- Location
- yorkshire
so we lost a company
The Mallus Compliance (Space Marines in Warhammer Fantasy - Chapter Master/Empire Building)
- Thread starter FractiousDay
- Start date
- Fantasy
- Location
- United Kingdom
You got a 6 so it would almost be a crit fail for the 1-5 range, so you managed to kill Khong but yes took heavy losses.
- Location
- California
Yeah, fair enough. The Astartes can't underestimate the planet nor its dangers even if we could slay Beastmen by the hundreds no problem.
- Location
- United Kingdom
I was thinking back to DoW yes. It's probably quite annoying fighting Chaos because if you're doing well you might get some sorcerer pop up and say 'all according to plan thanks for powering up my ritual with all that sacrifice' or something equally obnoxious.
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
What a well crafted statue indeed ;-)
Khong is weak, we all know who the true Kong, King of Ape-kind, is: Donkey Kong.
16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
On the turn. So now I am rereading the turn interlude and admit to being a bit confused why did this company attack with thunderhawk bombing run if they knew there were regular human captives they could have rescued, aren't the lions known for trying to avoid needless civilian casualties why not use bullets or lasers or plasma from such for more precise kills? Why not multiple strafing runs? @FractiousDay
He He I know this was brought up as on a lark but looking for means to disable or at least very dampen large areas of magic seems worth actually discussing.
As much as I wanted to object on grounds of this feeling like a Very Bad IdeaTM. The worst I could forsee at the moment happening is us losing acess to learning really cool Ghur spells and pegasi and dragons stop being able to fly or something maybe?
I'm not sure how ghur specifically affects domestic animals and people living as hunter-gatherers (in wild places though. Still the worst I can say is i'm not sure it's a good idea but unlike say with ulthuan being nudged too hard, I think there is no evidence it would end the world.
Though it might not be possible to just turn off one wind if we start popping pylon equivalents or similar around in the late game.
Seriously though figuring out how the winds of magic work and whether something remotely close could even be done on a country-wide level would be worth the time and effort investment though. Shyish concentrations worry me even more though.
New plan: Pacify Mallus by turning off Ghurundercuts the giant monsters and ogres and beastmen and several other unreasonably large, hungry, logistics-ignoring and/or man-eating factions in favor of good, sensible humans growing beans on their farms.
Besides, 7 is a better number for winds of magic.
He He I know this was brought up as on a lark but looking for means to disable or at least very dampen large areas of magic seems worth actually discussing.
As much as I wanted to object on grounds of this feeling like a Very Bad IdeaTM. The worst I could forsee at the moment happening is us losing acess to learning really cool Ghur spells and pegasi and dragons stop being able to fly or something maybe?
I'm not sure how ghur specifically affects domestic animals and people living as hunter-gatherers (in wild places though. Still the worst I can say is i'm not sure it's a good idea but unlike say with ulthuan being nudged too hard, I think there is no evidence it would end the world.
Though it might not be possible to just turn off one wind if we start popping pylon equivalents or similar around in the late game.
Seriously though figuring out how the winds of magic work and whether something remotely close could even be done on a country-wide level would be worth the time and effort investment though. Shyish concentrations worry me even more though.
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16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I don't see any reason the existing psycho conditioning/hypnotherapy /our librarians and what not couldn't give them needed memories or some facimile of the chapters origins? *
What I am more worried about, if I understand your concern**, is exactly the opposite problem, I really if it can be helped in any way don't want them to forget they are from mallus a world worth protecting and preserving.
It would be nice in general if I knew where most of the thread wanted to take things.
I think Exmorri just wants this to end as a regular*** imperium civilized, myself and Gnu have addmittedly been far more interested in something mildly heretical and independent and I just don't know what most others really want.****
*not a marine fan, not someone who understands astartes well.
**I might not understand.
***Regular mostly by imperial, synthetic food, constant megastructures everywhere no one allowed to live who's not a Son Of Adam, or shares like 80percent of blood with the empire or whatever the standard for standard human even is anymore probably some with maybe the deviation from the norm being Astartes in government.
****Aside from not all the marines dying or the world becoming a demon world or the dwarves not being slaughtered, those alll seem fairly unpopular in this thread but a world with humans dwarves, marines and no demons is still vaguest possible blueprint to aim for and I imagine most have something more in mind.
- Location
- Norway
Not really. Warhammer 40,000 is a big sprawling setting with room for a lot of stories, but there's two large ones I want to focus on here to perhaps give you some impression of what I do want.
