spirit Of The Conqueror’) and ‘Blades Of The Traitor’ available in ebook format right now – and probably print format within a few months – it looks like Black Library have decided to distance themselves from ‘event only’ shenanigans, going instead for ‘event early’. That’s great, and I really mean that. I’m glad everyone will be able to read the stuff I went to that event for in a few months, rather than a couple years. (Of course, I’d be happier if they had floated a release date for ‘The Imperial Truth’ and ‘Sedition’s Gate’ standard editions.) But the fact BL have sidestepped this but opened themselves to a new type of ‘exclusive’ scumbaggery is disheartening. In my opinion the pricetag for ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ isn’t outrageous at all by itself… but I’m worried when they describe it as a ‘novel’. I’d rather say “Hey, a new Limited Edtion novella came out which cost a bit more and was a lot longer” than say “Hey, a new novel came out which was a lot shorter and a lot more expensive.” They’re kind of pushing me towards the second one, sadly. As for introducing a ‘location specific’ book – fuck outta here with that shit…

I doubt I’ll be at the Weekender next year. Still, it wasn’t a total loss. ‘Tempest’, the Ultramarine minis, the Scars sequel, the Alaxxes novella, Gav’s mysteriously absent ‘Raptor’, not to mention the curiously undersold ‘Deathfire’ – I’m happy the next several months will most likely be exciting ones for Heresy fans.

Horus Heresy Weekender - Part Five

Forge World Book V: Tempest

Due for release in Spring 2015 – “optimistically”, said Tony Cottrell. It’s not quite out of the studio yet, and it hasn’t been printed. There will, hopefully, be early copies at the Warhammer World re-opening in May, so we can expect hopefully by the end of June it’ll be widely available.

Key points it will include:

• Ultramarines (People booed)
• Word Bearers (More people booed)
• Mechanicum (Nobody booed)
• Imperial militia (Absolutely no reaction)
• Warp Cults

In more detail:

• The story of the Word Bearers’ assault on Calth.
• Background on the XIII Legion, the largest of the Legiones Astartes at around a quarter-million Marines. (THIS is the bit I’m really interested in. I think the main fault of ‘Conquest’ was that it lacked a pre-Crusade/pre-Primarch history of a Legion and I think that’s something I really need to enjoy one of these books.)
• Further background on the Word Bearers as the changes in their Legion continue.
• Background and narrative for Knight Houses and Titan Legions both loyalist and traitor.
• A new campaign system (Ugh. Every fucking book.)
• Imperial Militia and Warp Cults army lists and background.
• Additional Legion units and rules.

‘Tempest’ will show FW trying to capture the scale of ‘Know No Fear’. Similar to that book, in ‘Tempest’, they’ll try to focus on the first 30 hours or so of this fight. The Underworld War will follow in the book after this (which wasn’t named) – as well as the continued war on Calth, it’ll also deal with the Shadow Crusade, Ultramar (Imperium Secundus?), and the World Eaters. It will hopefully be with us before Christmas 2015.

Coming up next for Forge World books, they plan to release a Horus Heresy masterclass book – in fact there will be a series of them. After that, they will probably deal with Prospero and start building all the Tizca pyramids (possibly out of Ferrero Rocher) for the dioramas of the Burning. That will most likely begin 2016. The book will feature Thousand Sons AND Space Wolves (presumably including full army lists and background for both Legions, as well as an account of the assault on Prospero).

Tempest

Calth is a microcosm for the Imperium at its height of its powers – smashed by the Heresy. Its destruction is symbolic, which of course, the Word Bearers appreciate. Expect to read a bit about Macragge. Speaking of which, Alan pronounced it “Macraije”? I’ve always said “Mah-krag”. Guess I’m an idiot. In terms of other stuff in ‘Tempest’, the Knight Houses include the loyalist House Vornherr (I can’t be sure how it’s spelled) who rallied at Ithraca (hey, remember that fight from ‘Honour To The Dead’?). They will not survive the book. They are the largest Knight House in the segmentum.

There will be extensive background on the Ultramarines and also on Ultramar – why the XIII are allowed to have an empire within an empire.

As people were expecting, the next Forge World Primarch work in progress was shown – but people weren’t expecting it to be Guilliman. The model showed him looking very noble and handsome, perhaps in a more rugged way than you might have seen him before – maybe even Dorn-esque. FW’s sculptors have come a long way since the grotesque-looking face of the Fulgrim model. There is a lot more work to do on him, especially the base – they’re hoping to get him ready for purchase at the Warhammer World opening (broken record alert). Guilliman will carry a sword and a power fist. Like all Primarchs he had an extensive armoury, but they had to limit themselves to two weapons. It might not be in line exactly with all the books or artwork, but it will be in line with his appearance in ‘Betrayer’.

The Warp Cults are meant to reflect the huge number of mortal units brought along by the Word Bearers in this conquest. It’s not going to be a giant, deep army list, but you’ll be able to put together a pretty good non-elite force flexible for multiple purposes. The list is going to represent the diversity of Imperial worlds. You could even field muskets against Space Marines, if you really want. To the Word Bearers, Calth is a mass ritual killing and it was “great fun” to add extra stuff to all aspects of the background.

They didn’t pay much attention to how Ultramarines are in 40k, as they aren’t yet transformed by the Codex. No exploration of the “We’re the best” mentality in Heresy-era. The Luna Wolves had really been the most successful pre-Heresy, not the Ultras. They did explore some origin sections of the Successor chapters.

They plan to do gladius upgrade packs for Ultramarine models.

Daemons will be present in the story parts of ‘Tempest’, but not the rules. In the follow-up there will probably be rules for them.

The new campaign system will partly be familiar, some will draw from the novel. It’ll be about small scale stuff in comparison to the massive scale of the Battle for Calth itself – you can’t stop Calth from falling, obviously. There is a scenario included which could tie in to the fight on the Macragge’s Honour.

