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Hypothetically speaking, if the Space Wolves and the Thousand Sons solved their differences, and moved together to fight Horus (note: this is pre-fall of Prospero, but after Ullanor), would this affect Horus's plans in any way? Considering that Russ's brute force and Magus's sorcery could be a potential threat to his advance to Terra, would this let other legions such as the Ultramarines to reach Terra, in time for the siege of the Imperial Palace, or will the two legions just be crushed by the World Eaters or Emperor's Children?

I know this probably ,makes no sense and is a lot of tosh, but I'm just interested what would happen. Ideas?

I don't think it would have changed the outcome all that much. Horus had plenty of psykers to aid him in his quest and the Space Wolves would have been bogged down somewhere else.

Plus who knows if Russ would actually turn a bind eye to anything psychic powers that don't come from Fenris. Horus would have had a plan to hold the Thousand Sons back from the fight on Terra, whether it a splinter group from Word Bearers or from Iron Warriors. Both of those legions would have done a tremendous job of holding the Thousand Sons from making into Terran Space in time to stop the Siege of the Golden palace. Even with the Psychic might of the (almost) entire legion, Space Wolves proved that psychic powers can't completely hold back a direct assualt from that brutalilty.

In Galaxy in Flames (or False Gods, I'm not sure), Horus mentions that the biggest threat to him winning, besides the Emperor, was Magnus. Had Magnus not been beaten back by the Space Wolves, then he would have been able to get the Emperor to prepare MUCH sooner, without tearing through his Webway.

 deffskulla wrote:
Plus who knows if Russ would actually turn a bind eye to anything psychic powers that don't come from Fenris. Horus would have had a plan to hold the Thousand Sons back from the fight on Terra, whether it a splinter group from Word Bearers or from Iron Warriors. Both of those legions would have done a tremendous job of holding the Thousand Sons from making into Terran Space in time to stop the Siege of the Golden palace. Even with the Psychic might of the (almost) entire legion, Space Wolves proved that psychic powers can't completely hold back a direct assualt from that brutalilty.

Yeah, when you have loads of Silent Sister squads, squads of custodes and a pariah primarch (Russ).......(oh, and not to mention the entire Space Wolves Legion which outnumbers the Thousand Sons 3:1)

 Dr. What wrote:
In Galaxy in Flames (or False Gods, I'm not sure), Horus mentions that the biggest threat to him winning, besides the Emperor, was Magnus. Had Magnus not been beaten back by the Space Wolves, then he would have been able to get the Emperor to prepare MUCH sooner, without tearing through his Webway.

Your logic falls down in that Magnus tore through the webway before Russ came to beat up his legion.

If Magnus had just gone in person instead of deciding he had to deliver the message psionically, the whole mess would never have happened and the Imperium would have a loyal army of Thousand Sons.

By the way, is it actually said anywhere that Russ was a Pariah? I didn't get that impression from when Magnus set him on fire.

I don't believe, in BL's version at least, that the Thousand Sons could ever be loyal and sustainable. The initial flaws in their creation compounded with Magnus' pacts with daemonic entities and their naive heavy reliance on daemonic familiars (tutilaries) meant that they were really left to turn to chaos or succumb to their inherent genetic flaws.

The wolves, while going about it in a completely backwards and hypocritical way, are actually mostly right in their criticisms of the Thousand Sons. Their major flaw* is their overzealous attempts to fulfill their (quite possibly self) appointed role as the emperor's executioners.

(*While the rune priests use of psychic powers while condemning others is blatantly hypocritical, and the idea of the power's coming from Fenris is complete b.s., their criticisms of The Thousand Son's method are eventually proved valid. )


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Russ was not a pariah. He needed the Silent Sisterhood to mask his presence on Nikea. He demonstrates some pretty serious psychic potential when his howls kill a bunch of marines. Their is nothing in established fluff that even hints towards him being a blank.

 deffskulla wrote:
Plus who knows if Russ would actually turn a bind eye to anything psychic powers that don't come from Fenris. Horus would have had a plan to hold the Thousand Sons back from the fight on Terra, whether it a splinter group from Word Bearers or from Iron Warriors. Both of those legions would have done a tremendous job of holding the Thousand Sons from making into Terran Space in time to stop the Siege of the Golden palace. Even with the Psychic might of the (almost) entire legion, Space Wolves proved that psychic powers can't completely hold back a direct assualt from that brutalilty.

I guess not when they had squads of powerful Pariahs helping them, as well as Custodians (Including Valdor himself), one of the more mighty Primarchs (Lorgar by comparison is just the Diet Coke version of Magnus), and, most importantly, not when Magnus himself subverts the TS's attempts at defending themselves.


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 Furyou Miko wrote:
Your logic falls down in that Magnus tore through the webway before Russ came to beat up his legion.

If Magnus had just gone in person instead of deciding he had to deliver the message psionically, the whole mess would never have happened and the Imperium would have a loyal army of Thousand Sons.

By the way, is it actually said anywhere that Russ was a Pariah? I didn't get that impression from when Magnus set him on fire.

It would have taken months or more to warn the Emperor in person, same with even using an astropath. Recall that Roboute Guilliman, on a planet not as far away as Prospero, heard no word of the Heresy until the Word Bearers rammed a ship at sub-light speeds through Calth's orbital defense platforms.

