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it bothers me that people say that the Ultra's did nothing in the Heresy.. well appart from taking on the second biggest legion, Oh AND fighting out off a trap set by Horus and the WB, they didnt ignore the cry for help at Terra, they were fighting for there lives

AlmightyWalrus wrote:

Bromsy wrote:Dorn threw in the towel to prevent a civil war Gulliman was more than willing to prosecute to stoke his own ego, because he was a better man. And Russ was a traitor and a cry baby? The hilarity of that statement exceeds my ability to express things using words.

Hear, hear!

Hear hear! X2

alpha legions primarch(s)?
the lion?
horus?

papa smurf was best at logistics not tactics
and having 3 legions worth of troops may explain his conquest rate

ehhhhh...... I guess the question of tactical ability is up to whoever is talking, and having 3 legions worth of troops is exaggerating i think. Also logistics and tactics coincide so it really an argument of the name.

Pardon my ignorance, but is that really in the fluff? I'm assuming you're joking, but if not that's awesome.

try reading my entire post:

okay maybe he didn't do all that but you know he would have if he had to. XD

Okay final verdict for me: Do I think he was the prevailing factor in the Imperium's victory of the HH? No.

Do I think he and his marines deserve praise for the battles they won and the impressively good job they did setting up not-so-grimdark planets? Yes.

Do I think he was an arrogant and egotistical, yet tactically sound and gallantly ambitious primarch. Hellz yes.

Not my fav primarch by far, but he was stalwartly loyal and was there for the Imperium when it needed a hand. Despite all the arguments against him he deserves more than just being called and arrogant

Guilliman is more of a: Im gonna wait till everyone is screwed except me so I can rush in and save the day! kinda guy.

I respect him, but I don't like him. Like all great men he will forever be devisive, and probably only because of his significance does he create such emnity and breadth of opinion.

Still, I can't help wondering that if he was so good, why wasn't he warmaster? I'm not trying to be flippant, if there's a canon/fluff reason please let me know.

Reanimator wrote:I respect him, but I don't like him. Like all great men he will forever be devisive, and probably only because of his significance does he create such emnity and breadth of opinion.

Still, I can't help wondering that if he was so good, why wasn't he warmaster? I'm not trying to be flippant, if there's a canon/fluff reason please let me know.

Because Horus was Daddy's favorite.

SO mr Hero wanted to start another civil war just so people could follow his rule. He wanted to do this against the very Space Marines that fought tooth and nail on Terra. Knowing that it couldn't stand another civil war. He spent soo much time planning up the stupidly rigid rules he forgot to instill everything the Emperor taught them about spirits and such...odd of him to leave that stuff out. Now Marines pray to their tanks to start. Oh and he still left the IoM in the hands of useless fools just like the "traitors" said. The emperor was a fool. He had nothing in place for heirs if he died. He constantly lied to his own children. So The big bumbling fool got replaced by Big blue bumbling fool.

AgeofEgos is spot-on.

Guilliman had the opportunity to do what Horus failed to do: usurp the Emperor and rule the galaxy. But he chose not to. He assumed power to fortify the Imperium through it's darkest crises and then laid that power down. This moderation is the very heart of Codex Astartes. You will notice that there has been no second Horus Heresy in ten thousand years. As to the "civil war" that sexiesthero refers to: in my opinion, the real issue was whether Dorn would fall to Chaos in his despair over the Emperor's enthronement. Thanks to the firm and moderate temper of Roboute Guilliman, war was averted and Dorn did not proceed further down the dark path he was on.

Would you follow Roboute Guilliman out of love? Perhaps not. In that respect, he was no Horus. But you would follow him and you would do it because it is the rational thing to do.

Hmn. You really can't look at strategy and tactics without looking at logistics.

If you look at historical figures, some of the greatest generals of all time were also the best logisticians. Alexander the Great had a keen understanding of logistics which allowed him to get as far as he did. You can win fights and be a tactically superior but unless you have a grasp on logistics you won't get far. Take Hannibal. Tactically and strategically one of the best there was was but his logistics plan ultimately led to his demise and eventual failure despite being able to pull off some brilliant victories.