We will see a lot of Ultramarine character rules – Guilliman, a Dreadnought that fell from space (Telemachon?), a captain (Ventanus?). As well as that, there will be some new Word Bearer characters and revisits of old Word Bearer characters (I guess Lorgar and Kor Phaeron?).

The Mechanicum in Tempest will be extra units – not a new list.

Tempest follow-up

There will be a Calth slipcase like there was an Isstvan slipcase.

Argel Tal will be in the Shadow Crusade book, probably, as will Samus. Maybe it will also feature daemon Angron.

Prospero

They do anticipate challenges for Prospero. The Sisters of Silence and Custodes will probably be the biggest challenge as there’s no framework for them yet. The Thousand Sons will probably require the most playtesting. They want to get the magic and the sub-cults feeling right (As I’ve said before, this is an area I always thought was kind of a shortcoming in Graham’s book, so it’ll be nice to see that get fleshed out, in both rules and background).

Other stuff

More Shattered Legions stuff is coming. It was meant to be in ‘Conquest’. FW would love to put them in a smaller book or perhaps into the ‘Tempest’ follow-up. It will deal with small disparate groups of loyalists, even some Marines from traitor Legions who remain loyal.

They do want to do a Mars book. It keeps getting away from them in the schedule. It wouldn’t just deal with Mars, it would deal with the wider Solar War.

At the very beginning of the project, Alan Bligh and John French tried to map out strengths and weaknesses of each Primarch and Legion. Alan Merrett also helped.

Corax will be done – work has been started on sculpting him. They reiterated that they do plan to get models out for every Primarch there are rules for, but they can’t really comment on the timeframe for that.

There probably won’t be rules for Oll Persson, though they may do a book focusing more heavily on agents of the Emperor and Warmaster – but that’ll need a stronger narrative reason for an Oll feature.

Shifting/corrupted Traitor Legions will be represented by both all-new lists and updated lists. Both sides will change as their method of war changes. We can expect more stuff like the Mhara Gal dreadnought.

While I would have preferred a bit more emphasis on Black Library through the Weekender, I definitely could see that this was the most positively received seminar of the whole schedule. The book looks very exciting and I'm really looking forward to it.

Horus Heresy Weekender - Part Four

Day 2

Stone and Iron – the Iron Warriors and the Imperial Fists

Taking my seat for the beginning of the second day, I heard a lot of people talking about what good fun the previous evening was – but it was too late to feel regret now. This seminar was pretty self-explanatory, an exploration of the IV and VII Legions and their entwined destiny.

John French began by stating the Fists exemplify the Great Crusade; they were built to conquer. Compared to, say, the Night Lords, the VII Legion specialise in taking and holding. They scooped up their conquered population to rebuild the Legion, leading to a diversity of cultures. Their discipline and idealism also are a microcosm of the Great Crusade. I guess I never thought of it that way before, but this kind of made me like the Fists way more than usual.

As a result of their viewpoint, the Heresy becomes a philosophical issue for them, not just a military one.

Polux and Sigismund are perhaps Dorn’s most exemplary sons. (John mentioned something about a third son, perhaps Archemus, but I couldn’t really make out the pronunciation). Sigismund, the crusader, the believer. Polux, the stoic and practical. Dorn himself moves between these two extremes.

Alan Bligh took over to speak about the Iron Warriors. Many people consider the Fists and the Warriors natural enemies. It’s motive that sets them apart. The IV were built for a purpose, but what is it? The dirty, attrition-based wars with no glamour, just tearing down the enemy. The IV may not be the most savage of the Space Marine Legions, but few legions are more pitiless. They see war as industry and arithmetic. They are aren’t an idealist Legion like the Fists, especially since Perturabo was twisted by the intrigues and betrayals of Olympia. Winning is everything for them, and the decimation of the Iron Warriors when their Primarch returns is a lesson. It’s not done in anger, but the Lord of Iron wanted to show his Legion that if you aren’t the best you’re nothing. (Hmmm, maybe some Alpha Legion similarity?)

John: Are the Iron Warriors callous? No. I think they see strength in sacrifice.

Alan: They’re rational and logical. They don’t always get the subtleties. Arguably they join the Heresy because they feel betrayed by the Imperium, and feel loyalty to Horus. Facing xenos during the great crusade, they took awful losses, suffering the highest casualty rates in the crusade – but also a lot of victories. In the run-up to the Heresy their dissatisfaction with their status grows, and it’s a case of the weapon starting to realise what it’s used for. Their paranoia and suspicion is fed by Horus. The Warmaster doesn’t necessarily trust Perturabo, and so sends him to do the dirty jobs – ie, Phall.

John: They’re a very passive-aggressive Legion, and they feel unappreciated.

Alan: Horus doesn’t send his own fleet to Phall – since it could be a suicide mission. We will see the IV start to split off from the traitor cause, further along in the fiction. Horus asks the Iron Warriors to stop Tallarn due to too much material being wasted. (Perhaps unintentionally, Alan spoiled the ending of ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ for everyone attending this seminar.) ‘Chaos’ as a force doesn’t fit well with the Iron Warriors. They tend to have an attitude of “We bow to nobody – not even gods.”

John: Yet Chaos is in them, in their obsession with strength and destruction. It just manifests in more insidious ways.

Alan: As explored in the Paramar background, there’s a fairly substantial number of loyalist Iron Warriors. Their logical, cold outlook may lead the more isolated ones into the loyalist path, as they may not feel a particular emotional bond with their Primarch. As for what happens to those loyalists in the Scouring and beyond… who knows?

Q&A

Q: Will there be rules and models for other prominent Iron Warriors, ie Forrix, Kroeger?

A: Yes, eventually. We’d like to. John really likes Forrix and wants to explore his character more.

Q: What will the IV do when faced with certain defeat?

A: John: Not accept it. It “does not compute” in their heads. They will always try to find a way.

