#Betrayal at Calth

[sonofdorn-vii]

Brother Zealot Hrishikesh, Word Bearer and Son of Lorgar.

Present for the muster at Calth, Hrishi still carries the right pauldron of the first Loyalist he killed that day; his friend Brother Ramius Rhetoricus. The sight of it drives any Ultramarines he encounters henceforth into an almost uncontrollable rage. Praying for hours at a time, Hrishi is still trying ten thousand years later to convince his long-dead friend to denounce the Emperor and join the side of the Primordial Truth, pleading with the Ultramarine to see reason. But his prayers always end the same way; perfect recall of the look of astonished grief on Ramius' face as Hrishi's knife slips under his guard, and buries itself in his primary heart.

[wh40kartwork]

Betrayal At Calth / Thramas Crusade

by Cristian Otazu

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

Follow up question to your 40k book list; what are the mid-to-good Horus Heresy books? I know the ‘essentials’ are the first three (five if you’re feeling saucy) and Siege of Terra, but any outside that?

So, your "obligatory" reading is (as you said) the first 3 HH books, and the End & The Death 1-3. Other Siege of Terra books can be read to taste. Echoes of Eternity is pretty cool. If you want a a generally good quality (it varies) chronological experience between those two points, I would highly recommend the reading order of; - The First Heretic; Covers the censure of the Word Bearers by the Emperor and their fall to chaos. Also provides context for their fraught relationship with the Ultramarines, and shows off part of the dropsite massacre. A solid and foundational read. - Know No Fear & Fear To Tread; This will cover the assault on Calth and attempted crippling of the Ultramarines, and then the attempted corruption of the Blood Angels. In both cases the Word Bearers and Horus are capitalising on the legions' lack of knowledge about the dropsite massacre. The former book is easily one of the better HH novels. - Betrayer; The culmination of the shadow war following Calth in which Angron ascends to daemonhood and the Ruinstorm engulfs a chunk of the sector. This is possibly the contender for single best HH book, and will make you like Angron a whole lot more than you did previously. - Unremembered Empire, Pharos and Ruinstorm; This covers Guilliman setting up the Imperium Secundus, drawing Lion and Sanguinius to him, dealing with Night Lord bullshit and then the trio setting out to get back to Terra. Ruinstorm is a bit dry, but overall the context provided by these books is useful. Unremembered Empire is very solid. After these I'd recommend Master of Mankind, which shows the bedlam the Emperor and friends have been dealing with on Terra after Horus' titular heresy. Also provides a pleasantly critical look at Empy. Good book.

There are many, many, many books that you can weave in and around these, depending on what other things you might want to know, but I do believe for someone who doesn't want to read 50+ books, these 8 will feed you a chunk of info and generally decent reading.

[leareadsheresy]

Battle for the Abyss

This post contains spoilers for Battle for the Abyss, by Ben Counter, first published as a novel on (as nearly as I can tell) July 29th, 2008, although sources disagree -- some places I've found assert it was published on August 1st, 2008. Something I've found when trying to date specific works in this series, though, is that a lot of places will say "Published on [Month] 1st" when they actually mean "Published in [Month], we don't know which exact day," so as a general rule when I do this dating thing I assume any source that's specific about it being published on an exact date is accurate unless that date is given as the first of the month, in which case I assume that's filler information and only the month is reliable. I guess it makes sense for a book published two days before the end of the month would be attributed to the next month in some databases. Also I kind of don't care if I'm off by a couple of days about a publication date because I'm tumblr liveblogging a series of, at best, high-school-essay-quality book reports about a media tie-in novel series.

So this book is kind of infamous; I've seen it described as The Worst Horus Heresy novel with the possible exception of some of the Salamanders books that come later. Thing is, I don't hate it. To explain why, I will have to go into some of the events of the Horus Heresy that haven't been covered in these novels yet.