So as far as Gulliman was concerned, you could compare him to Alexander the Great in that, he conquered but left those conquered better off than they were. He represented that part of the Emperor that wanted to bring light to the Imperium. Gulliman understood what the true role of the Astartes was going to be. Yes they started off as crusading legions to reconquer the Galaxy, but what do you think the emperor was going to do with all those marines once the crusade was done? I think Gulliman understood the plan better than anyone else and that the Emperor would have broken the legions up regardless. Gulliman above all others was a civilisation builder, and likely would have played a vital role in the Imperium's Golden Age while the more brutish types like Russ and Angron would have been relegated to the roles of security guards.

Manchu wrote:AgeofEgos is spot-on.

Guilliman had the opportunity to do what Horus failed to do: usurp the Emperor and rule the galaxy. But he chose not to. He assumed power to fortify the Imperium through it's darkest crises and then laid that power down. This moderation is the very heart of Codex Astartes. You will notice that there has been no second Horus Heresy in ten thousand years. As to the "civil war" that sexiesthero refers to: in my opinion, the real issue was whether Dorn would fall to Chaos in his despair over the Emperor's enthronement. Thanks to the firm and moderate temper of Roboute Guilliman, war was averted and Dorn did not proceed further down the dark path he was on.

Would you follow Roboute Guilliman out of love? Perhaps not. In that respect, he was no Horus. But you would follow him and you would do it because it is the rational thing to do.

Hear hear, we see perfectly eye to eye on this! He certainly had a better opportunity immediately post heresy/unification to remain the Caesar....yet chose not to.

Crantor wrote:Hmn. You really can't look at strategy and tactics without looking at logistics.

If you look at historical figures, some of the greatest generals of all time were also the best logisticians. Alexander the Great had a keen understanding of logistics which allowed him to get as far as he did. You can win fights and be a tactically superior but unless you have a grasp on logistics you won't get far. Take Hannibal. Tactically and strategically one of the best there was was but his logistics plan ultimately led to his demise and eventual failure despite being able to pull off some brilliant victories.

So as far as Gulliman was concerned, you could compare him to Alexander the Great in that, he conquered but left those conquered better off than they were. He represented that part of the Emperor that wanted to bring light to the Imperium. Gulliman understood what the true role of the Astartes was going to be. Yes they started off as crusading legions to reconquer the Galaxy, but what do you think the emperor was going to do with all those marines once the crusade was done? I think Gulliman understood the plan better than anyone else and that the Emperor would have broken the legions up regardless. Gulliman above all others was a civilisation builder, and likely would have played a vital role in the Imperium's Golden Age while the more brutish types like Russ and Angron would have been relegated to the roles of security guards.

Absolutely spot on. Take Eisenhower for example during WW2...while he didn't charge the beaches or take any ground on a front.....I consider him the premier general of WW2 (Yep, over Patton). Take the Battle of Bulge for example and look at the logistic avalanche Eisenhower put into place! Guilliman had that in spades.

Gulliman couldn't have usurped the Emperor. He wasn't Horus. He lacked charisma, none of the other Primarchs really liked him, and any of them really capable of disloyalty had joined Horus. He would have been facing at the least the Wolves and the Fists, who would have none of his crap. If you want guys with loyalty and conviction, look at the Primarchs of those legions.

Russ let himself be relegated to the role the Emperor needed him to fulfill, regardless of how it alienated him from his erstwhile brothers. And I don't understand the idea that Dorn might fall to chaos. He had the greatest and noblest ideals of the Primarchs. He was willing to lose the Heresy rather than win it by becoming as bad as Horus. Was he depressed after the Emperor bought it? Yeah. Was he prone to self recrimination, yeah - because he wanted to save everyone, and always thought he could do better. Turn to chaos because of that? Hells to the no. If the Blood Angels can last 10000 years as rage filled blood drinking psychos and not fall to chaos, the Emperor's Praetorian would never.

