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.

Horus Heresy Weekender - Part One

PURPLE HERESY BLAZIN' IT UP @ HORUS HERESY WEEKENDER, 7^th, 8^th February 2015 at the Nottingham Belfry Hotel. This coverage is totally non-exclusive and has most likely already been covered by your favourite forums... with that in mind... let's get into some shit.

DISCLAIMER! I took extensive notes throughout the weekend and my memory is fairly good, but I didn’t have a hidden lapel-mic handy (Alpharius doesn’t let us take those out of the treehouse) and video wasn’t allowed on-site, so any quote from any person is not going to exactly be verbatim. I’ve tried instead to mostly give the ‘feel’ of what was said rather than exact replications, but when it felt like it was appropriate I’ve sprinkled in some quotes I could more or less be sure of remembering with some accuracy. If you feel I’ve misrepresented what was said (especially if it was you who said it!) drop me a comment and I’ll try to rephrase it or cut it out, within reason.

Day Zero: 6^th February

Arriving safely at the hotel, I checked in and got all my shit in order before wandering down to the lobby to see the Black Library and Forge World tables being set up. But they didn’t look like they would let me buy everything early and fuck off home, so I gave up on that pretty quickly.

I ate alone. The older couple next to me in the restaurant asked our waitress why the hotel was so busy. Her reply was, as far as I could tell, “It’s a Games Workshop event all weekend, so people come from all around and workshop.” Made it sound like an improv convention or something! On the other hand I was glad she wasn’t more truthful or accurate – if she’d said “Grown men come to buy little toys and get way to excited over stories about space-knights and wizards”, I’d probably have collapsed from shame.

Following my meal I did note the increasing amount of scary-looking geek motherfuckers in the bar (be fair – most people look scary to me) and briefly wondered if I should yank off the band-aid and go introduce myself around, but in the end I decided to slink off to my room. I did sneak a look at the BL stalls again and noted the presence of several novellas, including the new one ‘Blades Of The Traitor’.

Unused to a double bed, and a bit apprehensive of how things might go tomorrow, I spent a rather restless night half-sleeping. I woke up at around three in the morning having just dreamed about having to explain to a work colleague why I was going to this thing, and ending up being unable to speak. I’d also dreamed about going out to a reservoir to be alone, and getting surrounded by wild foxes, Jurassic Park velociraptor style. Both pretty clearly illustrated my worries about the days ahead. After eating an oat bar and falling back asleep, I had a further weird dream about being a waiter and having to resolve the arguments of my female colleagues, who were from Vietnam, France and East Anglia. I don’t even want to think about what that one means, but it's probably pretty patronising.

Day One: 7^th February

Breakfast was an interesting experience. Looking around the restaurant, I started to get the sense of who I’d be sharing a conference hall with for the next 24+ hours. It actually looked like a cross-section you’d expect to see queueing for a gig by a fairly popular metal band. You had some people who were into ‘the lifestyle’ to such an extent it screamed from every aspect of their appearance, but also some older guys who str8 didn’t give a fuck, and some young, relatively hip people. I was surprised at the amount of couples in attendance. I’m sure there are lots of couples who like the Heresy but my cynical asshole brain just went straight to “Pfft, yeah, right, buddy, she’s just pretending to be interested in what you like; really she’s bored senseless. It’s the same when you’re having sex.”

But enough of me projecting my relationship issues onto innocent bystanders. I signed in, got myself a ‘free’ goodie bag, which included some badges and a program. Of course the first thing I did was check this year’s ‘programme exclusive’ story, which was ‘Tallarn: Witness’ by John French. John himself later described it as “after the battle of Tallarn, the lucky winner who has the position of Governor-Militant of Tallarn turning up to his first day at work”. It’s a great story and the programme says it’s available on the Black Library website now. As of now that’s not the case but I’m sure it’s coming soon and I can attest that despite its brevity – less than 1 side of A4 – ‘Witness’ is well worth reading.

So then, I got into the queue for Black Library releases – pretty easily, since the main crush was massing around the Forge World stands, which kind of gave an early indication of the priorities of most attendees – and lined up for what was on offer.

And then the disappointment commenced.

