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About to finish up Fulgrim and I'm curious how significant Isstvan V was. I know it destroyed a good chunk of the Legions there, but had Ferrus waited for reinforcements could it have been avoided? It seems like there was no real way to pull out of it and that no matter, the Imperium was about to get jumped.

Once they landed, they weren't leaving.


Especially since the iron Warriors were one of the loyalist "reinforcements" and spent a good bit of their time quickly building fortifications. Which is why they are known as the biggest traitors of Isstvan V.

It isn't in the books, but the chaos legions were issues with bane strike bolter rounds, which were capable of cracking power armour.

 welshhoppo wrote:
Once they landed, they weren't leaving.


Especially since the iron Warriors were one of the loyalist "reinforcements" and spent a good bit of their time quickly building fortifications. Which is why they are known as the biggest traitors of Isstvan V.

It isn't in the books, but the chaos legions were issues with bane strike bolter rounds, which were capable of cracking power armour.

But that's what I meant. Had Ferrus waited in space, they probably still would've gotten screwed by the traitor Legions, right?

 jreilly89 wrote:

 welshhoppo wrote:
Once they landed, they weren't leaving.


Especially since the iron Warriors were one of the loyalist "reinforcements" and spent a good bit of their time quickly building fortifications. Which is why they are known as the biggest traitors of Isstvan V.

It isn't in the books, but the chaos legions were issues with bane strike bolter rounds, which were capable of cracking power armour.

But that's what I meant. Had Ferrus waited in space, they probably still would've gotten screwed by the traitor Legions, right?

More than likely, you'd have had several traitor fleets waiting to pounce on them. But Ferrus would never have waited, he was riled up from Fulgrims insult. In fact, without Ferrus on the ground, the other legions would have probably suffered even more.

I would argue in space they might have taken more casualties. They still wouldn't have seen the betrayal coming and a marine can't fight in space as well as they can on the ground. All three legions were doomed from the start.

If the legions were still in space, then whilst they'd have taken casualties, they could have run and scattered more effectively once they realised what was going on, rather than having to withdraw troops from the surface first.

As it happens, the only people who got away were those who survived the massacre on the surface, and managed to link up with a ship that survived the massacre in orbit, rather than just the latter.

There is a counterargument that it could have been worse - had Ferrus waited, the rest of the Iron Hands could have caught up, and the Iron Hands legion might have been destroyed, not simply decapitated.

 welshhoppo wrote:


It isn't in the books, but the chaos legions were issues with bane strike bolter rounds, which were capable of cracking power armour.

Afaik, only the Alpha Legion and SoH had those.