Q: Would Dorn, even theoretically, fall to Chaos? If so, which patron do you think he would follow?

A: John: I don’t think he ever would. It’d be difficult. He is still too much of an idealist. Perhaps that Chaotic free-spiritedness would actually have helped him in some of the situations he’s in during the Scouring.

Tony: We haven’t seen any traitor Fists at all…

Alan: If Dorn had ended up in a different situation, if he’d ‘grown up’ on Nostramo, perhaps he would have fallen.

John: The Night Lords and the Firsts have an absolutist outlook in common.

Q: What other rivalries do you like?

A: John: Space Wolves vs Thousand Sons, Space Wolves vs Dark Angels, Ultramarines vs Word Bearers.

Alan: Alpha Legion v Ultramarines.

John: The Alpha Legion want to not just be the best, but also the cleverest. The Ultramarines’ all-round excellence gets on their nerves.

Alan: Iron Warriors and Salamanders are very far apart in ideology, though they’re similar in some ways. They’re both good at burning things.

Q: Any plans to expand on the Kurze/Dorn fight in ‘The Lightning Tower’?

A: John: No, but I love the pairing.

Q: Could Dorn or Perturabo ever have ended up on the opposite side to the one they chose?

A: John – Maybe. Dorn’s role as the Emperor’s Praetorian requires utter obedience, but in Dorn’s position, Perturabo would certainly have been more curious and requested info on the Webway War. And no way would Magnus be fit for that role. Dorn cannot trust/rely on human beings around him and that’s an interesting thing to explore.

Q: Why hasn’t Dorn done anything about Mars?

A: It’s a siege. There’s a war but it’s a slow war. Breaking the deadlock on Mars would probably cost Dorn his whole fleet, including the Phalanx, and he doesn’t want to risk it. Also the solar system is hard to secure. It’s big and there are pockets of resistance all over – there were even before the Heresy.

The seminar ended with a pretty exciting teaser. The last tale of the Fists as a Legion happens pre-Scouring – it’s the story of how the Legion got broken down. It’s never been officially told. Alan and John stated they hope to tell it (I assume they mean ‘we’ as in the Forge World team and Black Library authors, though I’d love it to be a John French novel). It is not as simple as it’s portrayed in previous stuff.

The Art of the Horus Heresy

This comparatively sparsely-attended seminar included a discussion of Neil Roberts’ iconic cover work for the Heresy series, and also the art process which goes into the sculpting of the Forge World miniatures.

Mark Bedford is really inspired by John Blanche, which in turn was inspired by the “grim, dark Thatcherite Britain of the 80s”. He does quick sketches for pages and pages trying to get as many different ideas out as possible. His advice was for prospective artists not to get hung up on using the ‘right’ equipment – go with what works for you.

Neil Roberts talked about the cover of ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’. When drawing the cover art, he’s really inspired by the FW model design and that takes some of the pressure off because the vehicles and units have already been designed – he doesn’t really have to “make shit up”, just make it look as cool as possible. He does like to give his covers narrative context. He likes putting characters on covers – and he also likes featuring “disgusting stuff”. He sees his pictures as a “Remembrancer’s version of what happened” – not constrained by gravity, logic, armour mechanics etc.

Mark: Often when we design the Primarch models, we’ll be very faithful to Neil’s work, though the positioning is tough.

New artwork was shown at this point – a cover for a new book, ‘Meduson’. It looked like a lot of Iron Hand Space Marines and Terminators with one ‘hero shot’ guy bareheaded and pointing, holding a big unidentified glowing thing. Background is a big industrial-type terrain. It looks like a classic ‘cool guys walking at the camera in slow motion’ shot. Warhammer World’s reopening in May will be the only place ‘Meduson’ will be available; it’ll be a numbered edition, it won’t come out on the website. No word on story, length or author.

Rhys Pugh was present – he’s got a hand in the superbly detailed Space Marine ‘diagram’ drawings in the Forge World books. They showed some Ultramarines from the forthcoming ‘Tempest’ book and they looked really great – VERY Roman Empire influenced, probably more than the III Legion even – a strong eagle/aquila motif. Long leather strips off the ‘dickplate’ of the armour, and ornate head-plumes, also seem a little Sons of Horus.

There are also updated Word Bearers – including a jump-pack guy who looked a lot like the Rocketeer. The XVII are starting to change due to Warp influence and their new armour will reflect this.

Alan does have a big say in what’s appropriate for Forge World book artwork. The FW designers are very influenced and inspired by Rhys’ artwork to make their models.

There was a preview also for the very intricate Calth dioramas which will show up in ‘Tempest’ using Forge World models. Looks like some epic stuff.

They talked about the next cover Neil’s working on, which is “crazy”, and Neil thinks he “went too far”. Laurie said “we can’t talk about it yet, but you’ll know it when you see it.” (My hope is that it’s for ‘The Crimson King’ and it’s some ACID TRIP SHIT.)

Horus Heresy Weekender - Part Three

Day One: 7^th February (continued)

Blades of the Traitor

My struggle to describe who John French exactly looks like continued. Here I’ve scribbled: “Matt Damon. That’s what John French looks like. Matt Damon in some Daniel Day-Lewis method acting nightmare.” That seems weirdly insulting, but I think it’s mean as a compliment?

The seminar started with each author of the stories in the ‘Blades of the Traitor’ anthology describing their stories.

Chris Wraight described ‘Daemonology’ as a look at Mortarion’s psyche. He really enjoys writing for Mortarion – the character has a long way to go before he gets to his ultimate destination, but it’s an interesting journey. He also loves, in particular, the Primarch origin stories, and what the Emperor and Malcador had hoped for – perhaps misguidedly – when ‘making’ the Primarchs.

John French kind of repeated what he’d said in the Tallarn seminar about ‘Black Oculus’ (and I kind of zoned out, since I already read that story) but he did smirk that the story was “pretty trippy” which I got a kick out of.