I had assumed, perhaps foolishly, that ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’, by John French, was going to be the 32^nd full-length Horus Heresy book. It turned out to be a weird not-quite-novella at 240 pages, and a ‘First Edition’ to boot. I knew this day would come. This was probably the best place for Black Library to roll it out as people seemed pumped enough for new HH content that they’d pay it with minimum fuss. On the one hand, I hope they do more non-novel HH stuff as it just means more frequent releases, and at £40, it’s like £10 for 100 extra pages compared with a ‘standard’ Limited Edition novella. On the other hand, I think that this ‘First Edition’ joyride they’re on is real fucking scummy, and I resent HH being dragged into that game. I guess I’ll have to read ‘Ironclad’ to know the full deal, but I trust John French to bring the A-Game quality shit every time.

This next one doesn’t affect me, but I noticed that a lot of people were real bummed about ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ not being available. The Weekender email circulated by BL not long before the event did state that it was going to be there, and there was no explanation for why they hadn’t followed through on that. Later, I got the feeling that it was a distinct possibility that ‘Executioner’ and ‘Ironclad’ may be packaged together as a ‘numbered’ Heresy novel. But that’s far from concrete, and probably a long way off. For those of you who only want the Mass Market paperbacks, I think it will be a long, lonely road to the point where you can read about Tallarn. I do encourage everyone who doesn’t mind the novella format but resents shelling out £30 for 120ish pages to buy ‘Tallarn: Executioner’ as soon as it becomes available for £15. It’s a fantastic book and well worth it.

As I write this, Black Library have put up a ‘teaser’ for the wide release of the ‘Tallarn: Ironclad’ first edition. They’re marketing it as a novel. Even though the book itself doesn’t feature ‘Ironclad’ in the list of numbered novels. Fuck’s sake.

Keeping with that theme of Black Library stating things would be available which weren’t, Gav Thorpe’s new Raven Guard/Space Wolves audio drama ‘Raptor’ was not on sale this Weekender. Again, staff were unable to explain why this was, though they were extremely polite and apologetic. I’m sure it’ll be available in due course soon, but maybe BL should alter this page which continues to feature inaccurate information about the CD.

‘Garro: Knight-Errant’ turned out to be an audio drama collection. Of course. There’s a twenty-minute story exclusive to this collection called ‘Garro: Ashes Of Fealty’ (I’m sure it’ll be available as an individual purchase at some point). (Update: Yes. Less than a week after the Weekender, ‘Garro: Ashes Of Fealty’ is available as a download on BL’s site – so I’m glad I didn’t buy the whole collection to listen to the new short.) On no basis of fact whatsoever, I’d convinced myself that this would be the prose release of Garro’s adventures – I’m the only one to blame here, but I couldn’t help feeling a bit disappointed at that. I hope a Garro print collection is still on the cards.

Despite having been marketed in the lead-up to the event as “a brand-new anthology” (technically true, I guess), ‘Blades Of The Traitor’ included the previously downloadable ‘Daemonology’ and ‘Black Oculus’. Hey, I can’t pretend I was disappointed, but someone out there was probably super mad. Buy ‘Blades Of The Traitor’. It’s real good.

Join me next time when I actually go to some seminars...

PurpleHeresy at the Weekender, y'all!

Yo yo yo yo yo! PurpleHeresy was all up in the Horus Heresy Weekender in Nottingham this past weekend. I will be posting exhaustive (exhausting?) updates about EVERY DAMN THING I did, but I'll warn you right now, there's not a colossal amount of news for people who just like the books and not necessarily the Forge World publications or novels. And the news that does concern the HH series... well, you guys might not like it much.

Anyway, that'll be going up over the next few days, I hope. On a plus side, all of the stories in 'Blades Of The Traitor' are now available as ebooks on the Black Library site. I've read it, and it's a great anthology, even though two of the stories were available before. In particular, Guy Haley's 'Twisted', an exploration of Maloghurst after the events of 'Vengeful Spirit', is a great read, but 'Chirurgeon' (Nick Kyme short story about Fabius) and 'Wolf Mother' (Graham follows up Alivia and Severian's story strands after 'Vengeful Spirit') are good as well. And of course, 'Daemonology' is in there. I can't even complain that I've read it before, because I was ready to read it again.

"Brotherhood Of The Storm" by Chris Wraight

Ahh, I guess I’m on a roll with the Chris Wraight titles. Let’s look at ‘Brotherhood Of The Storm’. I warn you guys right off the bat - this review is hella long.

I don't know why, but I never had much regard for this cover art. I just think there's something slightly off about it.

First released as a limited edition novella in 2012, normally it would have been mid-2014 before this saw wider release; however, Black Library luckily broke with that weird, restrictive rule and put ‘Brotherhood’ out in late 2013 so readers could digest it before ‘Scars’ came out. I’m really glad they did, since I really view these two books as one long, unbroken story. It would be very hard to read one without the other.

