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Which is more interesting ? Why are fans so different ? Imperial Truth vs Imperial Cult ? Your opinion on first founding legions fluff vs others ?

Heresy is the most talked-about and generally discussed because:

A.) It establishes an epic cast of developing characters doing galaxy-changing things.
B.) It's the biggest deal in the Imperium's history

Really there's no part of 40k fluff that can be seen as so "important", plots revolve around saving blah blah world or blah blah sector, the stagnation the 40k setting suffers from isn't a problem in the Heresy.

I believe the current 40k setting is the more interesting. The precipice everything stands on, nids,crons, chaos, everything is going to hell in a grim dark way. The whole setting is just depressing.
However the heresy explores the legends and individuals of a mythological era. Finally we get info on exactly what happened. As new pieces of fluff come about they get discussed to death.

In short I find them both interesting for different reasons.

I think the Heresy was best when it was left in mythology. The stories were great when they were kind of vague, and the lack of details let us flesh the characters out as we wanted. For instance, I always assumed that Sanguinious frequently used a jump pack and that's where the 'winged primarch' thing started. But with the advent of the HH novels, he became literally winged. Which is kinda stupid, IMO.

As a game setting, I think it sucks. I already know how it's going to end and who wins all the major engagements. It doesn't leave much room for me to develop my own stories, eliminates all 1,000 Marine chapters in favour of the handful of original legions, and is set before the discovery of both the Tau and the Tyranids. Pretty boring, compared to the current 40K setting.

I'm with Kaldor on this one. The ambiguity, mystery & conflicting stories allowed it to be this truly mythical point in the history of Mankind. It felt like a legend that had been passed down through the ages, losing details over time & becoming distorted through each telling. Now that element has been mostly taken away as Kaldor said - we know what happens.

Another one here who agrees that the Heresy should have been left as mysterious and dark as possible.

I do enjoy the insight we have into it, but feel that it should have been left alone. It's such a big thing and, if you are a bit like me, you had imagined what the characters were like, how big the battles were, the lack of fluff made it even more exciting and interesting.

I like 40k actually, I think Chapters work better than Legions as there is much more variation for friend and foe alike.

Imperial Cult is what is holding the Imperium together, a return to the Truth will create more woe than anything else.

But heresy is the biggest event in the Imperium's history,brother fighting brother,primarchs and living omnipotent Emperor in it...can't be more epic....
Also I' think 40k is to spread out (tons of new stuff ) but is not so deep as heresy.,like there are too many chapters of SM and a lot of them don't have any character or interesting fluff + there is too much recycling...

Same as Kaldor. It was cool as a legend of the past, but as an actual setting it holds about zero interest for me.
So many important aspects missing, replaced by an even bigger focus on some Marines about to save the galaxy. Popcorn action a la Rambo = I could enjoy watching a movie like that for the sheer amount of explosions in it, but I'll never buy a book or a game.

DarthMarko wrote:can't be more epic....

One of the chief reasons why I don't like it, actually. GW's fluff about the Heresy always made it appear "larger than life". Now we have a bunch of novels treating the stuff like it had actually happened that way. Obviously, a lot of players enjoy reading that sort of stuff, but I'm not amongst them. Stuff is just too colourful, too big, too ... exaggerated.
Don't get me wrong, I love reading about stuff like ancient real world legends, even greatly enjoyed the movie "300" - but I just cannot take a setting seriously when it attempts to sell me stuff like that as fact.
I know that the fluff isn't supposed to be seen as fact, but I'm sure you get what I mean.

DarthMarko wrote:Imperial Truth vs Imperial Cult ?

Imperial Cult any day. It's just way more grimdark to have a monolithic religious organisation preach a falsified religion, laced with political machinations and a good amount of zeal and crusader'ish attitude. The potential this has brought into the setting is immense, and 40k as a franchise would be a lot more boring if the people in it were actually thinking rational, wouldn't you say?

DarthMarko wrote:Your opinion on first founding legions fluff vs others ?