According to the pseudo-history of the Horus Heresy, following the Istvaan III Atrocity but before news of it had reached the larger galaxy, Horus issued orders to the Ultramarine Legion to muster at Calth, a planet in the Veridia System within the realm of Ultramar (the Ultramarines' empire-within-an-empire, conquered by their Primarch prior to his discovery by the Emperor of Mankind). An airless world with massive underground cities and an expansive orbital shipyard, Calth served as one of Ultramar's major military bases, and the order was for the Ultramarines to gather there with the Word Bearers Legion to prepare for a campaign against an ork force who were moving in the direction of Veridia. Unknown to the Ultramarines, the muster at Calth was a trap -- the Word Bearers, upon their arrival, immediately attacked the planet, using the slaughter of the gathered Ultramarines and Calth's human population to fuel a ritual that poisoned Veridia's sun, and ultimately this ritual fueled a massive warp-storm, the Ruinstorm, that both interrupted FTL travel between one half of the galaxy and the other and made it much easier for daemons to manifest in realspace in its vicinity, allowing the traitor forces to summon daemonic reinforcements to aid in their war against Imperial loyalists.

(If you've played Space Marine 2, this is what Chairon is talking about when he says he was born on Calth -- the game takes place ten thousand years after the Horus Heresy but many of the first generation of Primaris Space Marines, of which Chairon and Gadriel both are, were taken by Belisarius Cawl as children during the Heresy for experimentation and spent most of the intervening millennia being brought in and out of stasis as Cawl developed the Primaris aguments.)

Calth is important in the annals of the Heresy. Visions of Darkness, an art book (the second of four, compiling card art from the 2003 Horus Heresy collectible card game; the Visions series also served as the outline for the events of the Heresy as a whole), detailed the Word Bearer assault on Calth in 2005, a year before the publication of Horus Rising. (I would have covered the Visions series on this blog except I didn't realize three of the four were published before Horus Rising until after I'd done my entry on False Gods; the fourth was published between those two novels.) Calth is the subject of future novels and in 2015 got its own boxed game, Betrayal at Calth, which contained the first Horus Heresy plastic miniatures -- Mark IV armor, Cataphractii Terminators, two characters, and the first (truly awful; thank God we're rid of it) plastic Contemptor Dreadnought. Betrayal at Calth also had its own ruleset but hardly anybody ever played it; that boxed set was a way to justify pulling money for development of plastic Horus Heresy figures from the self-contained-boxed-games budget and everybody knows it.

What the pseudo-histories of the Horus Heresy don't say is that the attack on Calth was part of an intended two-pronged attack, meant to occur simultaneously with a sneak attack on Maccrage, the adopted homeworld of the Ultramarine Primarch Roboute Guilliman and the Ultramarines' primary recruiting world, while most of the Ultramarine forces were on Calth awaiting Word Bearer rendezvous. The other half of this attack would be carried out by a massive battleship of a new class, the Furious Abyss, commissioned by Kelbor-Hal, Fabricator-General of the Mechanicum of Mars (and secret Horus ally), with the intent to shatter Maccrage's second moon and then use the debris field to bypass Maccrage's orbital defenses to deliver a payload of life-eater virus to the planet directly in a repeat of the Istvaan III Atrocity. This attack, together with the betrayal at Calth, would have knocked the Ultramarines out of the war and prevented them from rallying and rebuilding later, and without the Ultramarines as a rebuilt force later in the war serving as a counter to the traitors, Horus would have been able to commit forces in greater numbers to the Garmon Sector, allowing him to land more forces on Terra much earlier. This likely would have won the traitors the war.

The reason why the pseud-histories of the Heresy doesn't say any of that is the attack by the Furious Abyss failed, because a small group of Astartes from the Ultramarines, Space Wolves, World Eaters, and Thousand Sons legions, none of whom even know that the Heresy was a thing yet, found evidence of the Furious Abyss's weapons test against an Ultramarines battleship and investigated, followed the Abyss's trail, and ultimately destroyed it before it could succeed in its attack on Maccrage, and this battle was so small -- the Furious Abyss itself versus a pursuit force of six much smaller ships -- that it was entirely swallowed up by the chaos of the Heresy's eruption and was ultimately forgotten by later historians.

