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 Frozen Ocean wrote:
The great part about Horus dropping his shields is that what this meant to The Emperor was "I can teleport on board and fight him one-on-one!", not "his shields are down, I can now destroy his ship with the huge guns on my ship, and end this all right now".

"I want to hit him with my sword!"

 Frozen Ocean wrote:
The "chink in the armour" thing is just plain silly. This is The Emperor. There's no way a suit of mere Terminator armour was going to do much against him. Even going by the logic that Horus himself was Chaos-enhanced, the "chink in the armour" idea requires Horus to have relied entirely on his Terminator armour for protection. It was merely a story invented by the Blood Angels to make the tragic death of their beloved Primarch feel meaningful.

Inasmuch as I buy into the detail about Sanguinius making a chink in Horus' armor, I always took it to mean that Horus' mystical defenses were somehow bonded to his armor, and the chink in the warplate meant there was also a weakness in his wards against the Emperor's psychic might. Like someone else pointed out, otherwise the Emperor could just as well have aimed at Horus' exposed head.

But then in the end it's all allegory, myth and legend anyway, so such details are not as important as what they represent thematically.

The Chaos Gods. Horus was unlikely ever intended to ever win.

Rogal Dorn.

Absolute tactical geniu-
CREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEED

I think again even though people want to support their main chapter and discard the importance of any other event other than their chapters the question must be asked - if the events of the battle barge didn't go as planned and sanguinious didn't board with the emperor resulting the the actual fall of the emperor. Would dorn have even a split second of a chance against Horus who now had slain the most powerful of all the humans?

In fairness no matter what others were doing at the same time as the events on the war masters ship it would of been pointless if the outcome there was different.

The order of events sanguinious first encounter with Horus. Then the emperor almost falling before a brave space marine putting himself up for sacrifice which most likely fueled the emperors anger realizing he had to take out Horus with everything he had.

If Dorn hadn't boarded with Sanguinius and the Emperor, would the Emperor simply have expired on the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit after slaying Horus?

Would the Emperor ever have found his way to the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit if Dark Angels and Space Wolves reinforcements hadn't been imminent, prompting Horus to lower the shields?

What if Horus had decided to engage and stall the Dark Angels and Space Wolves, hoping to buy enough time for the ground forces to finish the job?

If Jhagathai Khan and the White Scars hadn't retaken the spaceport, would the battle for Terra have been decided long before reinforcements could arrive?

If Fulgrim and the Emperor's Children hadn't so completely indulged themselves in the slaughter of Terra's population rather than assist in the siege, could they have decided the battle in the traitors' favour?

No single person decided the outcome of the Heresy. Gold star for team effort, everyone.

Malcador all the way, he helped Dorn in the defence of Terra, he pushed Titan into the warp to protect the Grey Knights and he got turned to dust while working the Golden Throne and the Astronomican in order for the emperor to fight Horus

Abaddon the armless wrote:
Malcador all the way, he helped Dorn in the defence of Terra, he pushed Titan into the warp to protect the Grey Knights and he got turned to dust while working the Golden Throne and the Astronomican in order for the emperor to fight Horus

How did he help Dorn?

Neither of those things really stopped the Heresy as the Grey Knights did nothing except perhaps waste resources and the Astronomican didn't really stop the Traitors did it. Probably helped them though.

Centralized events respect to the single most important follow ups were the movements in the vengeful spirit. Sanguinious knew the events from before and knew he had to follow that destiny. It fueled for the rest of the outcome because the emperor needed that drive to defeat Horus even if dorn and everyone else helped him board etc etc etc.

The emperor needed to see sanguinious slain then the emotion he felt when the space marine died was the push he let releaseto defeat Horus.

I believe the emperors emotional state needed to be taken where it went for the success to defeat Horus.

Everyone else played important parts of course but the events on the source to me are the most important.

Going back however if humans really were victorious then that's a foresight that only the chaos gods can tell us.

 AWesker1976 wrote:

Reinforcements from the UM, SW and DA were the primary reason Horus ordered his shields dropped as far as I can recall, but Horus believed that he was the Master of Chaos at the time even boasting that he had succeeded in bending Chaos to his will where the Emperor had failed. It was only as he was dying that he realized that he was a pawn and not a king.

Wait, the UM? They weren't anywhere near Terra while the Heresy went down. At least not originally. It was just Russ and Johnson and their Legions who were on the way in. In fact, a huuuuge part of the (original) reason the UM now provide 60% of all Geneseed is that they weren't involved directly in the Heresy (too far away), but instead were the only Legion left pretty much untouched, which allowed them to play cleanup and Roboute to enforce his Codex Astartes on the other Primarchs.
I mean, all the loyalist Primarchs who were away from Terra when the Heresy began were making their way there post-haste, but Horus isolated Guilliman on the other side of the Galaxy too far away to make a difference in time exactly because they were the largest loyalist Legion and because of Guilliman's logistical genius.

I liked that background. It made sense, or at least a reasonable facsimile,, and gave every FF Chapter its own chance in the sun. The HH series, by comparison, is just flat-out terrible. Actually, scratch the "by comparison" part.

Bran Dawri wrote:

 AWesker1976 wrote:

Reinforcements from the UM, SW and DA were the primary reason Horus ordered his shields dropped as far as I can recall, but Horus believed that he was the Master of Chaos at the time even boasting that he had succeeded in bending Chaos to his will where the Emperor had failed. It was only as he was dying that he realized that he was a pawn and not a king.

Wait, the UM? They weren't anywhere near Terra while the Heresy went down. At least not originally. It was just Russ and Johnson and their Legions who were on the way in. In fact, a huuuuge part of the (original) reason the UM now provide 60% of all Geneseed is that they weren't involved directly in the Heresy (too far away), but instead were the only Legion left pretty much untouched, which allowed them to play cleanup and Roboute to enforce his Codex Astartes on the other Primarchs.
I mean, all the loyalist Primarchs who were away from Terra when the Heresy began were making their way there post-haste, but Horus isolated Guilliman on the other side of the Galaxy too far away to make a difference in time exactly because they were the largest loyalist Legion and because of Guilliman's logistical genius.

I liked that background. It made sense, or at least a reasonable facsimile,, and gave every FF Chapter its own chance in the sun. The HH series, by comparison, is just flat-out terrible. Actually, scratch the "by comparison" part.

They haven't changed it to my knowledge. Dude's probably just confused, pretty sure that in the HH books the Ultramarines are going to miss the Battle for Terra because of the Word Bearers.

I think in more modern retellings of the HH it goes that the Dark Angels and Space Wolves reinforcements were getting very close, and the Ultramarines "not far behind" or something similar. I've encountered it several times, but can't recall the source. But yeah, I like the original version better too.

in the words of vin diesel it doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile, winning is winning (something like that anyways). What I mean is whoever was on route doesn't really count because the events happening in real time were all that mattered. If the emperor had dropped, so what if a million other marines turned up, It would be such devastation to the human that the emperor had fallen it would cause them enough stress to completely fall apart and get swatted by the more focused chaos. Look at the death of sanguineous and what it did to my No1 team the Blood angels. It left them messed up and even more genetically handicapped than any other legion. Imagine the effect of the emperor falling.....its too worrying to even think.

I think the chaos gods knew the outcome with horus but at the same time I think the emperor was in cahoots with chaos to get rid of all the primarchs after the heresy much like he did with the thunder warriors. The emperor in my eyes despite the things he did for the greater good moves with some footsteps of chaos influence. Something fishy about the whole campaign too, where legions were placed, who and how others were tipped off....it just sounds too organized for it be a WOW AND GOODMORNING TO THE HERESY SHOW.