Story 1 is very much a HFY story, even amid all the grimdark, and it looks something like this:
"Against the cosmic embodiments of brutality and deceit and despair,
against the precursor race so powerful their debauchery spawned a god,
against the all-devouring horrors that would darken the galaxy,
we took up fire and steel and psy and we held the line."
(in the spirit of Kipling's Dykes: "They forced the sea a sea-league back. They died, and their work stood fast.")
Story 2 isn't quite contradictory, but it is very much a kind of opposite, and it has to be told in third person:
"The Imperium of Mankind is an entire state of child-soldiers.
It has lost the maturity and the skill of the Age of Technology.
It wields barely-understood weapons to kill whatever hurts it.
It makes up arbitrary rules in imitation of law, and then ignores every single one of its own rules.
'Purge the mutant, the witch, the heretic' describes the Space Marines, the Navigators and the Mechanicus.
All in the service of devout faith to an Emperor who burned every church he could."
And to me, part of what's interesting about WH40K as a setting is the tension between these two. There's fixfic and optimistic lighter interpretations of the Imperium that veer towards only #1, and there's grimderp that veers towards being only #2 (or sometimes a satire which talks as though there's only #2), and I feel that either of those cheapens the setting, and is easier to find elsewhere.
I don't want to end up with Mallus as a regular Imperium world for its own sake.
I would like to see Space Marines [try to] turn Mallus into a regular Imperium world, because that's who they are.
Does that make sense?
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- Location
- United Kingdom
This is a broad question of doctrine. Firstly, I assumed that they would indeed have sacrifice prisoners, because that's a pretty common beastmen thing, the marines would also know this, and I imagine they'd assume, as is proper for all Imperials, that anyone who's been in contact with Chaos or mutation is to be purged. For the most part anyone who's even been around someone chaosy tends to get purged because Chaos is so dangerous. So, to begin, I don't think they consider anything but giving the prisoners the Emperor's Mercy. Aside from that, Astartes generally don't care about civilian casualties. You get extreme examples like the Marines Malevolent, but even in the Lions' own history, they don't take direct action:
I do need to actually read Blood and Fire at some point given it's the main text that talks about the Lions. Anyway, as per above, the Lions aren't the Lamenters, they don't attack the Imperial Fleet or interpose their ships or something, they apparently sit back angrily and then write a letter and send a delegation. They're certainly moral, but they're not necessarily as you described above, known for trying to avoid civilian casualties etc.
Also, there'd be a pretty sober calculation by the Captain in charge about a cost benefit analysis. If even a single marine dies because they're trying to rescue some random jungle tribesperson that's a big loss given the investment in each Marine.
Let's say however that actually they did care and wanted to save the prisoners. Ok, how? What capability do the Lions have which could allow for such a thing? Possibilities:
- Assault Marines just carrying people with their jump packs
- Armoured assault, get prisoners into transports etc
- Shoot the beastmen around the prisoners then free them
- Psykers cast invisibility on the prisoners
- Genetors make knock out gas and do a Goldfinger
- Some other thing
So my main points are that it's not really something Lions would do, and even if they could it's not something they'd have the capability to do.
FYI, this brings up a greater point about capabilities more generally. The Lions can get about fine at the moment, but not many other people can. I've listed the Chapter Airforce in the infopost, but how, for example, could the Guard move quickly from one place to another? They have very few vehicles, little infrastructure other than packed roads and so on. Similarly, if you want to have a strategic airlift capacity you could do that, I assume the Imperium has a transport plane or similar, but the Imperial forces at the moment don't. Therefore if something bad happened somewhere and you wanted to respond to it you've only currently got the Astartes themselves, and only some of the transport capacity because the rest is still buried for the most part. You might, for this reason, decide to garrison or arm the natives so they can defend themselves rather than having to constantly rely on Astartes whenever a Waaagh arrives etc.
I'll bring up the above point at some later point near the time of the timeskip, that will inform further discussion.
My general remark on this would be to try it and find out. I've added it to my list of long term projects so I can offer it in a later chapter.
The Imperial Fists do indeed practice a limited form of cannibalism, both as a ritual and as a practical learning method, so I can certainly see the Lions maintaining such a ritual. But it wouldn't be required. They'd probably just maintain legends and similar, not have a big fascination with their old homeworld other than a sentimental one. It's not even a primarch world, eg Baal is sacred because of Sanguinius.
*, at least 1 book says they do, sort of, a feudal worlder wakes up from the hypnostuff knowing what a land raider is etc.