Guy Haley described ‘Twisted’ as showing Maloghurst in “an exciting new light” but then noted that was what celebrities often said about ad campaigns where they model lingerie. It’s nothing like that. Apparently more than Maloghurst is described by the title. The Vengeful Spirit, the Sons of Horus legion, the Warmaster himself – all of them are becoming warped by the insidious influences brought into Horus’ side in this war. Guy characterised this as a “political manoeuvring story” which really piqued my interest.

Nick Kyme started his section with a debate on the pronunciation of his story’s title, ‘Chirurgeon’. It’s about Fabius, post-‘Angel Exterminatus’, post-‘Imperfect’, but it also ties in to the Great Crusade-era of the Legion. He described it as “unpleasant”.

Graham McNeill told us that ‘Wolf Mother’ is a follow-up to ‘Vengeful Spirit’, concerning the ship of refugees Horus let escape Molech. He’d wanted to write more about Slaaneshi cult debauches – “they’re fun and inspirational for all the family” – but for reasons of space, he had to leave them out of the novel, so what better place than a short story to explore them further?

Q&A

Q: As there’s a strong traitor theme to this anthology, were there any other traitor characters you would have liked to write about?

A: Graham: Loves writing about Lucius, but he’s already a pretty major character in The Crimson King. He likes Lucius a lot. You would have expected that guy to have embraced Slaaneshi excess more fully than any of his Legion, but in a lot of ways he’s keeping the disciplined spirit of the Emperor’s Children alive.

John: Would have liked to have explored the Davinite Priesthood more – we’re seeing more overt Chaos/warp stuff now, and it would have been good to fit something in to that.

Nick: Happy to keep working on Fabius, as he’d enjoyed writing about him in ‘Imperfect’. He’d like to write some more Conrad Kurze, but knowing where that arc is going next, there’s not really room to do more about him. (So, could we be seeing a direct sequel to Conrad's predicament at the end of ‘Unremembered Empire’ in the near future?) There was also a temptation to write an Erebus story, but there was a worry that he’d become a bit overexposed.

Chris: Would really like to write about Typhon, or perhaps Ahriman/Magnus – he likes the idea of tackling the ‘second in command’ dynamic. He’s interested in writing the Third Legion as well, Fabius or Lucius in particular – Chris tends to be quite keen on the good guys side, though.

Guy: Again, Typhon is a fascinating character as he’s so arrogant and overreaching and it all goes horribly wrong for him. Guy really likes bad guy stories in general – Maloghurst was chosen for him as a topic this time as there were key issues BL wanted addressed around the character.

Q: And who don’t you want to write? (OH SHIT! SOMEONE FLIPPED THE SCRIPT!)

A: Nick: Alpharius. There’s been a bit too much time in the sun for that guy! When a character becomes so widely written about it’s really hard to find a new angle without making up weird, outlandish stuff.

John: Garro. Jim’s stamp is on that character so deep that it would probably feel strange to write about him. It wouldn’t be easy to do your own version without wrecking something!

Graham: Pretty much nobody. If someone else has done the character really well, then it might give him pause – but maybe not, as he can view that as a challenge, like the Knight Errant stuff being so heavily associated with Jim and them Graham putting them in ‘Vengeful Spirit’.

Guy: Again, Garro. But that aversion does really make him want to give it a try.

Chris: Alpharius – he doesn’t feel that he has a handle on that character, which is why he didn’t put POV Alpha Legion stuff into ‘Scars’. He also doesn’t think he’d make a good Night Lord writer as he’s too reasonable!

Q: Do you feel possessive of your characters?

Guy: The HH characters I write belong to the series, they belong to all of the writers who take part. Having said that, he’d really like to do some more stuff for Lucretius Corvo (‘The Laurel of Defiance’), but he doesn’t necessarily want to lock that character down forever.

John: Wouldn’t want one of the arcs he’s writing taken over – but individual characters are pretty much OK. It was quite hard to let Polux go, though! It can be a bit like comic book writing. Characters are going to change arc to arc as different people write them.

Chris: There are huge characters which you just have to accept you will never get sole writing privileges for, but then there are smaller characters who you feel a bit more ownership of. For example, Chris would really like to write all of Arvida’s stuff (but then I think he said that Arvida might show up in ‘The Crimson King’, so I guess he didn’t get his wish?).

Graham: You need to be very possessive and attached to them while you’re actually writing them – but you shouldn’t necessarily feel that way all the time, you need to let other writers in and not shut them out.

Q: Which two characters in the Heresy series would you most like to write a confrontation between?

Nick: Has kind of already done his ideal one, Vulkan and Kurze. He enjoyed writing it and though their psychological games were quite subtly done, but it seems people only compliment him on the bit where Vulkan beats the shit out of Kurze with a giant hammer!

Graham: Also has kind of done his ideal one – the one he bagsied in the first Heresy meeting, Fulgrim and Ferrus. The most satisfying one to write was the memorable scene in Perturabo’s workshop where he smashes Fulgrim’s face.

Guy: The Emperor versus Horus! “But they’d never let me do it.” He does have a great one coming up between Kurze and someone else.

Chris: He likes this idea, as even the Primarchs have “who would win?” conversations (see ‘Scars’). He’d maybe like to do a confrontation between the two unknown Primarchs (that got a big laugh).

John: Malcador versus Magnus in the psychic realm having a battle of wills, or Guilliman and Dorn post-Heresy.

Q: How do you decide how the Primarchs relate to each other, ie, which ones get on or hate each other?

A: Graham: Some are planned long in advance, some end up as quite surprising. For example, you might not expect Magnus and Perturabo to be close. This lead to Graham doing a great impression of Magnus patronising the Lord of Iron – “Oooh, there’s little Perturabo. Oooh, he wants to build things. Isn’t that nice?”