I find the First Founding Legions to be consistently overhyped. They've got a cool background at their core, but their importance for the franchise has resulted in some very strange portrayals that seem to set them apart a good deal from other Marine Chapters. A special status that isn't really warranted. Fortunately, not all Chapters of the First Founding are affected to the same ludicrous levels.
This perception obviously ties in to my preference for a more level-headed approach to combat prowess and survivability of characters in 40k. I dig the idea of "epic", but not when it's scaled up to a level where you have a bunch of demigods waltzing through thousands of enemies like they don't even care. To me, "epic" includes a tangible threat to the characters' lives, which is not always overcome without major sacrifice.

But isn't 40k fluff to spread out - like that's my biggest objection, you have a whole universe o xenos,chaos and human elements which are simply put "shallow" and not backed down with a proper epic story...
Sometimes I think that they are inventing new fluff just to fill gaps in storylines.....maybe I'm too much fan of the book's and not the actual game, but tuche about Cult - it gives something interesting but maybe to much for my taste....

DarthMarko wrote:
Sometimes I think that they are inventing new fluff just to fill gaps in storylines

This is what they are doing pretty much with the Heresy series, what's the difference?

Pilau Rice wrote:

DarthMarko wrote:
Sometimes I think that they are inventing new fluff just to fill gaps in storylines

This is what they are doing pretty much with the Heresy series, what's the difference?

Well touche x 2....but still - "Fear to tread" is near :- ) and there is still to come epic battle on Terra.....

DarthMarko wrote:But isn't 40k fluff to spread out - like that's my biggest objection, you have a whole universe o xenos,chaos and human elements which are simply put "shallow" and not backed down with a proper epic story...

I think there is a very thin line to walk between properly fleshing out a faction - and "overdescribing" it, thus taking away people's ability to insert their own ideas. GW has always been big about intentionally allowing some "free space" for fans to fill with their own creativity. As much as I love details, I recognize the importance of this maxim, so it comes down to the tricky question of what to describe and what to leave open.

Of course, with the Horus Heresy, I think it's less about taking away this free space, but more about describing things that have been left open for so long that players grew their own visions of that time - which may now clash with what is presented in these novels. See Kaldor's post about Sanguinious' wings, for example.

In addition to this, there was the difficult question of how to actually tackle it. With all the ancient legends and twisted interpretations presented in the existing material, the novel writers were faced with the decision of whether to produce a story that was to be notably more boring because it would present a more realistic and down-to-earth account, or a story that was just as epic by taking these legends literal, at the same time making this stuff so over the top that it would apply only to a very specific segment of the playerbase. They went for the latter, and it was arguably the better choice of the two, but to me it still seems like a choice between the devil and the deep blue sea.

Not a big fan of the Heresy stuff, it ruins some fluff (E.g. Ollanius Pius, I would much rather him be a man like you or me, than a superhuman, too many of those in the series already). And I really dislike how the series has laid some rumors down as lies (I liked Gav Thorpes idea that Lion may have been the traitor, not Luther). But that is the problem with going to a backstory, leaves all sense of mystery gone. Imperial cult, its so interesting to see where the IoM has gone.

Wardragoon wrote:Not a big fan of the Heresy stuff, it ruins some fluff (E.g. Ollanius Pius, I would much rather him be a man like you or me, than a superhuman, too many of those in the series already). And I really dislike how the series has laid some rumors down as lies (I liked Gav Thorpes idea that Lion may have been the traitor, not Luther). But that is the problem with going to a backstory, leaves all sense of mystery gone. Imperial cult, its so interesting to see where the IoM has gone.

I don’t see how they ruined the peace of fluff regarding Pius. In fact, the HH series pretty much saved Oll from being dumped into the recycle bin and have him replaced by a generic Custodes.
A Custodes, who fits much more into the superhuman category than Pius ever did.

Redcruisair wrote:

Wardragoon wrote:Not a big fan of the Heresy stuff, it ruins some fluff (E.g. Ollanius Pius, I would much rather him be a man like you or me, than a superhuman, too many of those in the series already). And I really dislike how the series has laid some rumors down as lies (I liked Gav Thorpes idea that Lion may have been the traitor, not Luther). But that is the problem with going to a backstory, leaves all sense of mystery gone. Imperial cult, its so interesting to see where the IoM has gone.