On 4* and 5*, I'd say it'll end up more toward 5 than 4. There's just too many weird things to roll out the ordinary Imperial blueprint. I like the heresy stuff, it's interesting to have that sort of debate, and it will continue in future. How do you think the newly appointed Master of Sanctity is going to react when the Librarians start waving around Warpstone swords? It won't be an instant chapter civil war, not will it be any sort of timer or arbitrary measurement device, but I will be monitoring your action choices on a fairly informal 'heresy-o-metre', also for the possible sequel to this quest where Mallus will be revealed to the Imperium. That's hundreds of years and no doubt a good hundred turns or more off though.
Very well explained, and certainly agreed from my perspective. Without the tension between the two views the setting becomes rather dull I think, which I also think is why there's been so much push back on Primaris etc.
Khong Interlude 2
- Location
- United Kingdom
Less than half of the 3rd Company return from their mission.
The survivors speak of an enormous beast, a creature which seemed to turn from stone to blood and flesh.
'Khong' for that was the beast's name, had woken on the Apeman's final incantation, ripping the stone covering it away to reveal horrid slabs of muscle. The blood from the battlefield had flowed over it healing the creature and within a second it had killed a whole squad of Astartes with a single strike of its fist.
Bolters snapped up, last magazines were rammed home and energy weapons charged.
Khong struck again, in simply rising from his altar-throne knocking over those around him, then striking out again, sending forty tonnes of Rhino flying to crush another squad of Marines.
The first attacks were ineffectual, bolter rounds penetrating the beast's flesh and exploding within, yet only seeming to enrage it. The Lascannons of the Devastators and Predator did better, scoring burned lines across the beast, even knocking it to the floor where one brave Assault Marine used their jump-pack to drive a power axe into Khong's neck.
But it wasn't enough. The Thunderhawks came round again, guns blazing, but Khong replied, vomiting a terrible gout of blood into the air which burned the ancient craft like acid, the titanic ape then seizing an Attack Bike and hurling it into the engine of another one of the Thunderhawks.
The entire Company's munitions were expended in the battle, every bolter round, every missile and cannon shell. In the end only the plasma guns and Lascannons still spat their beams, all the while the monster leaping across the valley, crashing down on tanks and formations as he went, ripping Marines in half, rending the armour of tanks and smashing Brother Adbu's chassis until the honoured ancient intentionally drew him in with taunts and detonated his internal power core, burning away half of Khong's face.
Corax, Master of Rites, carried by two brave Assault Marines, scaled the ape's shoulders, cutting his way into the creature's neck with lightning claws, then detonating half a dozen melta bombs, finally bringing the creature down at the cost of the Captain's life and those of several of his best.
Khong's body lay across the valley, an enormous corrupted mound. Hours passed as the Marines picked over the battlefield for survivors, but even as they did the blood of Khong continued to flow, spilling into the lower valley and it's river.
It was the Company's Apocathary who noticed it first, a scratching in his mind.
Blood
The Apocathary shook his head, going back to his work, extracting the geneseed of the fallen for reimplantation in future Aspirants.
See the Truth in the Blood
The white armoured Astartes paused. His fist clenched, busting the Progenoid Gland he'd been preparing.
"Evacuate." he ordered at once.
"What is it, Lifebinder?" asked another of the 3rd.
"There is some contagion here." the Apocathary replied, "I-" but he fell to the floor, stricken with a tremor and fury that seemed to come from nowhere. He tasted blood, he looked down at his Narthecium Gauntlet, the purity of the tool seeming to degrade, to rust into brass before his eyes. "Nostra Manus, Progenies Futura!" he groaned, standing with the assistance of another Brother and looking about him.
Many others who'd been closest to Khong had been so stricken, a dozen or so of the survivors.
"I pronounce this site Categoria Diabolous." the Apocathary bit out, fighting the rising rage within him, "By my authority, Burn. It. All."
The 3rd fled, the Apocathary remaining with those affected as he was. Wrecks of tanks and aircraft sat all around him, others were scuttled, dropping the remaining thirty Marines far away and then being set on automatic courses till they crashed and self-destructed in the jungle.
The remaining Astartes held fast. They knew their duty, better to die for the Emperor than live for themselves.
"Death is our Duty." A Sergeant spoke, his teeth gritting, hands clenched even as his body changed, "But Salvation is our reward."
The Marines rallied around him, each setting a hand on the shoulders of their Brothers., a final embrace.
The Apocathary went to the altar next to Khong, spotting something. He waded up to his waist in the creature's blood, the fluid coursing over him as he stooped to pick up a golden staff.
Up from the sanguine muck burned a banner. The Apocethary took it, wondering if it was some hallucination that made the 3rd Company's sigil burn like a pyre. The staff was clean, whole and pure, with not a mark of corruption on it, even as the armour of the Astartes continued to transform.