The early Heresy is so replete with devastating loyalist losses that I kind of love the idea of an early loyalist win, entirely forgotten by later histories, made by a mixed group of members of legions who'd later be on both sides of the conflict, being one of the unknown lynchpins of Horus's ultimate defeat. The Horus Heresy game book series, the Black Books, do not to my knowledge even mention this battle, because their setting sections are written in-character by a post-Heresy historian, and the narrator would have had no way of knowing Calth was intended as part of a two-pronged attack. (Actually I'm not sure it's never mentioned; if I eventually get to the Black Books while doing this readthrough I'll keep an eye out for it.) I just... I love the idea of a small, forgotten event being so important. I think it's genuinely interesting, and this sort of attempt to expand the timeline with new events that make sense (of course the traitors would have had a plan to follow up their Calth attack with an attack on Maccrage to finish the Ultramarines off completely!) is exactly what these Horus Heresy novels ought to have been doing once it became apparent that they sold like gangbusters and were therefore going to be published for a very, very long time. This is, at least in theory, what I am here for. I'm sure not here for Primarch drama! I don't even like the Primarchs! (God, me reading this series is a mistake. Yeah, Lea, read a 64-book-series where you don't care about any of the ostensible main characters; that's a great use of your time.)

Unfortunately, Battle for the Abyss just isn't very good. Fortunately, at least some of the ways it's not very good are themselves of at least some interest.

So. Let's go with a summary.

We open with Kelbor-Hal, Fabricator General of Mars, watching as the Furious Abyss launches from Thule, which we're told has been a moon of Jupiter for six thousand years. Jupiter doesn't have a real moon called Thule but there is an asteroid called 279 Thule, so I think we're meant to assume that this is 279 Thule, having been dragged into orbit of Jupiter six thousand years previously. The ship is described as being impossibly big. Inside, a Word Bearer is giving a speech to a bunch of other Word Bearers about how religion is cool and it's their destiny to overthrow the emperor, and how they'll finally get their revenge on the Ultramarines. (Much like Calth, there is another important pre-established bit of Heresy lore where the Word Bearers insisted on worshipping the Emperor like a god even after he told them not to, because the Word Bearer Primarch, Lorgar, believes firmly that life is only worth living in service to a divine power. The Emperor then sent the Ultramarines to the Word Bearer homeworld to humble them by leveling their biggest temple-city, which Lorgar pretended worked but actually just drove him to hate the Emperor and seek out alternate gods to worship, which lead him to Chaos.) After the ship launches, Thule is rigged to explode so everyone who worked on the Furious Abyss dies, keeping the ship's design secret.

We then cut to some Ultramarines heading towards Vangelis Spaceport (I appreciate the name) on the Fist of Maccrage, but the Furious Abyss comes out of nowhere and attacks it as a weapons test. Judging his ship doomed, the captain of the Fist orders a distress signal sent before they all die.

Then we meet the protagonists. Some Ultramarines on Vangelis Station lead by Captain Cestus are waiting to be picked up by the Fist of Maccrage to be... stationed at Terra, I think? But it's late and they're worried. Cestus meets up with a Space Wolf named Brynngar, who leads a couple of packs of Blood Claws (that's a type of Space Wolf unit in 40k but, importantly, not in 30k; I'll get back to this at the end), in a bar, Brynngar is carousing and fighting and drinking special Space Wolf mead that can get even Space Marines drunk (another 40k thing). Cestus and Brynngar are old battle buddies who saved each others lives a couple of times. Suddenly alarms go off -- there's been an incoming astropathic message, and Cestus thinks it might be from their late ship, so he goes to check it, but it's a bunch of ominous nonsense that kills the astropaths who receive it and then feedback from the astropaths into the station's systems threatens to overload the reactor. Cestus and Brynngar rush off to the reactor room to do an emergency shutdown and in the core of the overloading reactor Cestus gets a psychic vision of Maccrage in flames.

