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.)