A final miracle, a final wonder forged in defiance of fate, a final gift and legacy.
A red rage grew on the Astartes as they stood there, the banner before them, yet through it they could see the golden Aquilia clearly.
"There is only the Emperor." said the Apocathary, the hand that held the banner now a horrid claw, "He is our Shield and Protector."
Phosphex bombs fell moments later, despatched by emergency transport from the Fortress Monastery to the west. Though they did not see him, Amra watched the site from above, enacting the purge, hand solemn upon the release rune. The survivors would be immediately placed into Separatio Anomalia upon their return, but the scars from the day would go down through a hundred years.
The fires burned for a year, five hundred miles of jungle destroyed, the taint of Khong which had begun to seep into the ground and through the rivers utterly expunged, the purpose of the Ordinance Extremis that had been deployed there.
Finally the fires burned themselves away, the terrible substance stripping the ground to the bedrock. It was a victory, the last known concentration of Beastmen in the Southlands had been slain, a monstrous creature destroyed, but still to the Celestial Lions the victory was as ash in their mouths.
Later though, many years, In a survey flight many years later a signal was heard on the battleground, a psychic echo. A team was despatched, and on that blasted wilderness they found a standard, the flag of the 3rd Company, miraculously unharmed by the Phosphex, still standing somehow.
With all honour the survey team bore the thing back to the Lion's Fortress-Monastary where the Reclusiarch interred it among relics of the Chapter.
And in time the banner of the 3rd would fly again, reworked, a new sigil clear on the cloth. A monstrous skull aflame on a black field.
The 3rd, the Ashwalkers.
The survivors speak of an enormous beast, a creature which seemed to turn from stone to blood and flesh.
'Khong' for that was the beast's name, had woken on the Apeman's final incantation, ripping the stone covering it away to reveal horrid slabs of muscle. The blood from the battlefield had flowed over it healing the creature and within a second it had killed a whole squad of Astartes with a single strike of its fist.
Bolters snapped up, last magazines were rammed home and energy weapons charged.
Khong struck again, in simply rising from his altar-throne knocking over those around him, then striking out again, sending forty tonnes of Rhino flying to crush another squad of Marines.
The first attacks were ineffectual, bolter rounds penetrating the beast's flesh and exploding within, yet only seeming to enrage it. The Lascannons of the Devastators and Predator did better, scoring burned lines across the beast, even knocking it to the floor where one brave Assault Marine used their jump-pack to drive a power axe into Khong's neck.
But it wasn't enough. The Thunderhawks came round again, guns blazing, but Khong replied, vomiting a terrible gout of blood into the air which burned the ancient craft like acid, the titanic ape then seizing an Attack Bike and hurling it into the engine of another one of the Thunderhawks.
The entire Company's munitions were expended in the battle, every bolter round, every missile and cannon shell. In the end only the plasma guns and Lascannons still spat their beams, all the while the monster leaping across the valley, crashing down on tanks and formations as he went, ripping Marines in half, rending the armour of tanks and smashing Brother Adbu's chassis until the honoured ancient intentionally drew him in with taunts and detonated his internal power core, burning away half of Khong's face.
Corax, Master of Rites, carried by two brave Assault Marines, scaled the ape's shoulders, cutting his way into the creature's neck with lightning claws, then detonating half a dozen melta bombs, finally bringing the creature down at the cost of the Captain's life and those of several of his best.
Khong's body lay across the valley, an enormous corrupted mound. Hours passed as the Marines picked over the battlefield for survivors, but even as they did the blood of Khong continued to flow, spilling into the lower valley and it's river.
It was the Company's Apocathary who noticed it first, a scratching in his mind.
Blood
The Apocathary shook his head, going back to his work, extracting the geneseed of the fallen for reimplantation in future Aspirants.
See the Truth in the Blood
The white armoured Astartes paused. His fist clenched, busting the Progenoid Gland he'd been preparing.
"Evacuate." he ordered at once.
"What is it, Lifebinder?" asked another of the 3rd.
"There is some contagion here." the Apocathary replied, "I-" but he fell to the floor, stricken with a tremor and fury that seemed to come from nowhere. He tasted blood, he looked down at his Narthecium Gauntlet, the purity of the tool seeming to degrade, to rust into brass before his eyes. "Nostra Manus, Progenies Futura!" he groaned, standing with the assistance of another Brother and looking about him.
Many others who'd been closest to Khong had been so stricken, a dozen or so of the survivors.