I wasn’t even close to caught up with the Heresy series when this was first released, but I’m sure that anticipation must have been high. While not one of the big-draw ‘marquee’ Legions/Chapters in 40K, the White Scars still have their loyal fans, and this was the first in-depth look we were getting of them in the Heresy universe. Furthermore, the Scars’ actions in the Heresy had been shrouded in mystery; it was known that they stood with the Imperial Fists and the Blood Angels at Terra, but there was little concept of what they did before that. Would Wraight provide a satisfactory explanation? Would he add something new to the Legion, or would the 30K Scars be just like the 40K Scars, except with their Primarch still around?

Surprise, motherfucker!! Wraight capably delivers on every level. He can’t fuck with the central tenets of the Legion (well, he could, that’s a Heresy writer’s right – but he doesn’t). The main characteristic of the Scars is that they’re virtuoso riders, both of bikes and jetbikes, and they love going fast. Rather than portraying them as inattentive speed-freaks, Chris shows their bike-fetish to be a natural extension of the constantly roaming tribes of Chogoris, and their cultural emphasis on glory, competition and exhilarating feats. I’ve always thought combat bikes, and to a lesser extent jetbikes, are one of the stupidest things in the 40K universe, which obviously is an arena crowded by over-the-top stupidity. But Chris wrote action scenes of a jetbike-vs-ork convoy engagement which totally floored me. It’s graceful, yet utterly visceral writing. He also expands this tactical doctrine into a split in the philosophy of the Legion. The shortness of their attention span, and their difficulty with ‘take and hold’ missions, provides a bit of a schism in doctrine between the Scars of isolationist Chogoris and those more… centre-facing. And of course, the Scars were always based heavily on the culture of ancient Mongolian tribal warriors, notably the army of Genghis Khan; Wraight stays true to this, yet also gives Chogoris its own, original culture. There are bits of Chinese and Japanese culture in there as well, which obviously worked for a giant weeb like myself. (Especially since one of the plots can be summed up as “Jaghatai-sempai noticed me!!” It’s just like my motherfucking Japanese animes.)

As we open the story, the White Scars have been fighting hard against the orks on Chondax for some time. The time: some years after the Triumph at Ullanor, when several combined Legions, with Horus and the Emperor at their head, broke the back of the expanding ork empire; the Scars have been working since then to finish the job. They’re led by Jaghatai Khan, or the Great Khan, who they tend to call Khagan. The Khagan doesn’t lead in the manner of Horus or Sanguinius. He is elusive, hard to pin down, decentralised, giving his soldiers a minimum of guidance and a great deal of autonomy. I guess in a way, he could be the closest Primarch to Alpharius in this willingness to let his sons resolve their own issues. Despite this distance from the rank and file of his Legion, it’s clear that the Primarch/Astartes bond is just as strong as most other Legions, certainly stronger (and healthier) than some. It ain’t all good, though. As we know – and the Scars seem not to know – the Crusade, and the galaxy, changed drastically in the years after Ullanor.

‘Brotherhood Of The Storm’ is a seven-chapter novella which, each chapter, jumps between one of three first-person narrators. Our first character is Shiban, khan of the titular Brotherhood of the Storm. Shiban’s story gives the novella most of its action sequences, and they’re excellently paced – but it’s also a character study, a vital look at the Legion’s organisation (for people who geek out over that sort of thing), and also their soul. Shiban is one of the most likeable late-series Loyalists; as the books fill with psychotic Iron Hands, dour Knights Errant and nice-but-dull Salamanders, it’s cool to have a ‘good guy’ who is having fun. Of course, part of Shiban’s character arc is the cessation of fun, but that’s – for now – in the distant future. Shiban accepts that the Khan is unknowable and inscrutable, but has faith that he will not steer the Legion wrong. This kind of outlook definitely sets the Scars up as a slam-dunk for a staunch Loyalist Legion. The frequent Traitor gripe of “THE EMPEROR DOESN’T TELL US ANYTHING ANYMORE!” seems like it’d be met by a blank stare and a shrug by the Scars. However, things aren’t as simple as they seem on that score…