I don’t see how they ruined the peace of fluff regarding Pius. In fact, the HH series pretty much saved Oll from being dumped into the recycle bin and have him replaced by a generic Custodes.
A Custodes, who fits much more into the superhuman category than Pius ever did.

He originally was a plain jane human, nothing special about him, hence why he is the patron saint of the Imperial Guard.

Indeed, the reason why Pius is so awesome is that he, an unknown human soldier of the Imperial army, performed a super-human action. In the midst of the Battle for Terra, he found himself in the same room, originally in the Emperor's palace, as the Emperor & Horus, saw the Emperor struck down and placed himself in front of the renegade Warlord. Any other man would have soiled his underwear and legged it but this ordinary fellow found the nerve to stand in front of this super-human being and block his path to protect his Emperor.

It's more epic when it's an ordinary human than some form of super-human whether Astartes (they tried that with an Imperial Fist chap), a Custodes (another ret-con) or with a souped-up Pius - the original story is still, by far, the best & most epic.

Who is this Pius character? I like to consider myself fairly knowledgeable of Heresy history, but somehow I have managed to miss him.

SilentApocalypse wrote:Who is this Pius character? I like to consider myself fairly knowledgeable of Heresy history, but somehow I have managed to miss him.

Waaaay back in earlier editions of the tabletop, Ollanius Pius was a humble Imperial soldier who threw himself between the Emperor and Horus, in his honourable sacrifice buying Big E the clarity to consider Horus beyond redemption and slay him. Supposedly he became some big mythical hero of the Imperial Guard due to this act.

The fight was then changed to occur not within the walls of the Imperial Palace but onboard of Horus' flagship, to which the Emperor and a bodyguard of elite Space Marines had teleported. Needless to say, there wasn't much room to bring a bunch of puny Armsmen along, so the whole situation kinda got retconned and now it was (iirc) some Marine who sacrificed his life.

The character and backstory of Ollanius is admittedly awesome, so I can understand some peoples' reluctance to let go of this story. On the other hand I have to say that there really wouldn't have been a place for him in the Emperor's boarding party, so trying to force Pius back into the fluff would just look very awkward to me.

*shrugs* Opinions.

[edit] I think I can reconstruct the various "versions" of the story now. Regardless of Lexicanum's dreadful tendency to merge conflicting sources into a single weird interpretation, they are relatively thorough when it comes to listing sources:

- Games Workshop Warhammer 40.000 Compendium (1989) = Ollanius Pius is a soldier
- Games Workshop The Lost and the Damned sourcebook (1990) = Pius' role is taken by a Space Marine Terminator, the fight's location is changed to Horus' flagship
- Black Library artbook Horus Heresy Collected Visions (2007) = the Terminator's role is now taken by an Adeptus Custodian
- Black Library novel Know no Fear (2012) = Ollanius Persson now is some guy that is apparently older than the Emperor, he only seems to fight Horus in a vision, and then summons a Warp gate

Kaldor wrote:I think the Heresy was best when it was left in mythology. The stories were great when they were kind of vague, and the lack of details let us flesh the characters out as we wanted. For instance, I always assumed that Sanguinious frequently used a jump pack and that's where the 'winged primarch' thing started. But with the advent of the HH novels, he became literally winged. Which is kinda stupid, IMO.

As a game setting, I think it sucks. I already know how it's going to end and who wins all the major engagements. It doesn't leave much room for me to develop my own stories, eliminates all 1,000 Marine chapters in favour of the handful of original legions, and is set before the discovery of both the Tau and the Tyranids. Pretty boring, compared to the current 40K setting.

Sanguinius was literally winged long before the HH novels.

Lynata wrote:

SilentApocalypse wrote:Who is this Pius character? I like to consider myself fairly knowledgeable of Heresy history, but somehow I have managed to miss him.

Waaaay back in earlier editions of the tabletop, Ollanius Pius was a humble Imperial soldier who threw himself between the Emperor and Horus, in his honourable sacrifice buying Big E the clarity to consider Horus beyond redemption and slay him. Supposedly he became some big mythical hero of the Imperial Guard due to this act.