John: Yeah, it doesn’t always make sense which Primarchs get on, but then, that’s a lot like real life – why people like or dislike each other isn’t always predictable and rational.

Chris: He spoke about the Khan and Russ’ mutual dislike – he thought it was an interesting twist; not hate, but antipathy. He was also really fascinated by the Khan and Magnus’ link when it was mentioned in ‘A Thousand Sons’, and built on that. He would absolutely love to do more on Horus’ relationships in general: was he really the universally loved figure we are told about, and if so, why?

Guy: He’s drawn to relationships – not necessarily friendly – of Primarchs who are mirrors to each other. Dorn/Perturabo, Kurze/Sanguinius, or Kurze/Vulkan for example.

Q: Ever going to do anything about the missing Primarchs?

A: (crickets chirping, barely perceptible sound of several authors and most of the fans in attendance rolling their eyes)

Q: Do you dislike any of the Primarchs as people?

A: John: All of them are pretty awful! Kurze is probably the worst.

New Models

The hall was filled up pretty quickly by a fairly boisterous, enthusiastic crowd, reinforcing the impression I was getting that more people here cared about the HH miniatures than the HH novels. There was a presentation that was fairly packed with new model releases, which we were told should mostly be out over the next few months, in time for the Warhammer World opening (the first of many times we were told to buy tickets for this other event). As well as the models I’d already seen in the ‘Flesh and Steel’ seminar, there were such upcoming releases as:

-Solar Auxiia Stormhammer (big, giant tank)

-Reaver Titan weapons such as a Volcano Cannon and Chainfist

-The Primus Redoubt Gun, a piece of fixed artillery so big it will come with its own scenery tile

-Thunderhawk landing pad

-Word Bearers tainted ‘Mhara Gal’ dreadnought (This was featured in the event programme and had some pretty interesting background, seeming to be some nameless Gal Vorbak warrior who was horribly wounded at Isstvan V – could be just some random guy, but wouldn’t it be a kick if they brought back Xaphen or one of Argel Tal’s other buddies?). This was a beautiful/horrible model.

-Raven Guard upgrade packs – MKVI armour heads, shoulderpads, torsos, command section extras

-Space Marine Deredeo Dreadnought, a ‘heavy artillery’ version of the dreadnought

-Solar Auxilia Rapier-style tracked platforms with various heavy weapons

-Alexis Polux of the Imperial Fists (and Crimson Fists)

-Armillius Dynat of the Alpha Legion (while this was the AL special character I was least intrigued by in ‘Extermination’, I have to admit this model looked amazing – really hope they do an Exodus model though)

-Samus, Ruinstorm Daemon Prince

-Xiphon interceptor (Space Marine flyer)

-Stormbird (This looks really great, absolutely massive – a Rhino can fit in the back. People completely freaked out over this model.)

I'm sure there are loads of pictures out there of all this stuff, since as soon as a new slide went up, people threw up their phones for the snappy-snaps. BUT PURPLE HERESY DON'T ROLL THAT WAY, YO.

Q&A

Forge World would like to do a model for every character they write rules for in the books. All the Primarchs will be done, with some being done more than once as the traitor Primarchs change. Sadly Ferrus won’t be done again (so there’s no hope of a ‘zombie Ferrus’ model for you to recreate ‘Imperfect’ or ‘Vulkan Lives’ with). Even older characters from book 1 like Tarvitz, Rylanor, etc, would be nice to do, time and resources permitting.

There will probably be a Garro model eventually.

Rapier-style tracked platforms will come out for the Legions.

The Ultramarines will be the next to get shoulderpads/upgrades (I assume this is after the Raven Guard).

Prospero Book One (when it comes) will most likely feature both Wolves and Thousand Sons. They probably won’t be in different books. (This leaves me wondering what will be in Book Two of Prospero? Custodes and Sisters of Silence?)

There are lots of plans for the Knight range, and there are more variants on the way, along with more heavy/elite classes of Knight.

Q: Will you put out a Warlord Titan model?

A: These are about twice the size of the Reaver Titan, which is already a very big model. But maybe. Maybe.

Q: Will you put out more female models?

A: We’d like to – there may be opportunities to put out female Rogue Trader, Solar Auxilia or Mechanicum models, for example.

 Meet The Creators

The last thing that happened on Day One was the ‘Meet the Creators’ seminar. I spent pretty much a whole hour talking to Chris Wraight, who is super nice and didn’t seem terrified by my enthusiasm for his books. I’m just going to throw out the key points I gleaned from our conversation.

I got things started with the question I've rhetorically asked a few times on this blog: whether there’d be a Death Guard novel from him anytime soon, since he was so keen on Mortarion and Typhon’s stories. He doesn’t anticipate there being a full length Death Guard book in the Heresy series, apart from the one dealing with the Fall of the Death Guard in the Warp on the way to Terra, and that will most likely be near the end of the series. Since it’s so far off he’s not sure who’d write it, but he’d love for that to be one of his – and to continue dealing with the Death Guard and Mortarion in the HH in general as he sees the Death Lord as an interesting character. However, he doesn’t think he’ll be writing about Typhon anytime soon as Gav is writing about Typhon at the moment (my guess: Gav’s forthcoming Dark Angel work will heavily feature Typhon as an antagonist – see ‘The Lion’).

He normally takes five months to write a Heresy book – Warhammer Fantasy novels are shorter to write, often because the story has been planned out extensively beforehand. He’d love to take a full year to write a massive doorstop of a novel, but he doesn’t think Black Library want a book like that from him – he also finds the deadline helpful in some ways, because if it wasn’t there, he’d just keep writing and writing. For example, he wanted to follow more of the plot strands in ‘Scars’ all the way to their conclusion, but he thinks it works well with some of them being cut short.