There is some evidence the astropathic message of doom came from the Fist of Maccrage and Cestus decides to investigate, rallying all the other space marines on the station -- his own Ultramarines, the Space Wolves, some World Eaters lead by an captain named Skraal, and a single Thousand Son, Mhotep. They commandeer a warship called the Wrathful and its escorts, captained by the reasonably cool Admiral Kaminska, who's sort of pissed off she's been drafted into this potential fool's errand, and Mhotep brings along his personal ship as well. They encounter... you know, I don't remember, either they find a debris field or an energy signal or something, they find some evidence that the Fist of Maccrage has been destroyed and are able to follow an energy signature to the Furious Abyss, which they hail, it blows up one of their escorts when the escort gets too close and there's a space battle. Our protagonists kind of freak out when they realize that's a ship full of space marines that just attacked other space marines, which isn't supposed to happen, but mainly they're like "Oh, this is a fight? Cool, I know how fights work" and then they fight. One of the Wraithful's escorts is a fighter carrier but the Abyss use a psychic attack to drive all the fighter pilots insane when they get too close, Mhotep's ship gets blown up but he escapes in a "savior pod" (one of the things 30k/40k does is give slightly off-kilter names to SF staples, so escape pods are savior pods, the teleporter room is called the teleportarium, etc) and gets picked up by the Wrathful, etc. All but one of the escorts are destroyed (the survivor is the Fireblade), so the protagonist's fleet is down down from five ships to two, and Abyss escapes.

During the fight, they damage the Abyss so the protagonists know that if they just follow it, it'll have to get repairs somewhere, and they can attack it then. The Abyss heads towards a warp jump point which serves as a known entry point to a stable warp corridor (to my knowledge this is not how warp travel is described as working elsewhere in the setting; there are stable warp corridors, but there's nothing like Babylon 5 style jump points you have to use to enter them), and the protagonists follow but after entering the corridor the Word Bearers use a psychic bomb to collapse the corridor, so the Wrathful and the Fireblade enter the unstable warp. Both protagonist ships are attacked by daemons in the warp; the space marines aboard the Wrathful fight theirs off but the Fireblade takes significant damage, and the Wrathful moves to bring it into a repair bay, but surprise, the whole ship has been compromised by daemons who've fused the souls of the crew into the ship, and the Fireblade has become a sort of giant anglerfish monster thing that attacks the repair bay as it opens. Mhotep, the Thousand Son, senses that something is off and rushes to the repair bay where he uses warp sorcery to fight the Fireblade off, breaking the Edict of Nikea (when the Emperor declared that any Space Marines who were developing psychic powers had to immediately stop using and developing them, which the Thousand Sons are bitter about because they'd made their psychic talents their whole thing). Everyone else in the repair bay dies in this process and Mhotep lies about using a ruptured fuel line to fight off the Fireblade's incursion but Brynngar the Space Wolf doesn't believe him, because Space Wolves, being viking barbarians, hate witches. (Space Wolf rune priests are not witches, as any Space Wolf will tell you.)

The Wrathful continue following the Abyss until it leaves the warp and stops off at a repair station, and Cestus plans a three-pronged attack involving infiltrating groups of space marines to the station and sneaking into the Abyss to sabotage it. The three groups are Ultramarines lead by another named guy who convinces Cestus to stay behind and command the Wrathful, Skraal and his World Eaters, and Brynngar and his space wolves. The World Eaters ruin everything because unlike the other two groups, they can't resist killing innocent station workers along the way to infiltrating the ship ("A bit of killing will sharpen our senses"), and this results in an alarm going up. One touch I sort of like is that at no point later in the book do our protagonists realize this was what gave the attack away; at one point they speculate that the Word Bearers may have had daemons on the Wrathful passing info back to the Abyss and then it just doesn't come up again. The attack fails, most of the infiltrating Ultramarines are killed, the Space Wolves fall back, but the World Eaters and one Ultramarine get in... and are immediately killed because when like twenty space marines try to just rush into a ship filled with hundreds of space marines on high alert, things go badly. Only Skraal survives, fleeing into the depths of the Furious Abyss.