Bromsy wrote:Gulliman couldn't have usurped the Emperor. He wasn't Horus. He lacked charisma, none of the other Primarchs really liked him, and any of them really capable of disloyalty had joined Horus. He would have been facing at the least the Wolves and the Fists, who would have none of his crap. If you want guys with loyalty and conviction, look at the Primarchs of those legions.

Russ let himself be relegated to the role the Emperor needed him to fulfill, regardless of how it alienated him from his erstwhile brothers. And I don't understand the idea that Dorn might fall to chaos. He had the greatest and noblest ideals of the Primarchs. He was willing to lose the Heresy rather than win it by becoming as bad as Horus. Was he depressed after the Emperor bought it? Yeah. Was he prone to self recrimination, yeah - because he wanted to save everyone, and always thought he could do better. Turn to chaos because of that? Hells to the no. If the Blood Angels can last 10000 years as rage filled blood drinking psychos and not fall to chaos, the Emperor's Praetorian would never.

I would say Sang was meant to be the "Noble" manifestation of the Emperor in form of Primarch....I would say Dorn would be more resolute while Russ was savagery.

Guilliman was dedication/leadership imo...

Ultramarine might as well be Rational Strategy marine

Dorn locked himself up in a box designed to inflict massive amounts of pain and, while enjoying that (Slaanesh would be proud), came up with the great idea of destroying his legion in a pointless last stand against Pertaburo. There's penance and then there's insanity. Dorn was on the edge. Would he have gotten down on his knees before the RuinousPowers a la Lorgar? No, not a chance. Would he have brokered deals with them like Horus and Magnus? Certainly not at first. But -- as people seem to forget -- Chaos does not need your consent to use you and work through you. In First Heretic, Lorgar punches Guilliman in the face and knocks him down. Guilliman just gets back up. No snarky insult, no punching the freak back -- the Emperor's will had been accomplished and Guilliman was content with that even given this affront to his personal dignity. (Contrast this to the incident between Russ and the Lion.) This kind of attitude is what ultimately brought Dorn to his senses (mostly, there are the Black Templars after all . . .) regarding the Codex. Don't get me wrong -- there is no question that Dorn was fanatically loyal to the Emperor. But that isn't enough to save someone from Chaos or even from themselves.

Manchu wrote:Dorn locked himself up in a box designed to inflict massive amounts of pain and, while enjoying that (Slaanesh would be proud), came up with the great idea of destroying his legion in a pointless last stand against Pertaburo. There's penance and then there's insanity. Dorn was on the edge. Would he have gotten down on his knees before the RuinousPowers a la Lorgar? No, not a chance. Would he have brokered deals with them like Horus and Magnus? Certainly not at first. But -- as people seem to forget -- Chaos does not need your consent to use you and work through you. In First Heretic, Lorgar punches Guilliman in the face and knocks him down. Guilliman just gets back up. No snarky insult, no punching the freak back -- the Emperor's will had been accomplished and Guilliman was content with that even given this affront to his personal dignity. (Contrast this to the incident between Russ and the Lion.) This kind of attitude is what ultimately brought Dorn to his senses (mostly, there are the Black Templars after all . . .) regarding the Codex. Don't get me wrong -- there is no question that Dorn was fanatically loyal to the Emperor. But that isn't enough to save someone from Chaos or even from themselves.

+1 and if there were an elusive Like feature, this would get a click.