Speaking of which, Chris has written a novella about the Space Wolves immediately after ‘Scars’ – in other words, an Alaxxes novella. It’s finished, and he hopes it’ll be put out this year. He’s also just started a novel following up ‘Scars’, and he thinks it’ll be finished this year, though perhaps not published. (He implied that Hibou Khan’s story post-‘Little Horus’ may be a significant part of it.) Once that’s done, he’d like to write a follow-up to the 40k Space Wolves book ‘Stormbringer’, and I think he may have said there’s more End Times stuff coming, though I’m not sure about that.

When asked about the upcoming release schedule for the Horus Heresy, Chris was quite forthcoming, and told me that yes, as far as he knows, ‘Deathfire’ by Nick Kyme and ‘The Crimson King’ by Graham McNeill are next on the release schedule. He also said he thought Guy Haley was writing an Imperium Secundus novel which might come out after that, though he advised I’d need to speak to Guy to get any more information on that. (Sadly, I didn’t get a chance to speak to Guy at all, but that sounds pretty cool!) He also complimented Guy’s incredible work ethic and said it’s almost annoying how prolific he is.

I asked about the ‘Librarius threesome’ of Sanguinius, the Khan and Magnus the Red. He’d explored the relationship between Jaghatai and Magnus, but how did he see Sanguinius and the Khan’s relationship? Chris said he didn’t see them as being close, as the Khan may have been a little disapproving of the Angel’s popularity/position at the centre of things. Chris is a big Blood Angels fan, though, and would love to see more books featuring the IX Legion as central characters, though he’s not sure he’ll get to write one.

He really enjoys the Forge World books and would like to help write the background when they eventually get to the White Scars – but he knows Forge World have a lot of writers already.

If he wasn’t writing for Black Library, he’d probably try writing high fantasy, though there are a few other genres he’d like to try out.

I think that’s pretty much it… Thanks Chris, it was pretty cool meeting one of my favourite authors and having them be a straight-up normal person. Whew! With that, the schedule for the first day of the Heresy Weekender was pretty much over.

Bonus round

In the buffet queue, I managed to speak briefly to Graham McNeill, and ask if there would be a lot of Primarchs in ‘The Crimson King’. He said probably not, as it would mostly focus on Magnus. However, Lucius will feature heavily – the conflict between Lucius and Sanakht is far from resolved. He compared their relationship to the Dread Pirate Roberts in ‘The Princess Bride’ – “Well, goodbye for now. Next time I see you, I’ll probably kill you.” Lucius also needs to continue his quest for answers: why didn’t he stay dead once Sharrowkyn killed him? (Following ‘The Eternal Blade’, I’m eager to see how this progresses.) I did want to ask Graham more, like “If there are no Primarchs in ‘The Crimson King’ but Magnus, why did Alpharius say that thing in ‘The Serpent Beneath’?” and also “You killed pretty much all the Thousand Sons’ power elite, are you adding some more guys?” but I didn’t get a chance – never mind.

I had a fairly bizarre situation while eating, as I sat next to James Swallow and we talked about Primarch penises. Odd.

The legendary Heresy Weekender evening entertainment was almost underway when I decided I would get an early night and fortify myself for day two. PEACE OUT, HERESY FANS - Til next time.

Horus Heresy Weekender - Part Two

Day One: 7^th February (continued)

Opening Ceremony

The most exciting thing here happened before the ceremony had even begun – someone ran in with a picture of a hulking new Daemon model (it looked like there was a Marine next to it to show scale, but on second viewing this turned out to be a Contemptor Dreadnought), excitedly proclaiming that it was Samus. Watch out! Samus is the man sitting beside you. This was confirmed to be true before the Weekender was over.

Tony Cottrell of Forge World started things moving as chair of the seminar, and he would act reliably as the compere for a lot of the events over the Weekender. Really, this was just a rundown of the hotel’s layout. I didn’t pay much attention as I knew I’d be in the seminar room for most of the event. I assume that many people prioritised gaming or autograph collecting, considering the mass exodus as soon as the opening ceremony closed – but I guess seminar one wasn’t the sexiest thing in the world.

Forge World Horus Heresy Book Four: Conquest

The speakers here were Alan Bligh and his “beautiful assistant” Andy Hoare. Since most people in attendance had bought the book already, there was a quick run-through of the ‘Conquest’ powerpoint. The highlight was seeing the legendary ‘timeline’ slide, which has been much-distributed on the web, but is always fun to see. I had a bit of a shock when I considered how close the end of Tallarn is to the beginning of the Siege of Terra; I guess most of Perturabo and the IV Legion’s story arc leading up to the finale has now been told.

The tone here was a fairly measured explanation of what they’d set out to achieve for ‘Conquest’ and while I feel that book’s a bit disappointing compared to the other three, I do think they met their stated goals – though apparently they did not anticipate the Legion Relics to “set the internet on fire”. Apparently conquistadors were a primary inspiration for the Solar Auxilia in their methods, if not necessarily their look. A&A also drew inspiration from the idea of Rogue Trader – the character type, and the classic game, as the Solar Auxilia are really not meant to feel like vanilla Imperial Army, and have a bit more of an exotic feel. (Sadly, I think they ended up looking incredibly uniform and vanilla; if any troop type needed a shitload of bells and whistles added to them, it’s the rather drab Solar Auxilia.)

They talked about the Knights army list, which I found the highlight of ‘Conquest’s rather dry rules section, and how they wanted to show how different Knights are to the Imperial norm – but that they could also be a coherent force, not just towering mega-engines to provide support. That in fact, this was a more appropriate way to field them in some ways, considering the Knight Houses tend to an isolationist nature.

Q&A

Q: What made you decide to turn the Legio Tempestus traitor? They’ve been loyalists elsewhere (‘Mechanicum’).

A: Tempestus have always been traitors, in fact, some of the earliest fluff about Chaos Titans describes the corrupted Tzeentchian Tempestus engines at the Siege of Terra. It was an interesting challenge to expand on their background though, and they’ve generally tried to make the fluff non-absolute so if you want to field Traitor members of a Loyal faction (or vice versa) or field members of a faction supposedly wiped out, you can do that.