The writers at GW then changed the fight to occur not within the walls of the Imperial Palace but onboard of Horus' flagship, to which the Emperor and a bodyguard of elite Space Marines had teleported. Needless to say, there wasn't much room to bring a bunch of puny Armsmen along, so the whole situation kinda got retconned and now it was (iirc) some Marine who sacrificed his life.

The character and backstory of Ollanius is admittedly awesome, so I can understand some peoples' reluctance to let go of this story. On the other hand I have to say that there really wouldn't have been a place for him in the Emperor's boarding party, so trying to force Pius back into the fluff would just look very awkward to me.

*shrugs* Opinions.

By the looks of it he is being forced back into it in the BL HH novels, he was featured in know no fear on Calth when it was attacked by the word bearers, he is a imperial army soldier but also something more.

I agree Orbilvion i have always known Sanguinius as having wings

Lynata wrote:- Black Library novel Know no Fear (2012) = Ollanius Persson now is some guy that is apparently older than the Emperor, he only seems to fight Horus in a vision, and then summons a Warp gate

This one just has me squirming in discomfort. I'll just keep it in my mind that Ollanius Pius is just an ordinary soldier who does what he does and is not special in any way.

Yea , Sangiuinus always had literal wings,

He was found by membersof the True Blood, and they wanted to put him to the sword because of the the tiny wings on his back, that grew as he did

Look it up in the Index Astartes on the Blood Angels

I really prefer to think Heresy as mythic past, something that is told in legends and stories which might or might not be true. In this light conflicting accounts are really not a problem, but I still have to say that more I know about the Black Library version of the events less I like it. Golden Throne is a webway gate? Really now. And all in all, most of it just seems just unnecessarily big, and garish and literal... and just stupid.

Also, Kaldor, I always assumed Sanguinius to have literal wings, but I really like your version better.

redkommando wrote:Yea , Sangiuinus always had literal wings,

He was found by membersof the True Blood, and they wanted to put him to the sword because of the the tiny wings on his back, that grew as he did

Look it up in the Index Astartes on the Blood Angels

Actually it goes back at least as far as 2nd edition Angels of Death.

Orblivion wrote:

redkommando wrote:Yea , Sangiuinus always had literal wings,

He was found by membersof the True Blood, and they wanted to put him to the sword because of the the tiny wings on his back, that grew as he did

Look it up in the Index Astartes on the Blood Angels

Actually it goes back at least as far as 2nd edition Angels of Death.

True, but I just thought that a Index Astares article would be more readily avalable.

And I was under the Impression that the Golden Throne was always the start of a webway gate. . .

redkommando wrote:
And I was under the Impression that the Golden Throne was always the start of a webway gate. . .

Was it? Everyting is possible. I assumed it to be from BL stuff.

Crimson wrote:

redkommando wrote:
And I was under the Impression that the Golden Throne was always the start of a webway gate. . .

Was it? Everyting is possible. I assumed it to be from BL stuff.

I have no idea may have to look back through some old fluff to see where I got that idea from. I haven't read any of the HH series yet

redkommando wrote:Yea , Sangiuinus always had literal wings,

He was found by membersof the True Blood, and they wanted to put him to the sword because of the the tiny wings on his back, that grew as he did

Look it up in the Index Astartes on the Blood Angels

True, but given that it referred to an event ten thousand years old, it was much easier to tell myself it was simply a retelling of an evolved myth. It's only an example, anyway.

I think I first encountered it in that HH art book thing. 'Collected Visions'? Something like that.

redkommando wrote:

Orblivion wrote:

redkommando wrote:Yea , Sangiuinus always had literal wings,

He was found by membersof the True Blood, and they wanted to put him to the sword because of the the tiny wings on his back, that grew as he did

Look it up in the Index Astartes on the Blood Angels

Actually it goes back at least as far as 2nd edition Angels of Death.

True, but I just thought that a Index Astares article would be more readily avalable.

And I was under the Impression that the Golden Throne was always the start of a webway gate. . .

I'm pretty sure it was...