AoEs: You may enjoy these threads --

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/271354.page

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/249758.page

the main reason he coquered the most planets was pretty much purely down to the fact he had the most mariens. period.
Fair enough that most of those worlds did pretty well but Horus had to take care of planets that thought it was Terra and a world educated by eldar that forsaw Horuses fall.
During the heresy most the Loyalist Legions were decimated before Terra was engaged.
ONly the smurfs, Blood Angels and the Imperial Fists were able to fight.
well the angels and Fists were at Terra. why whats that again. Oh thats right the Ultramarines were unable to do Jack please do not try to get around the word filter because one legion headed them off.
Sanguinus gave his life in a duel which injured Horus enabling the emperor to strike him down.
Dorn Held the imperium together then after the chaotic forces ran for the eye, yet then Gulliman then decided to show up and started bossing around th suvives, to quote some nam veyterans 'You weren't there man, you weren't there!'
He did it for some ego preening.
He then restricts the size the Marines can been and splits the legions into relatively small fightning forces. The only reason was that he did this as 60% of surviving mariens were his and therefore would follow his rules. Now the Imperium has slipped into a decline and is on the verge of colapse as the Adeptus Astartes is spred too thin and can't handle the now munting pressure from all forces.
The Ultramarines would abadon their chapter planet except for one company and relied upon the 2 Angel chapters that helped clean up Ultammar cause calgar decided to sit in space

Hmm, explain again how when, pre-Codex, Guilliman had by far the most troops directly under his command, dividing them makes him more powerful?

If anything, Guilliman had the most to lose from implementing the Codex. It clearly was not about ego.

Pardon my chaotic nature, but I don't think being in the right place at the right time out of good fortune of where your home planet is counts as tactical genius, and being an overzealous rigid bean counting logistics freak with a knack for dividing or multiplying everything by 10 makes him about as exciting as an accountant, not a warrior.

"my lord, we can hold the landing zone with just a handful of men while the rest board the transports, let me take 6 men with some lascannons and a flamer to torch the fuel cannisters before we leave, and we can be away free."

"no, sergeant, you must take 10 battle brothers, and no flamer is to be alloted to your squad."

"but my lord, we only need 6!"

"6 does not factor into 10 sergeant, and it says here on page 45732.87 of my book that Devastator squads are to be equipped with heavy weapons. Nowhere does it mention flamers."

"oh. that makes sense my lord."

"carry on sergeant."

Tell that last bit to Bernard Montgomery.

Rowboat Girlyman's Ultrasmurfs have been the poster-boys of 40k for a decade, despite being the most boring of all possible playable factions.

He is also a gigantic Marty Stu.

Is there a Godwin's Law analogy for Mary Sue accusations? If not, why not?

Because you can't lose an argument by saying things that are true.

I'm willing to accept that Rowboat himself isn't actually a Marty Stu, but the Ultramarines are. Look at, like... ALL of the lore surrounding the Space Marines in 40k; everyone is either like the Ultramarines, wants to be like the Ultramarines, follows the book set forth by the Ultramarines, who do all sorts of awesome stuff because they are Ultramarines and they rule over a realm named Ultramar by someone who wanted to try and retcon the fact their name was coined in Rogue Trader as a stupid pun (they were Ultra-Marines and they wore blue armour, herp). Plus they have seven characters in Codex: Space Marines whereas other Chapters who are immeasurably more awesome get one.

Then, of course, there's that whole Superfriends thing, which never fails to annoy.

The fact that Mephiston can walk through the entire HQ and Elites section of a Superfriends army whistling a jaunty tune does go some way to offset the crystallised Mary Sueitis of C:SM.

I just had to check what that law is. Cool idea!

AgeOfEgos wrote:Not only does he defeat them but still has sufficient strength to come streaming for Terra....which Horus hears about, craps his terminator armor, lowers his shields and we know the rest.

I don't dislike Guilliman or anything but weren't the dark angels coming as well?

And if the 'Battle for the abbyss' is to be believed it was an ultramarine a word bearer and a space wolf that saved the ultramarines

But seriously, his saving of Dorn and the fists from the fortress of pain (i believe) was kick-ass

@L_I:

So you're saying that Ultramarines suck because they are too awesome?

Don't get me wrong, I understand the point you're making. They're not space werewolves or space vampires or space emos or space crusaders. They're just Space Marines. There is clearly nothing cool about Space Marines, right?

Sure, they get a lot of attention in the rules. Of those SCs, however, how many get used in competitive lists -- you know, as opposed to Mephiston, Vulkan, and Njal (and others to a lesser extent)? Or --actually -- that doesn't really matter since this is a thread about fluff not crunch.