On that note, towards the end of the FW Heresy books, rules and fluff for corrupted Chaos Knights and Titans will start to come in, along with models. That won’t be for a while, though there are some new Knights on the way, including some which are “more Chaotic” coming in the next few months.

Q: Dorn’s chainsword is ‘unwieldy’? What the heck?

A: Alan: It’s very big. (big laugh) It’s very, very big. (Conference room goes fucking nuts with hilarity, I unconsciously check for the exits)

Q: Can we expect a more straightforward non-Auxilia Imperial Army list at any point?

A: Yes, eventually, there will be more on the way for Imperial players who want something other than Solar Auxilia or Legion armies. The ‘Imperial Army’ It may end up being a lot of smaller lists in future books – the Imperium is so wide-ranging and non-standardised that getting them all into one book might be difficult.

Q: Any chance of a return to the Rogue Trader-era stuff of humans/Imperial Army using Rhino and Land Raider tanks?

A: Maybe. Tony jumped in here and explained this historic rule was due to the fact GW’s resources were limited back in the Rogue Trader days, so they could only make a few different tanks and they had to adapt the fluff accordingly.

Q: Will there be a GW Heresy-era Space Marine box in plastic rather than resin?

A: (Tony) There are options in the future for Heresy-era stuff if we see it as appropriate, but that it may have too focused an appeal to be viable. (I was not optimistic at the tone of his answer. I love those Forge World models but I kind of hate working with resin.)

Apparently Alan and the Forge World writers get very frequent requests for new campaign structures, which might explain why there has been a new one in every book so far; I inferred from this seminar this will probably be the case for most of the Forge World books to come. Kind of a bummer for me as I find them the most uninteresting part of the books, but I’m sure some people are happy about it.

Alan is very interested in exploring not just the how but “the why” of the Traitors’ betrayal. We can expect to see more on divisions within the Traitors’ ranks as many of their warriors may resent the Emperor and support an insurrection against him but “didn’t sign on for the horns and the tentacles”. We may see some more stuff about open conflict within the traitor forces – and later on, there will be conflict within the Loyalists during the Scouring.

The War on Tallarn

My first impressions on the panellists here were scribbled hastily: “Laurie Goulding looks like a young Henry Rollins. John French looks like he should be on an American sitcom.”

This seminar was heavy on the mechanics of retro-engineering a 40K setting into 30K. The idea for the Tallarn Horus Heresy stuff began being floated about 2 and a half years ago. In a lot of the background from the early 90s, written by Rick Priestley, there were tantalising references to the Heresy. In fact, there were lots of references to Tallarn through 40K’s history, though not always consistently. (I can relate – in my beloved 2^nd Edition Chaos Codex, Tallarn is mentioned in the Horus Heresy section only as a victory for the Alpha Legion.) John wanted to try to make the disparate branches of the fluff work together when possible, so he tried to put as many factions in as have been noted to have taken part: White Scars, Mechanicum, Dark Mechanicum, Iron Hands, Imperial Fists, Dark Angels, Knight Houses and Titan Legions. Some are only alluded to, some play more central roles in his writing.

As has been widely reported, around ten million tanks were involved in the year-plus conflict, and a million of them ended up destroyed. Therefore, John had to make this into a conflict involving more than just the Imperial Army and Iron Warriors, since their participation alone simply wouldn’t be enough to reach that number.

The conflict ends up being a colossal game of chicken as everyone pours more and more resources into the planet. The stakes are too high for either side to give up; all they can do is escalate.

The key difference from Isstvan’s virus bombing was that there was no ignition of the toxic gases, leading to the very different battle conditions – Alan also noted that the Imperium has a wide and varied armoury, and this will include more than one type of virus bomb.

There are plans for Forge World to fill in the wider ‘fake historical’ narrative behind John’s stories. A key element of making these more engaging and believable is having commanders – even Primarchs – on both sides making mistakes. John had an idea while writing his books that eventually, Alan and his team would need to go in and write a lot of background for it, so he wanted to help them out by adding an element of plausibility. That’s not completely possible, since canonically this is the largest tank battle in human history, but he did research noted historical tank battles for inspiration. For example, Kursk, which he described as the largest recorded tank battle of the 20^th century, involving 5000 Russian tanks versus 2000 German tanks – it’s very difficult to conceive of increasing that scale to involve ten million tanks (and last over a year, off and on). Knowing that the Forge World books are so good at covering the ‘wide angle’ background (hell, he’s helped write a bunch of it himself) John wanted to start by taking a much more focused, ground-level view of the battle – hence ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ with its story following just one tank squadron. With ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ he took a different approach, describing it as “the secret history of Tallarn” – more mysterious, kind of a Heresy equivalent to the breaking of the Enigma code.

Originally, Tallarn was set to be just one novella – John is glad they let him expand on it. Chronologically, the story of the battle ends with ‘Ironclad’, which begins with the Third Battle for the Sightless Warren, and the audio drama CD ‘Iron Corpses/The Eagle’s Talon’ fills in some of the blanks between ‘Ironclad’ and ‘Executioner’. John hopes to write at least one more Tallarn story, dealing with why the Loyalist reinforcements began to arrive. (The timeline in ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ says that a distress call was sent by a surviving Astropath found under the Sapphire City, but I guess John implied there was more to the story than that.) Deliberately, some loose ends have been left in an ambiguous state, possibly to be picked up later, possibly not – unanswered questions make it feel more real. John likes the gaps in the background – vague hints and “people just don’t know” shrugs can be more interesting than hard facts.

Q&A

Q: Could we see a return of Warhammer Epic-scale rules to deal with the colossal tank battles of Tallarn?