The Furious Abyss takes off, the Wrathful follows, back into the warp with both of them towards Maccrage. On the Furious Abyss, Skraal, sneaking around in air ducts and behind pillars and things, witnesses a ritual where the Word Bearers use the corpse of the dead Ultramarine lieutenant to appease a daemon named Wsoric, while on the Wrathful, Cestus and Brynngar try to get some info out of a captured Word Bearer that Brynngar and his 40k Blood Claws brought back from his failed assault. Asking nicely doesn't work, torture doesn't work, Cestus finally loops Mhotep in to do a psychic probe and Brynngar freaks out about it. They argue, Mhotep tells them to leave so he can do his interrogation without witnesses, demons attack the ship, Mhotep finishes his interrogation and then heads to the spot of the daemon incursion and uses more sorcery to defeat them, which saves a bunch of Ultramarines but drives Mhotep unconscious. Brynngar witnesses this and decides to kill the unconscious Mhotep for witchcraft before he can wake up and share what he got from the Word Bearer, Cestus refuses, they have an honor duel about it. Cestus barely wins and Brynngar abides by the terms of the duel but makes it clear their friendship is over. Mhotep wakes up and tells Cestus the plans for the attack on Maccrage that I went over many many paragraphs ago at the start of this blog post. Cestus confines Mhotep to an isolation cell because Brynngar made it clear the next time he sees Mhotep he'll kill him, honor duel or no. Also, Mhotep touches Cestus's head and gives him a vision of the future, and confesses that he'd foreseen farseen foreseen all of this years ago and knew his fate was to die on the Wrathful.

Both ships exit the warp at Maccrage and have another space fight. Secretly, Cestus made a plan with the human crew of the ship -- all the Space Marines would enter shuttles and when the Furious Abyss opens its torpedo tubes to fight, they'd launch the shuttles toward it and enter via the torpedo tubes while the Wrathful and the Furious Abyss slug it out. During that fight, the Wrathful's engines are wrecked and it begins plummeting towards Maccrage's moon. Most of the Space Marines make it into the ship. Their plan is to blow up the torpedos the Abyss was going to use to blow up Maccrage's moon, since they entered via torpedo tubes and are therefore right there on the torpedo deck, but the Word Bearers hit them with a psychic attack. All the Ultramarines but Cestus die and Brynngar goes crazy, hallucinates being a wolf and fighting a bunch of other wolves for pack dominance, and then wakes up realizing he's killed all the Space Wolves he arrived with. He flees into the depths of the ship, has another fight with a named Word Bearer he fought and nearly killed earlier (now half-interred in a dreadnought), but nearly loses and is saved by Skraal, who has spent the last several weeks sneaking around learning the interior of the ship. Cestus met up with Skraal off-camera while Brynngar was fighting the dreadnought and he shares his new plan: Attack the plasma reactor at the center of the ship and cause a cascading failure that will blow the whole thing up. Brynngar is like "How do you know the interior of the ship well enough to be confident that will work, Cestus? Is it Mhotep's witchery? I hate witches; I'll help you with your witch's plan, but after that you and I are quits" and Cestus is sad but agrees to those terms.

Back on the Wrathful, Admiral Kaminska does one of those scenes you get in space navy science fiction where she orders all the crew into the savior pods but her bridge crew all refuse to go, preferring to die with her, and she's mad about it but also appreciative... and then her second in command doubles over like she's being played by John Hurt in Alien, and the daemon Wsoric bursts out of her and then kills Kaminska and the rest of the bridge crew, also emanating a chill aura that kills everyone on the ship... except Mhotep, who leaves his cell and heads to the bridge. They fight, Wsoric taunts Mhotep about corrupting Brynngar and using his hatred of witchcraft to turn him against them, and tempts Mhotep with escape and hints at the Thousand Sons siding with Horus, Mhotep resists temptation and stuffs a grenade in Wsoric's chest during a moment of daemonic instability (daemons don't hold together well in realspace). Wsoric blows up and Mhotep lies down on the deck plating just in time for the Wrathful to impact the surface of Maccrage's moon and be destroyed. Mhotep dies triumphant.