Perhaps you just mean "GW says they are cool, therefore they are not"? Fair deuce, I guess. I can't take that argument seriously but I'm certain many will.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Torin the Wayfarer wrote:I don't dislike Guilliman or anything but weren't the dark angels coming as well?

No, but the Wolves were. Guilliman and Russ together is the last thing I'd want to face. Horus apparently felt the same way.

Torin the Wayfarer wrote:

AgeOfEgos wrote:Not only does he defeat them but still has sufficient strength to come streaming for Terra....which Horus hears about, craps his terminator armor, lowers his shields and we know the rest.

I don't dislike Guilliman or anything but weren't the dark angels coming as well?

And if the 'Battle for the abbyss' is to be believed it was an ultramarine a word bearer and a space wolf that saved the ultramarines

But seriously, his saving of Dorn and the fists from the fortress of pain (i believe) was kick-ass

There is a lot of fluff that lends to the conspiracy theory that the Dark Angels were waiting to see which side was going to win before coming to whoever's aid. The Ultras were heading to relieve Earth no question about it. Horus knew that the Ultras were a serious threat, so serious that he couldn't trust Lorgar to deal with them He sent Kor Phaeron and the entire Word Bearers to deal with them.

Manchu wrote:

Torin the Wayfarer wrote:I don't dislike Guilliman or anything but weren't the dark angels coming as well?

No, but the Wolves were. Guilliman and Russ together is the last thing I'd want to face. Horus apparently felt the same way.

I knew it was one or the other, i would hate to fight angry wolves AND russ

Manchu wrote:@L_I:

So you're saying that Ultramarines suck because they are too awesome?

Don't get me wrong, I understand the point you're making. They're not space werewolves or space vampires or space emos or space crusaders. They're just Space Marines. There is clearly nothing cool about Space Marines, right?

Sure, they get a lot of attention in the rules. Of those SCs, however, how many get used in competitive lists -- you know, as opposed to Mephiston, Vulkan, and Njal (and others to a lesser extent)? Or --actually -- that doesn't really matter since this is a thread about fluff not crunch.

Perhaps you just mean "GW says they are cool, therefore they are not"? Fair deuce, I guess. I can't take that argument seriously but I'm certain many will.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Torin the Wayfarer wrote:I don't dislike Guilliman or anything but weren't the dark angels coming as well?

No, but the Wolves were. Guilliman and Russ together is the last thing I'd want to face. Horus apparently felt the same way.

This post made me laugh a lot, and also I agree with it totally, especially the part about not wanting to face Russ and Guilliman.


The question after the Heresy was over was "How can we make sure this doesn't happen again?" The answer, Guilliman proposed was a better organization of the Space marine legions and breaking them down so the corruption of a single or multiple factions didn't ever have the power to nearly wipe out the Imperium ever again. The Codex was a safeguard against another Heresy.

Pride? that might have something to do with the near "Civil war" that almost occurred afterwords, although I agree with whats been said before in saying that it wasn't Guilliman's pride. It was more likely to be Russ' and Dorn's since they obviously didn't want to break down their mighty legions into chapters and rewrok them which was the smart thing to do.

Dorn pouted in his room, and Russ just refused to cooperate, the results of the restructuring is why we have a galaxy spanning empire that's lasted for this long without a living Emperor.

Manchu wrote:Is there a Godwin's Law analogy for Mary Sue accusations? If not, why not?

I was about to propose one. ARGHH!

Paula Smith's Law?

TBF, Russ may have had very good reasons to ultimately opt-out of Codex adherence. Canis Helix and all that . . .

But let's look at the Badab War for a bit. What happens when a charismatic Chapter Master leads a rebellion of several chapters? Tragedy, to be sure -- but no siege of Terra, no crippling of the Impeirum from which ten thousand years is not enough to recover. Cirticism of Codex Astartes flies in the face of the (fictional) facts. Can it work for lycanthropic or terminally insane Space Marines? Maybe not. But they only make up a very small percentage of all Space Marines any way.