A: The focus of the Forge World Tallarn book will probably be on terrain rules for the unique conditions on Tallarn – a change in scale is very unlikely.

Q: In ‘Desert Raiders’, didn’t it say that the inhabitants of Tallarn abandoned their ruined world and then found the desert world they ultimately settled?

A: John said he hadn’t read ‘Desert Raiders’, but rather drew from the extensive collection of background in rulebooks, codexes and even the backs of old model boxes. (Sounds like ‘Desert Raiders’ might be the non-canonical one here.)

Q: Was it challenging working out what happened to the other nine million tanks?

A: Yes! It’s a logistical nightmare for the Iron Warriors to withdraw their surviving forces when they retreat. Actually it takes a great deal of time for both sides to organise themselves – but time isn’t necessarily something they have a lot of.

Q: Will we see more stuff about the void war around Tallarn?

A: A bit, but possibly less than you would like. John loves writing void war but the focus really had to be more on the ground combat for this story – everyone is jostling around in orbit or near orbit, but it’s more to get troops on to the surface than to gain void superiority. There is, however, a Sons of Horus character in ‘Ironclad’ who is essentially a Space Marine fighter pilot – John described it as “a really butch version of ‘Top Gun’”, leading one wag to shout out “Imagine the volleyball scene!”

If you're a novella hater, don't worry. The Tallarn stuff is going to eventually become available as part of the numbered Heresy series, just like everything else.

Flesh and Steel: The Solar Auxila and the Mechanicum

This began with a preview of some of the forthcoming models for both of these army types. There’s a Solar Auxilia command squad coming soon, which kind of looks exactly as you’d expect, though the Strategos miniature has what can only be described as a ‘battlefield typewriter’.

For the Mechanicum there’s more varied stuff on the way. A Magos Enginseer model is on the way (I remember liking the look of it, but not what it looked like, sorry). Also the weird jellyfish/Matrix monsters, the Scyllax automata. They were explained as being similar to Space Marine Destroyer Squads – using similar ‘banned’ rad-weapons, but they have almost no organic components, so their own safety matters even less than with Destroyers. These looked really cool, and increased my feeling that all the sculptors in Forge World have the most fun with the Mechanicum stuff. For those who are fans of the Castellax Battle-Automata, something similar but bigger (I think) is on the way – the Thanatar-Calix, which I found to be very ‘Fallout’-looking, with a really 50s sci-fi design – fun.

The Mechanicum Ordinatus machine, only showing up in CAD design drawings, got the best reaction of the day – I was a little mystified by this, as I thought it looked really dumb. It looked like two vaguely Chimera-like chassis in tandem, with a really giant ray-gun type thing mounted on the rearmost track unit. Anyway, everyone went fucking nuts, and it’s supposedly going to be a huge kit, so it’ll sell a lot, but probably not to me (this time).

Alan, along with designers Mark and Edgar, talked a lot about the appeal of the Mechanicum – though there was some Solar Auxilia talk, particularly about the cool-looking Ogryn Charonite models, as well as the rules and background. Really though the enthusiasm came through more obviously when they were talking about the craziness of the Mech and the Dark Mech. Mark in particular said he was really inspired by the classic John Blanche artwork which features some of the “craziest, fucked-up stuff” they really want to capture when making the Mech models.

Alan had a few things to say which really stuck with me – firstly, that the Mechanicum are far more advanced than they let on most of the time. (Ominous!) And also, that the Mechanicum are much less unified than the Space Marine Legions are. There are so many different and varying interpretations of what the Mechanicum ‘is’. While customisation choices for Space Marine armies in the Heresy are relatively constrained, in a way, the Mechanicum is an ‘anything goes’ army. That’s going to become ever-more apparent with the Dark Mechanicum as, towards the end of the Heresy, they start experimenting with shortcuts not available to the Loyalists when swelling the ranks of their armies – ie, using daemon-infused technology.

Q&A

For those waiting for an exploration of the more esoteric Heresy-era Adeptus Mechanicus cults in 40K, it probably won’t happen, as they don’t really exist in a notable form in 30K. (Names of cults were named, but went over my head – sorry.)

It’s not likely there will be skitarii models in the foreseeable future. Though they’ve been featured prominently in the novels, the tone of Alan and the designers was that they saw thallaxi and tech-thralls as the primary Heresy-era troop choice for the Mechanicum – so perhaps expect to see more of those in the novels from now on.

Myrmidon weapon packs are on the way soon.

Considering the often close relationship between the Iron Warriors and Mechanicum, there have been some discussions of crossover within their lists. As we know, Perturabo eventually builds a unit of robot bodyguards as he doesn’t trust his own men to protect him – along with the Heretek experiments the IV get into later, this may provide some Astartes/Mechanicum crossover.

Alan did want to explore the Raven Guard’s esoteric tech-use in ‘Extermination’, but there wasn’t room. The rules/background was written, and it will be in a later book.

Everyone is really looking forward to getting their teeth into rules and models for the Dark Mechanicum – “They will get scary.” On the Loyalist side, they may not have the warp-reliant stuff, but they will experiment with dark, historical (pre-Unity? Pre-Old Night?) tech which is just as dangerous in its own way.

There will be Mechanicum transfer sheets on the way – in fact, there will hopefully be a lot more transfers in general in the coming months, as FW have just hired someone to work full-time on decals. “Jes Goodwin’s daughter, funnily enough.” I don’t know if that was a joke or not, but if it means I get Alpha Legion transfers sooner, then cool.

Fabricator-General Kelbor-Hal will get rules and ultimately a model. Hopefully a book – or at least a book section – about the Civil War on Mars will show up somewhere within the next 4 FW book releases.

There are ideas for Mechanicum flyers being floated (hah!) but you may not see the exact flyer described in ‘Garro: Shield Of Lies’ anytime soon.

Next update I'll be discussing the last seminars of the day, and the 'Meet the Creators' session which followed.