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I apologize if someone has brought this up on the forums before but I am relatively new and was just wondering what others thought. I know the canon points towards the Emperor leaving the Great Crusade and establishing the Council on Terra (or whatever it was called) as the reason for the Horus Heresy but I believe that the problem was that there was no super power opposing the fledgling Imperium. Without a real enemy challenging them, the Crusade seemed to be more of a strategic expansion rather than an all out war. As a result, Horus turned towards the one avenue that presented a serious challenge (yes Chaos was involved but you have to think a warrior's pride was what they preyed upon). So would things have been different if the Primarchs had encountered a significant enemy that required a concerted effort? I picked Tyranids because I don't know of any other race that could actually oppose the Crusade on a serious level at that time. Anyways, would just like to see what everyone thinks.

Hive Fleet Behemoth would've been crushed by the Imperium. It might've stopped the Horus Heresy (I doubt it), but I'll let someone better versed in the HH give you a more concrete answer.

Jungle0731 wrote:I apologize if someone has brought this up on the forums before but I am relatively new and was just wondering what others thought. I know the canon points towards the Emperor leaving the Great Crusade and establishing the Council on Terra (or whatever it was called) as the reason for the Horus Heresy but I believe that the problem was that there was no super power opposing the fledgling Imperium. Without a real enemy challenging them, the Crusade seemed to be more of a strategic expansion rather than an all out war. As a result, Horus turned towards the one avenue that presented a serious challenge (yes Chaos was involved but you have to think a warrior's pride was what they preyed upon). So would things have been different if the Primarchs had encountered a significant enemy that required a concerted effort? I picked Tyranids because I don't know of any other race that could actually oppose the Crusade on a serious level at that time. Anyways, would just like to see what everyone thinks.

There were some challenging campaigns, but i think it could be said that Horus fear of beeing forgotten when peace commences could
be stalled with an everlasting threat.
OTOH Horus didn't see the main threat => chaos.
So the emperors fault wasn't to leave the crusade but give horus command of it.

Things would be different if:

-the other primarchs realized that Lorgar is a chaos servant and opposed the traitor.
-Horus wasn't so lame and kept his promise to the emperor.
-Fulgrim wasn't so overconfident. Should have shot the traitor fleet down.
-Magnus did as ordered in nicea, but supported his brothers against the ambush.
-Curze got a therapy.

or in short terms: the primarchs accepted their imperfection even if its hard to realize that if youre so powerful.

From what I know during the Great Crusades, The Tyranids probably would just have been another road bump on the road to The borders of The Imperium. The Primarchs demi-gods of The Emperor a God in himself, were leading Legions of Space Marines which were at least 10,000 strong or even more depending on the Legion. Tho there weaponry mite not have been on par with Imperial tech in the 41st mill, it was still good. A Tyranid Hive Fleet would probably either be destroyed by the Imperial fleet and obliterated on the gorund , or worse case scenario, Imperials lose but eventually adept tactics the Primarchs cook up and its game over seeing as how there brilliant tacticians. The plan the Chaos Gods had for Horus's fall will still take place just perhaps in another place, time who knows. They would claim him eventually, IMO it boiled down to either Horus claimed the Galaxy for Chaos and became The Ruler of it, or He died loyal to his father that day on Davin. And that was the ultimate choice he would have to make no matter were or when