"I pronounce this site Categoria Diabolous." the Apocathary bit out, fighting the rising rage within him, "By my authority, Burn. It. All."
The 3rd fled, the Apocathary remaining with those affected as he was. Wrecks of tanks and aircraft sat all around him, others were scuttled, dropping the remaining thirty Marines far away and then being set on automatic courses till they crashed and self-destructed in the jungle.
The remaining Astartes held fast. They knew their duty, better to die for the Emperor than live for themselves.
"Death is our Duty." A Sergeant spoke, his teeth gritting, hands clenched even as his body changed, "But Salvation is our reward."
The Marines rallied around him, each setting a hand on the shoulders of their Brothers., a final embrace.
The Apocathary went to the altar next to Khong, spotting something. He waded up to his waist in the creature's blood, the fluid coursing over him as he stooped to pick up a golden staff.
Up from the sanguine muck burned a banner. The Apocethary took it, wondering if it was some hallucination that made the 3rd Company's sigil burn like a pyre. The staff was clean, whole and pure, with not a mark of corruption on it, even as the armour of the Astartes continued to transform.
A final miracle, a final wonder forged in defiance of fate, a final gift and legacy.
A red rage grew on the Astartes as they stood there, the banner before them, yet through it they could see the golden Aquilia clearly.
"There is only the Emperor." said the Apocathary, the hand that held the banner now a horrid claw, "He is our Shield and Protector."
Phosphex bombs fell moments later, despatched by emergency transport from the Fortress Monastery to the west. Though they did not see him, Amra watched the site from above, enacting the purge, hand solemn upon the release rune. The survivors would be immediately placed into Separatio Anomalia upon their return, but the scars from the day would go down through a hundred years.
The fires burned for a year, five hundred miles of jungle destroyed, the taint of Khong which had begun to seep into the ground and through the rivers utterly expunged, the purpose of the Ordinance Extremis that had been deployed there.
Finally the fires burned themselves away, the terrible substance stripping the ground to the bedrock. It was a victory, the last known concentration of Beastmen in the Southlands had been slain, a monstrous creature destroyed, but still to the Celestial Lions the victory was as ash in their mouths.
Later though, many years, In a survey flight many years later a signal was heard on the battleground, a psychic echo. A team was despatched, and on that blasted wilderness they found a standard, the flag of the 3rd Company, miraculously unharmed by the Phosphex, still standing somehow.
With all honour the survey team bore the thing back to the Lion's Fortress-Monastary where the Reclusiarch interred it among relics of the Chapter.
And in time the banner of the 3rd would fly again, reworked, a new sigil clear on the cloth. A monstrous skull aflame on a black field.
The 3rd, the Ashwalkers.
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16 characters
Sick and tired of being Sick and Tired
- Location
- Alta California
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Wow these are some great informative responses here, thank you both!
''
I don't want to end up with Mallus as a regular Imperium world for its own sake.
I would like to see Space Marines [try to] turn Mallus into a regular Imperium world, because that's who they are.
Does that make sense?''
Yes, that makes sense and when phrased that way it's not even too different from what I want to see baring that I want the Marines to explicitly fail at such in one way or another. Although ideally with some of them living and this not ending as a demon world.
More on the Lions relations with others: Their Ire wasn't being raised by an imperial organization here which I thought would have made more of a difference in their willingness to intervene in a non-murderous way. I mean feral khornate beastmen are about as far from an imperial authority as you are likely to get without having a cup of tea with the tyranid hiveminds.
I should clarify when I talk about the lions trying to avoid pointless casualties I think am indeed talking about the same source You are most likely looking at. My focus was on how before the inquisition was on that world the lions from what I recalled only killed the priests and military on Khattar, I can recall no instance of them attacking those who had neither raised arms against them nor tried to rally against the imperium.
Them being upset that their work was undone I think should indicate that they were at least satisfied with their work and the number of people they left alive. And that therefore even when a populace was suspected of corruption they could be okay with not just blaming everyone.
Maybe this is me failing to understand something critical again?
I suppose my issue with empathizing with them or imperials in general or even understanding the action was my inability to see the non-mutated nonmutilated (at least in appearance) humans in cages as in any way ''corrupted'' if those on khaddar again could be seen as safe once their priests were dead than just some southlanders in cages seems even less threatning.
I mean if literally, all it took to be corrupted into the service of chaos was exposure to any amount of warp than the planet not being a deamon world should have disproved that theorum to them, part of me thought that our investigations into how this world worked might have finally taught the chapter that they are playing on altered rules at leas some part of my brain that is perhaps being too rational and kind thinks?