Magnus alone on Prospero was powerful enough to bulldoze through the horrific Warp Storms plaguing the galaxy. Really, this was probably one of the more brilliant ploys of the Dark Gods. They made it so that any other means of contacting the Emperor was unreliable, so Magnus himself directly went to the Emperor, only to destroy his father's work.

Prospero is a lot closer to Terra than to where Guilliman was, Roboute was mustering his forces at Horus behest far in the galactic east.

Here's a map from the Imperial Armour Heresy Book



I'm not sure if it had anything to do with the Chaos Gods, more was to do with Magnus trying to prove a point, which failed miserably.

 Phosis T'Kar Jr wrote:

 deffskulla wrote:
Plus who knows if Russ would actually turn a bind eye to anything psychic powers that don't come from Fenris. Horus would have had a plan to hold the Thousand Sons back from the fight on Terra, whether it a splinter group from Word Bearers or from Iron Warriors. Both of those legions would have done a tremendous job of holding the Thousand Sons from making into Terran Space in time to stop the Siege of the Golden palace. Even with the Psychic might of the (almost) entire legion, Space Wolves proved that psychic powers can't completely hold back a direct assualt from that brutalilty.

Yeah, when you have loads of Silent Sister squads, squads of custodes and a pariah primarch (Russ).......(oh, and not to mention the entire Space Wolves Legion which outnumbers the Thousand Sons 3:1)

Wait...Russ was a pariah?

It's weird, I could have sworn Prospero was the furthest Primarch homeworld from Terra.

Oh well, disregard that then.

No, Russ wasn't a Pariah, instead he was actually psychic (howl). As may be the case with every Primarch.

I think the Space Wolves and Thousand Sons cooperating would have been a serious flaw in Horus' plans, and IIRC he says so himself. The might and raw aggression of the Space Wolves, and a Legion of psykers* - against which daemons are particularly vulnerable.
Heck, Fenris and Prospero are both close to terra and practically in between there and Isstvan, they'd be a serious obstacle for Horus. Although, if anyone could overcome them...

*I think Oakenshield makes a good point too.

If the two Legions did not bloody eachother up and were able to aid in the defense of the Imperium at full strength, IMO the Heresy would have been much more of a failure.

It is stressed repeatedly throughout the series that the abolition of the Librarius hamstringed the ability of the Astartes to combat the terrors of the Warp, and the Thousand Sons have the mightiest psykers of any Legion.

Supported by Leman Russ's tactical and ruthlessly pragmatic mind, they would be used to devastating effect. There is a certain amusing irony in the thought of the Thousand Sons and Space Wolves descending upon a Daemon-laden battlefield together. Like how the Space Wolves enlisted the Sisters of Silence as the weakness of the TS, this time the TS would be enlisted as the weakness of the Daemons.

And yeah, all Primarchs were at least latently psychic.

Magnus, Lorgar, Sanguinius, Leman Russ, Lion El'Jonson, Corax (Ironically, considering his refusal to allow them in his Legion), Konrad Curze, all of these Primarchs have tapped into their psychic potential at some point, and at will, without the aid of Chaos. Fulgrim also has manifested psychic powers, but, well, Chaos.

If the Thousand Sons had aided the loyalists on Terra, they probably would have all just been butt-fethed by Tzeentch and turned into chaos spawn. Kind of like when they were fighting on Prospero.

But on the other hand, Chaos has a pattern of being inherently stupid, so it's equally probable that Tzeentch would just not do anything at all to them, just like he never does anything to Imperium psykers when they're beating daemon ass, despite it clearly being within his power to do so.

 Harriticus wrote:
I don't think it would have changed the outcome all that much. Horus had plenty of psykers to aid him in his quest and the Space Wolves would have been bogged down somewhere else.

NO




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 Dr. What wrote:
In Galaxy in Flames (or False Gods, I'm not sure), Horus mentions that the biggest threat to him winning, besides the Emperor, was Magnus. Had Magnus not been beaten back by the Space Wolves, then he would have been able to get the Emperor to prepare MUCH sooner, without tearing through his Webway.

He ment legion ^, and yes TS could hinder him magically while wolves go for the throat...So, without any modesty I will say, combined forces of those two would be the end of Horus...

That's not Horus saying that is it, that's the other thing

 Pilau Rice wrote:
That's not Horus saying that is it, that's the other thing

Vision of future Horus IIRC...later presented as a warp entity....

The Heresy was a long planned out thing, the pieces being put in place long before it ever started.

 Pilau Rice wrote:

Spoiler:

It was the Daemon thing that had presented itself at Nikaea, that's what I thought, some manifestation of Tzeentch. Horus hadn't done all this playing way in advance of the Burning of Prospero.

The Heresy was a long planned out thing, the pieces being put in place long before it ever started.

Agree but what's not to belive? Deamons lie, but I don't see the reason why would part of the Tzeench lie to Kasper when it's all over and doesn't have anything to gain....
There is also when Tzeench representative calling himself "a GOD" tells Magnus that he was the first choice for the chaos...Also I'm inclined to belive that this was the truth....

Your right, from its point of view.

Horus might have had other plans though. He was surprised at what was going on, it certainly worked out in his favour even if it wasn't he who orchestrated it.