Our hero is joined by a force led by Torghun, another khan, from the Brotherhood of the Moon. As they prepare to assault the final ork fortress on this world, we see the difference between the Terran-born, Luna Wolf-worshipping Torghun, and the true son of Chogoris, Shiban. Their combat doctrine is different and leads to conflict. The Scars make frequent uses of feints and hit-and-run attacks to draw the enemy out – striking then retreating. Torghun, who has been seconded to the Sixteenth, appreciates the unrelenting ‘spearhead’: the direct thrust which never stops. Their disagreement is uncomfortable simply because they are both likeable characters, and Shiban is aghast at the discord between them. It reminded me a bit of that first confrontation between Lucius and Tarvitz on Murder; I cared about both characters and wanted them to be friends, but I knew the conflict was going to pay off in some awful way, somewhere down the line. Luckily, unlike the Emperor’s Children, the squabbling White Scars are not too proud to compromise. Yet Shiban’s attempt at half-measures results in the Brotherhood of the Storm being pinned down and encircled, a poor situation for a White Scar. (Or as he himself says, “I could not imagine us ever distinguishing ourselves in warfare of that sort – under siege, fighting with our backs to the wall as the sky burned above us.” Damn, foreshadow much?) As Shiban, Torghun and the other Brotherhoods on Chondax encircle and assault the last ork stronghold, Shiban’s joy at the thrill of combat is powerful. Yet even fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with his beloved brothers doesn’t match the feeling he gets when Jaghatai himself joins the fight, and Shiban fights at his side – a lifelong ambition for the warrior. Conclusion: This whole story was nothing but great. I don’t really like reading about battles against orks, I don’t really like reading about battles involving bikes, but Wraight made me enjoy both. Fucking stellar.

Our second ‘viewpoint character’ is Ilya Ravallion, a human General in the Departmento Munitorum. While she’s got a military rank, Ilya’s task is to oversee the materiel used by the Crusade, not batallions of men or war-engines. Even though she’s climbed high, Ilya’s kind of a glorified pencil-pusher in the grand scheme of things. I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that she’s one of my favourite human characters in the series – I think because I found her so relatable; after all, of all the characters in the Heresy, this is the one whose job is not a million miles from my own. I know some have raised the complaint that Chris is doing female characters no favours by putting a woman into a ‘passive’ or ‘custodial’ role, but I have to disagree with that. Firstly, I think Ilya shows great courage and intelligence in this book and ‘Scars’, even in the direst of situations. She demonstrates that the bureaucrats and clerks can influence events in a sometimes surprising way. The character would be compelling in the same way if it were male, but I like that Chris has shown the Abnett approach of “hey, the character doesn’t have to be a man, so why make them one?” I do agree it would be nice if more human military officers were portrayed this way, but that’s a charge we can’t lay solely at Chris’ door. Next, the fact that Ilya is perhaps the first female character in the series who’s not sexualised in some way is quite refreshing. She’s an aging, slightly awkward, unspectacular-looking person. Just more reasons I find her relatable.

To be honest, Ilya is really well written and that’s all I want from my Horus Heresy female characters. If someone wants to write a weird caricature of their ex-girlfriend into their 40K or 30K fiction, and make them a promiscuous, shallow idiot who inadvertently causes huge catastrophe by their stupidity, I’ll only wave my flag and say THIS IS MISOGYNISTIC BULLSHIT if I feel it’s poorly written. (Look, I’m not saying that’s actually happened, though some of Graham’s characters come a bit close to it in some ways.)

Enough about the whys and wherefores of Ilya’s gender. What’s her actual story? Well, Ilya has been sent to Ullanor to seek an audience with the Great Khan himself. There she meets the Stormseer Yesugei, who we might remember from the Nikea scene of ‘A Thousand Sons’ (yall can peep what I said about him right here). This is the first time we get Wraight writing for a Scar speaking Gothic, and he calls attention to the weirdness of Yesugei’s broken English right away, with Ilya noting it and wondering what explanation there could be for a super-intelligent super-human warrior having difficulty learning another language. While Graham’s Nikea scene is a little uncomfortable, reading like – say – a well-meaning but hugely stereotyped Native American character from an 80s action movie, Chris seems to recognise this is an odd state of affairs and makes an effort to explain it. So Yesugei muses later that the Chogorian Scars have always struggled with Gothic, that the Terran members of the Legion learn their brothers’ language in order to integrate with them rather than the other way around, that perhaps the linguistic difficulties are a symptom of the Scars’ penchant for isolation. There are times where the stilted syntax is a bit much; in all, I’d rather this was retconned completely out of existence and that the Scars all spoke ‘normally’; I mean, it could end up as a canon conflict, but the White Scar in ‘Descent Of Angels’ seems to have no linguistic issues, so where’s the canon conflict for that? (He was Terran, I guess.) However, I think Chris put forward a convincing argument for continuing Graham’s treatment of the Legion which goes beyond “LAWWWWL BUT THEY AZN THO ^_^ pc nazi faget”

There’s a fairly excellent resolution to Ilya’s story here, as she eventually meets Jaghatai, which prompts one of the better scenes showing how difficult it is for mortals to interact with Primarchs. Even as a dissection of the Legion’s relationship with the Munitorum, with the Imperium as a whole, it’s great – but then Horus arrives, and Ilya is privy to a deeply significant moment which will resound in the White Scars’ history forever. Conclusion: While Shiban’s storyline is the meat of ‘Brotherhood Of The Storm’, Ilya gives the book its soul, and some of the best human-centred moments in the whole series.

