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I've read about eight of them so far and I am quite struck by the differences. At times it almost feels like a totally different setting.

- Lots of random cthulu monster and The Thing demons appear but there are very few recognizable or aligned demons. We get a few voices in heads, but certainly no dark emissaries or greater daemon lords. They seem to have decided these things would be too silly so have went for the whole "mysterious" and inhuman depiction of chaos. Which is sort of at odds with them having a master plan and how they are described in the daemons codex.

- Unless they are talking about how a specific god corrupted its adopted legion (Slannesh- Emp. Children), theres no attempt to address the differences in the chaos pantheon. The vast bulk of material doesn't bother with this. I can't point at this daemon and say "Nurgle" or "Slannesh did it" for instance. Chaos feels like this single unified force acting from the shadows.

- Daemons like the Snake the Magnus kills saying that they aren't actually daemons and accepting the point very often spelled out that they are just extra dimensional creatures. This does a lot to diminish the threat and mystery of the daemons. Rather than being this magical evil they're just parasites...

- As above, they keep lending credence to the idea that daemons are just space parasites who assume aspects of the darkest human imagination. The problem is that this doesn't explain the realms of chaos and the permanent hierarchies of the chaos gods.

- So far no armies of lesser daemons and certainly no greater daemons have made a major appearance. They are mentioned, but so far the gods footsoldiers have yet to make a major appearance. It feels like the series will continue to focus exclusively on the space marines vs space marines conflict of the heresy. In fact given how much they seem to be relying on manipulation you almost get the impression they don't have endless hordes of daemons or can vomit the warp across whole planets.

- Most of the chaos legions, well, haven't fallen to chaos yet. Aside from Fulgrims boys, I get the impression that they have betrayed the Emperor but many of them view the gods as the means to an end rather than a way of life or objects of veneration. They certainly haven't taken on the trappings you would expect of a chaos army and still strongly resemble their Great Crusade type army. This is a bit at odds with how chaos corruption is normally shown as very rapid. It really shouldn't take that long for the legions to degenerate, but so far that seems to be the case.


Again, I haven't read them all. Maybe the writers are just keeping the chaos gods as working from the shadows and are going to hold back on full on 40k daemonic armies and corrupted chaos space marines until the last books. I'll wait and see. But atm I am not a fan of these changes and this depiction of chaos.


Do you feel chaos is different in the Horus Heresy? Is this something that changes later on in the series and chaos become more recognizably like it is in 40k?

It depends on what point of the stories you're at. - For example, Fear To Tread might very well be the book you're looking for.

A lot of the demons in the earlier books are Undivided demons - a bit like Chaos Furies.

One of the problems with the Horus Heresy is the portrayal of Chaos as something similar to Darth Sidious in the Star Wars Prequels.

Do the chaos legions become much more recognizably chaotic as the books go on?

Does this change feel natural or does it feel forced?

Also does it try to clarify their relationship with the chaos gods? Even with the Emperors Children its never spelt out that they worship Slannesh.

So you do actually have bloodletters and plaguebearers show up in force.?

Things go very much more traditional Chaotic starting from around 'The First Heretic.'

The thing to keep in mind, is that they're planning for at least 50 Horus Heresy novels, so things can sometimes seem a bit stretched out.

Going forward from Fear to Tread, Know No Fear and Betrayer, everything looks more familiar.

 Compel wrote:

The thing to keep in mind, is that they're planning for at least 50 Horus Heresy novels, so things can sometimes seem a bit stretched out.

Wow... I remember when the first one came out, the official line was 35 books over 10 years' time

 LoneLictor wrote:
One of the problems with the Horus Heresy is the portrayal of Chaos as something similar to Darth Sidious in the Star Wars Prequels.

What is it in other books/series?

 BlaxicanX wrote:

 LoneLictor wrote:
One of the problems with the Horus Heresy is the portrayal of Chaos as something similar to Darth Sidious in the Star Wars Prequels.

What is it in other books/series?

What do you mean?

I recommend you reading "Fear to Tread" it shows both Slaanesh and Khorne daemons very well even giving voice to what they were bloodthirster and such so try that book...