BIG EDIT:
Wow, the second part just came out and ''' Corax, Master of Rites, carried by two brave Assault Marines, scaled the ape's shoulders, cutting his way into the creature's neck with lightning claws, then detonating half a dozen melta bombs, finally bringing the creature down at the cost of the Captain's life and those of several of his best.''
Our chapter has taken such a beating both in it's organization and it's numbers since we got here, post-battle of the orbitals how many marines have we lost? 40? let me try and check.
I think at the beginning we had something close to 800 marines but I knew large losses from the crashes were inevitable so that didn't have me worried. That we lost 100 marines just investigating the ships at the beginning of turn 3 was confusing but I wasn't worried then perhaps foolishly because of my hope a reduced chapter would threaten the planet less, the next hundred worried me similarly little but now. now I am worried about numbers.
I thought we only lost about 100 marines in the battle for the orbitals but I may have lost track there too maybe it was more, and then we lost another 3 on mount arachnos and far more than three in this last engagement. Still not quite sure of the exact number.
Yes, our other forces are greatly impressive but I shudder to think about what a group of surprise Rat Ogres could do to our Guard regiments. Luckily they can have the Skittari and the Sisters with them if needed for the support, probably?
I can't be sure because my math skills are terrible and the marines are listed by their positions and not their status as Astartes but it looks like from the Imperial Forces of The Mallus crusade page we might have a bit fewer than 200 marines right now and only if we count those including the scouts in training and those in quarantine? if this is not a giant misunderstanding at some point I will admit not to know when we went below 500 marines.
''
I don't want to end up with Mallus as a regular Imperium world for its own sake.
I would like to see Space Marines [try to] turn Mallus into a regular Imperium world, because that's who they are.
Does that make sense?''
Yes, that makes sense and when phrased that way it's not even too different from what I want to see baring that I want the Marines to explicitly fail at such in one way or another. Although ideally with some of them living and this not ending as a demon world.
More on the Lions relations with others: Their Ire wasn't being raised by an imperial organization here which I thought would have made more of a difference in their willingness to intervene in a non-murderous way. I mean feral khornate beastmen are about as far from an imperial authority as you are likely to get without having a cup of tea with the tyranid hiveminds.
I should clarify when I talk about the lions trying to avoid pointless casualties I think am indeed talking about the same source You are most likely looking at. My focus was on how before the inquisition was on that world the lions from what I recalled only killed the priests and military on Khattar, I can recall no instance of them attacking those who had neither raised arms against them nor tried to rally against the imperium.
Them being upset that their work was undone I think should indicate that they were at least satisfied with their work and the number of people they left alive. And that therefore even when a populace was suspected of corruption they could be okay with not just blaming everyone.
Maybe this is me failing to understand something critical again?
I suppose my issue with empathizing with them or imperials in general or even understanding the action was my inability to see the non-mutated nonmutilated (at least in appearance) humans in cages as in any way ''corrupted'' if those on khaddar again could be seen as safe once their priests were dead than just some southlanders in cages seems even less threatning.
I mean if literally, all it took to be corrupted into the service of chaos was exposure to any amount of warp than the planet not being a deamon world should have disproved that theorum to them, part of me thought that our investigations into how this world worked might have finally taught the chapter that they are playing on altered rules at leas some part of my brain that is perhaps being too rational and kind thinks?
BIG EDIT:
Wow, the second part just came out and ''' Corax, Master of Rites, carried by two brave Assault Marines, scaled the ape's shoulders, cutting his way into the creature's neck with lightning claws, then detonating half a dozen melta bombs, finally bringing the creature down at the cost of the Captain's life and those of several of his best.''
Our chapter has taken such a beating both in it's organization and it's numbers since we got here, post-battle of the orbitals how many marines have we lost? 40? let me try and check.
I think at the beginning we had something close to 800 marines but I knew large losses from the crashes were inevitable so that didn't have me worried. That we lost 100 marines just investigating the ships at the beginning of turn 3 was confusing but I wasn't worried then perhaps foolishly because of my hope a reduced chapter would threaten the planet less, the next hundred worried me similarly little but now. now I am worried about numbers.
I thought we only lost about 100 marines in the battle for the orbitals but I may have lost track there too maybe it was more, and then we lost another 3 on mount arachnos and far more than three in this last engagement. Still not quite sure of the exact number.
Yes, our other forces are greatly impressive but I shudder to think about what a group of surprise Rat Ogres could do to our Guard regiments. Luckily they can have the Skittari and the Sisters with them if needed for the support, probably?