Brynngar, Skraal, and Cestus get to the plasma reactor, pursued by Word Bearers, and once there, Skraal charges the Word Bearers to give Cestus and Brynngar some time. He makes it to the head Word Bearer guy and injures him before being killed. Cestus's plan is to sacrifice himself by jumping into the plasma reactor with a bunch of grenades but Brynngar says nope and does it instead, implicitly apologizing for being so hostile earlier. Brynngar jumps into the plasma reactor with a bomb strapped to his chest and dies triumphant. With the ship about to explode, the head Word Bearer runs off to escape, Cestus follows him, they have a duel, and Cestus is wounded but cuts off the Word Bearer's head. He then succumbs to wounds the Word Bearer inflicted on him during the duel and dies triumphant as the Furious Abyss explodes. The end.

It would be theoretically possible to write a good book based on the above outline. I don't think there is intrinsically anything wrong with the idea of a full-length, 416 page novel that is just one extended battle-chase-battle-chase-battle. Fury Road was great.

Battle for the Abyss doesn't manage it. The prose is workmanlike and the characterization is flat. Everyone is a stereotype and plot points keep relying on things working in noncanon ways, like the warp jump point thing. Not only is everyone a stereotype, everyone is a 40k stereotype, most notably the drunken Space Wolf. There is a whole subplot I didn't go into above where the narrative keeps cutting back to the Word Bearers as they speak exposition to each other and they're all plotting against each other for status, like a group of Decepticons comprised entirely of copies of Starscream. (And not the cool version of that from Transformers Animated.)

That said... I still think the characterization is better than in False Gods. Everyone is a flat stereotype but almost nobody is ever holding the idiot ball. (Exception: Whoever designed Vangelis Station so that bad astropathic feedback, something that people in 30k already consider extremely dangerous, can trivially jump to the power grid and overload the reactor. Like, come on, guys, the Emperor considers psychic stuff so dangerous he's busy forcefully reorganizing every human civilization in the galaxy to weaken it; don't plug it directly into the mains. More to the point, if your story outline requires a crisis where your space station is going to blow up so the heroes can save it, please have the crisis unfold in a way that doesn't leave me wondering why the space station was designed so as to be improbably, plot-conveniently vulnerable.) In False Gods everyone made infuriatingly stupid decisions and failed to see through laughably obvious manipulation constantly for the sake of clumsily driving the central tragedy through; here, people make reasonable decisions and are just sort of boring about it. There is a type of reader who considers the latter worse but I'm not him.

Furthermore... when this book was written, what 30k Space Wolves were like hadn't been established yet. Horus Rising has mention of Devastator Squads, which are a 40k generic space marine thing that aren't in 30k, so I can't be super mad about this book giving the Space Wolves a couple of Blood Claws squads, a 40k Space Wolf thing that aren't in 30k. Later writers would develop 30k setting elements in new directions, and I can criticize Ben Counter for failing to see he had an opportunity to do that here (maybe if he'd done something more interesting with Brynngar it'd have stuck and we'd have gotten an entirely different version of 30k Space Wolves than we did, because later writers might have followed his lead), but I can't criticize him for failing to guess what later writers would eventually do with them.

Ultimately it's bolter porn. It's just okay bolter porn; it's not even especially bad bolter porn, and it's about what is at least in theory an interesting forgotten early loyalist victory. Next to the violence False Gods did to the plot setup and characterization in Horus Rising, it looks okay.

I can't recommend reading it, though. There are better ways to spend your time.

[regina-bithyniae]

Play Betrayal at Calth Scenarios I-IV

[mr-double-downer]

there’s a great bit of voice acting in one of oculus imperia’s video during his series on the betrayal at Calth between Gulieman and Lorgar and honestly if the upcoming tv series can’t even match that level of performance by something put on by amateur VAs and fans, then why even care lol

[daves-miniature-adventures]

Here we go.