But i do understand some of the daemons they make up seem to have no allegiance to any one god.

I think it's also a matter of Chaos being poorly understood by the people who are dealing with it in earlier novels. Most of the legions don't even know the words Nurgle, Slaanesh, or Khorne when they're starting to get corrupted. The only ones who would probably know something would be Magnus and Lorgar, who aren't going to be sharing the info.

The Emperor going out of his way to hide it from them certainly doesn't help. In fact, the Emperor probably encourages the "extra dimensional critter" view, because it makes them seem more mundane. The daemons themselves may encourage this view, because they don't want to tip their hand until they have this whole Horus Heresy thing in the bag.

As far as all the Gods working together, that isn't exactly an unknown thing, even in present 40k. The Emp has this grand scheme that would end with ALL of the Chaos gods diminished. He's a common enemy. They have a vested interest in putting him down.

Also, I think even in the early books, you can spot the handywork of some of the gods. The blade that stabbed Horus is almost certainly a Nurgle weapon. The lodge members who healed him and gave him his vision were almost certainly sorcerers of Tzeentch.

 LoneLictor wrote:
What do you mean?

I worded that rather poorly.

What I meant was, how is Chaos usually portrayed in the fluff, that's different from how the Horus Heresy series portrays it?

One thing to bear in mind, is that most of the Chaos Legions are merely traitors at this point. The Word Bearers, specifically Erebus, have pacts with individual Daemons, powerful entities with no real master. As the series goes on though, you'll see more and more aligned Daemons, the Primarchs gaining power over warp entities, and a standing in the hierarchy of Daemons and Gods, there's also lots of subtle hints in relation to pantheon members.

A big part of the problem is that the traitor legions we've seen the most of are either Chaos Undivided or don't worship any gods.

Betrayer and Angel Exterminatus are great because of how we can recognise how Khorne and Slaanesh have altered the World Eaters, Iron Warriors (well, one of them at least) and Emprah's Children.

I'm hoping for a real Death Guard novel (Flight of the Eisenstein doesn't count) and more World Eaters.

The Emp has this grand scheme that would end with ALL of the Chaos gods diminished.

Can you elaborate on that ? Spoiler tags if needed.

The other issue here is that chaos was in theory a means to an end, not necessarily a long term strategy. Running into the eye of terror and becoming best friends with the various aspects of chaos wasn't the original plan. That happened as a result of not outright wining the heresy. One thing I've always thought about is what if Horus wins? Would the trauma of killing his father suddenly snap him out of his chaos induced mental breakdown? If so, does he rally the remaining primarchs and turn on chaos entirely? Just food for thought.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
It really shouldn't take that long for the legions to degenerate, but so far that seems to be the case.

I dont see why?

in 40k some of the night lords are depicted as being uncorrupted, still with pure gene seed.

A lot of the chaos marines beyond that are still genetically engineered supermen, but otherwise unmutated.

So why so soon after the heresy should they all be corrupted and mutated. If it was that fast, what would be left after 10,000 years

 Exergy wrote:

So why so soon after the heresy should they all be corrupted and mutated. If it was that fast, what would be left after 10,000 years

The absolute strongest and most badassed of the Chaos Legions??

Actually I do agree with you in a sense. I mean, Not ALL of the legions were corrupted, and of the Legions that were, not everyone within them were corrupted. I'd bet that if the writers were so inclined, there could be a splinter of the World Eaters still running around that haven't fallen to Khorne, and still have "perfect" genetic stock. But we also know that time flows differently within the Warp, where many of them reside, so that may play some role in things.

An answer to a lot of your questions can be summed up with the fact that Chaos lies. If they're trying to tempt the traitor legions, they would probably hide their true nature. Think about it, would you rather ally yourself with the demon who's their for your soul or with the alien who simply lives in a different dimension and wishes to be left alone. They are purposely hiding their worse aspects to entice the legions over. If they opened up with a great ball of puss, a bleeding skull, or enormous amounts of sodomy, they would be rejected. Instead they use the more familiar and toned down aspects to lure their prey in until it's too late. Remember that small steps corrupt.