Our last ‘viewpoint’ storyteller is Yesugei himself, who gives us a flashback to his childhood on Chogoris, back when the Khan was still fighting against his enemy, the Palatine. Yesugei has gone up into the mountains to undergo the “test of heaven”, a tribal rite for those who show signs of psychic power. Those who experience the visions of heaven will live the life of a zadyin arga, a tribal shaman of a kind. There’s a poetry to him as he discusses the nature of fate, the universe, and his love for the planet that was his home. Yet also we learn some things which may not set him in the best stead in the Imperium; he describes Imperials as ‘them’ and makes it clear he sees the people of Chogoris as outside the Imperium. He also describes, with an odd dispassion, the ‘visions of heaven’ – avatars of what are clearly the four Chaos gods and the Emperor himself appear to him. Conclusion: Yesugei’s story is light on actual ‘events’ – it’s more philosophical, a meditation on the nature of Chogoris and how significant it still is to the Scars – but that doesn’t mean the writing dips in quality or the chapters become less interesting. It stands toe-to-toe with the other strands; to know the Scars, you must know their homeworld.

At first, I was put off by the jumping narrative viewpoints for this book. What is Wraight trying to do, be all George RR Martin and shit? I may have thought. I was worried that including three distinct story strands would dilute the impact of all of them and leave no room for any plot to breathe. I needn’t have worried – Wraight knocked it out of the park, plotting the novella tightly and economically, while introducing three incredibly rewarding characters. Perhaps it’s even more developed than that – all our narrators, and their stories, present a different aspect to the White Scars. Yesugei shows the Legion’s past. Shiban shows the Legion’s present. Ilya shows the Legion’s future.

I really like the fact that each character’s narrative ends with them glimpsing the Khan, and that’s what unifies these story threads. To each, he comes across as a restrained yet deeply intimidating presence; a being whose nature is indefinable, and whose powers are unmeasured. One thing seems clear. Whether it’s in the midst of combat in a colossal ork fortress, in conference on his flagship regarding the Legion’s contact with the Imperium, or in his tent on Chogoris during a time when he hasn’t yet even conquered the whole planet, the Khagan is in control, always. In Gothic, Yesugei isn’t all halting sentences. He also drops this very perceptive gem about the Fifth Primarch:

“He is not elusive, he is at the centre. Wherever he is, that is the centre. He will seem to have broken the circle, drifted to the edge, right until the end, and then you will see that the world has come to him, and he has been waiting for it all along.”

Line of the book? It could very well be.

One repeated aphorism of the Khagan is “Laugh when you are killing”. A phrase that Shiban, and many other V Legion warriors hold close to their hearts. At first reading, that could make them seem sadistic or filled with love for violence, but it really underlines that unlike so many other Legions, their nature is not melancholy. They are cheerful, quick to see the humour and joy in a situation, even in the most desperate and awful situations. It’s not the bleak humour of the Sons of Horus or the Night Lords, either. Chris’ work at establishing this is what makes their descent into rage and sadness in ‘Scars’ so devastating.

Call me a wanker if you like, but as I finished ‘Brotherhood Of The Storm’, as Shiban’s elegy for now-lost times of laughter and joy brings the book to a close with a rueful glance to the future, I actually started to well up a bit. I didn’t actually cry, but I had a strong emotional reaction to, well, a piece of art. And that’s what I’m gonna call it. There are Black Library books which are pure commerce, and books which are good but flirt heavily with fan service laziness. This is not like those books. This is next to ‘The Emperor’s Gift’ or ‘Ahriman: Sorcerer’ or ‘Ravenor Returned’. It’s a goddamn beautiful masterpiece. This is all that’s needed to cement Chris Wraight in the ‘great BL writers’ canon, but luckily, he’s dropped quite a few gems since this came out. If it wasn’t for ‘Scars’ being even better, I’d call it perfect… as it is… 9/10