I can't be sure because my math skills are terrible and the marines are listed by their positions and not their status as Astartes but it looks like from the Imperial Forces of The Mallus crusade page we might have a bit fewer than 200 marines right now and only if we count those including the scouts in training and those in quarantine? if this is not a giant misunderstanding at some point I will admit not to know when we went below 500 marines.
- Location
- United Kingdom
There's a few points regarding this. Firstly, relating to Khattar, we don't have enough data to draw inferences from the source, which is a third hand account. The Lions are relaying it to Grimaldus, and the whole thing is captured in a fan made wiki.
The Lions go into Khattar and take down system defences, no doubt many regiments of PDF, apparently all the priests who've been preaching heresy, and so on, then they leave and the Inquisitior exterminatuses the planet. Given it's a Shrine World the administration of the planet, from priests and teachers to bureaucrats to Cardinals, will have been purged. Additionally, mention is made of town militias, which, given they're militias are essentially non-combatants against a space marine. A town militia poses absolutely no threat to an Astartes, or indeed to an Inquisition mission, so for a start that's an example of unnecessary deaths. Now I don't think the Lions went around to each village and rounded up all the teachers who'd been teaching the children heresy, but we've got this quote, again from the wiki:
If Old Man Jenkins hears gunfire outside the village and runs to grab his old stubber because he thinks it's raiders, he counts as a man with a weapon in his hand. If Sister Matilde who teaches the children their maths recently took down the portrait of the Emperor in her classroom, she counts as a priest and also got purged.
Alternatively, if we don't think the Lions went around that carefully between each village, we can assume they did the normal space marine thing of taking down power plants, paralysing infrastructure, collapsing dams and so on, as well as destroying any government building or fortress they could find. If so, that's a lot of collateral damage given there's going to be innocents in said buildings.
So my point around Khattar is that although the Lions viewed Apollyon's actions as unjust, it's not like they had clear hands. Even if they minimised destruction and simply ordered militias to stand down and destroyed their guns or something, it would have still been an incredibly bloody purge given it's a whole world. Then again, that's how purges work, they're designed to root out heresy.
This brings me onto my next point. Khattar was heresy which can be forgiven if the proper penance is done, for example, we see this in the Badab War:
I assume the Lions thought something similar might happen to the population of Khattar, however my second point regarding the beastmen prisoners is that heresy is much different from Chaos. Heresy can be forgiven, comparably, almost always anything Chaosy is purged. The prisoners in the beastmen camp weren't (necessarily) heretics, but they had been in the camp for an unknown amount of time and the risk of spiritual contagion was high, given the clear evidence of beastmen psykers about. Imperial Guard are routinely purged whenever they encounter daemons, and even Space Marines are (sometimes at least) mindwiped from such battles. Therefore I don't think the Lions would have seen it as possible to do anything but kill the prisoners, which, keep in mind, sends them to sit by the Emperor's side forevermore, so that's a good outcome, at least spiritually.
As for your point about the Lions learning, they've been there 8 years or so, they won't learn that quickly no. Besides this though the superstitions of the Mallus folk confirm many of the Lions' biases, if you tell someone you just fought a band of mutants they'll suspect you've been infected. There's even a sequence in a book where the mutant protagonist throws a bandage at a witch hunter who freaks out because the mutant blood has touched him. As such I'd say yes, you're being too rational, or rather, you're not adopting the rationality of 40k. This is the same setting that brought us 'the open mind is like a fotress unbarred and unguarded'.
Now tackling the second part of your post, keep in mind about 200 of your 'marines' were scouts, not marines, and have died mainly due to attrition. Not many actual marines have been killed so far, more have died as a result of environmental hazards like ships blowing up in space. The loss of 100 marines investigating ships I don't recall, you might mean the casualties which were revealed from the ships stuck under Morrsleib.
From a quick calc currently, you've got 218 actual marines, +support staff like librarians and techmarines in the non-combat areas of the Chapter, and you've also got 150 scouts in training. You've got a decent number of vehicles though so that's not as problematic. You've got the Skitarii, Guard, and several regiments of Guard that can be trained as well. There's only 10 Sisters currently, they're bodyguards not deployable troops really, but indeed you could order them to build a priory and start training more, which they're sort of doing so now
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Thank you, my main takeaway here which I hope is accurate to what you were trying to convey is that not only are the Lions not at all the Lamenters/Salamanders or such but they aren't like the iron hands or pre-heresy iron warriors or such, when it comes to their attitudes regarding mortals they are somewhere oddly inbetween. Maybe I should look at them as akin to the ultramarines in this regard...except no I am reacalling their relations to mortals are one of the few non-average things about them.
If there were captives captured by say Non-Slanneshi Dark Elves or who were being worked to death as slaves by Orcs they'd probably try to rescue them if it didn't significantly increase risk to themselves. If they could evacuate an area of non-chaotic non-hostile stable ''humans'' before a battle without giving themselves away to there plans or another significant risk to themselves they probably would at least point them elsewhere?
Ditto IMO for the Return of Guilleman, on one hand half of humanity is returned to one of it's most compent leaders and is holding, at the same time that same leader is so disgusted by what he sees has become of his polity that it is very questionable if he wants any of the things most of his subjects adore and rely on to survive.... but might not be able to do anything more to change such.
For things that look sort of tone breaking for the setting generally and not just the virtue or lack thereof of humanity in it, to me being added i'd have to go for Erda mother of the Primarchs and the way a number of the Dark Eldar were Dragged into making the Ynnari.
Compared to stuff like that Primaris marines seem like a barely a ripple.
If there were captives captured by say Non-Slanneshi Dark Elves or who were being worked to death as slaves by Orcs they'd probably try to rescue them if it didn't significantly increase risk to themselves. If they could evacuate an area of non-chaotic non-hostile stable ''humans'' before a battle without giving themselves away to there plans or another significant risk to themselves they probably would at least point them elsewhere?
I do not see the primaris as breaking that tension in the setting I think in such a case there is a balance maintained there in that on one hand this can be seen as mankind strengthening an pushing forward more than in ages through an odd act of invention, holding the line and whatnot. But on the other hand the fact that their creation has sparked even more internal distrust in the imperium and that rubicon primaris medically kills everybody possibly needlessly feels balanced between those narratives.
Ditto IMO for the Return of Guilleman, on one hand half of humanity is returned to one of it's most compent leaders and is holding, at the same time that same leader is so disgusted by what he sees has become of his polity that it is very questionable if he wants any of the things most of his subjects adore and rely on to survive.... but might not be able to do anything more to change such.
For things that look sort of tone breaking for the setting generally and not just the virtue or lack thereof of humanity in it, to me being added i'd have to go for Erda mother of the Primarchs and the way a number of the Dark Eldar were Dragged into making the Ynnari.
Compared to stuff like that Primaris marines seem like a barely a ripple.
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Personally, im still waiting for GW to make my favorite little heresy cannon, out of everything that Gathering Storm generated.
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Might I be forgiven for not knowing which part of the campaign you found to be your favorite and most heretical?
Its more the fan theory implications of what happened, on Macragge.
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Yes in those situations I imagine it would be fine for them to be rescued. There's one similar case where the Marines Malevolent bombarded refugees and Orks but that was clearly seen as unacceptable by other people around. But it does bring you back to the issue of capability. Evacuating people is always going to be a risky business unless your enemy is incompetent. An excellent modern example would be the battle of Mogadishu, you might look at the same sort of thing if a force of Astartes were trying to rescue someone.
This isn't to say it's never been done, I remember in the 2nd Soul Drinkers book a squad extracts someone with important information from a zombie planet, but most of the squad is lost so obviously it didn't go that well.
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I've been wondering what tech level would be producing Synth-Meat Synth-leather, Synth wool, etc be, could we mostly make it out of algae components(like corpse starch is and nutri loaves probably are)and what we have now or in the new future or no?
If such above some of the lowest quality commonly available to well commoners it might be worth giving it away or selling it doing for earning more converts and business partners and also just increasing quality of life so fewer of our human resources die(starvation, cold etc) or want to flee us.
If such above some of the lowest quality commonly available to well commoners it might be worth giving it away or selling it doing for earning more converts and business partners and also just increasing quality of life so fewer of our human resources die(starvation, cold etc) or want to flee us.
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We will run out of them soon enough if we do not start breeding them I fear.
If the imperium can breed grox en masse though, stegadon and the like shouldn't be such unknown territory though! :-D Southlands as a giant Garden + Training ground when?
The Leather and Wool and such might be more valuable en mass though if we can do it.
Seperate Topic Edit:
Any chance the next interlude or the one after might be about finubar and the High Elves, I am super curious how probably distorted knowledge of us is spreading among them?
If the imperium can breed grox en masse though, stegadon and the like shouldn't be such unknown territory though! :-D Southlands as a giant Garden + Training ground when?
The Leather and Wool and such might be more valuable en mass though if we can do it.
Seperate Topic Edit:
Any chance the next interlude or the one after might be about finubar and the High Elves, I am super curious how probably distorted knowledge of us is spreading among them?
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