After seventeen years and fifty three books, I’m starting the final book of the main Horus Heresy series.

****possible spoilers from here onwards****

I’ve enjoyed this series immensely over the years. Some of the books were certainly better than others (Galaxy in Flames, Legion, Nemesis were some of my favourites), some were not so great (I’m looking at you Damnation of Pythos).

The interweaving of multiple core story arcs was enthralling, and I really loved how some aspects of the story were revisited from different perspectives.

If I were to pick a favourite arc, I think it would be the Betrayal at Calth and the rise of Imperium Secundus. This would be closely followed by Garro and his transformation from Death Guard captain to an Agent of the Sigilite.

The one thing I truly enjoyed about the series was the vast array of characters each given some time in the spotlight, from the obvious Legiones Astartes to other less well-known individuals such as the Imperial Assassins, the Perpetuals, and even ordinary Army troopers. Seeing all of the politics and bureaucracy of the Imperium and how it affected the Heresy was also extremely satisfying.

This series has been a huge part of my reading hobby for literally decades (!) and I’m a little sad that I’ve reached the end, but also glad that I stuck with it.

Also, I am so excited to be on the verge of starting the Siege of Terra series as well!

This is just my own humble opinion on the Horus Heresy series, would love to hear anyone else’s thoughts!

Happy Hobbying

Dave

[gertlushgaming]

The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth Review (Steam)

For this The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth Review, we play a turn-based combat epic set during the origin era of Warhammer 40k. Play on either PC or VR, as the game will detect your platform choice. Take command of Ultramarines as they battle against their traitorous brethren, the Word Bearers.

The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth Review Pros:

- Decent graphics. - 12.88GB download size. - Optional VR Mode. - Officially licensed. - Launch options - game or VR version. - Graphics settings - resolution, shadows, texture quality, v-sync, anti-aliasing, and anisotropic filtering. - Skulls 2020 content can be turned on and off. - Three game modes - campaign, skirmish, and multiplayer. - Multiplayer options - matchmaking, private lobby, and army builder. - The campaign has four acts after the tutorial act. - Optional tutorial act for movement, combat, assault, and hold. - Strategy gameplay. - You have full camera control and can freely zoom around and zone in. - In-game cutscenes. - Good voicework. - Elemental hazards and advantages with walls providing cover, the ground can make shooting or walk over it harder. - Four maps to choose from in Skirmish. - Skirmish mode lets you choose a side, edit your team and pick a map against the Ai. - Fast loading times. - Icons flash on the screen to show who's taking action or who is shooting at your team. - Click a unit and a Hex grid comes up showing how far you can move and where. - The simple hot bar for aiming, moving, etc. - You can see the enemy health bars. - Cross-platform playing allows VR players to face off against non-VR players. The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth Review Cons: - No Steam achievements. - Isn't actually available for purchase anymore. - Doesn't offer controller support. - Basic graphics settings. - Cannot rebind controls. - Massive game version text written all over the place. - No difficulty options for skirmish. - Definitely a VR game first and a non-VR game second. - You don't get any turn order lineup. Related Post: Pretty Girls 2048 Strike Review (PlayStation 5) The Horus Heresy: Betrayal at Calth: Official website. Developer: Steel Wool Studios Publisher: Steel Wool Studios Store Links - Steam Read the full article

[akhenaten-imhotep]

Continued from here:

Now everything made sense for Akhenaten. Through the years she’d heard stories about warp entities being created from the emotions of sentient beings. Different civilizations had their own version of things, yet the core themes were the same. Wasn’t Mal’lok the representation of the Chr’ok’s hunger for carnage?

And Lorgar being Magnus’ intended replacement explained why the Urizen’s aura bubbled with power during the Betrayal at Calth. Akhenaten had racked her brain trying to decipher when had he become so psychically strong...

“So this means that you can see me? Not the illussion I am projecting, but the actual me. I spent years practicing glamours because I didn’t want people to run away from me. But I guess you’ve seen worse things than a poor sod afflicted with the Flesh change.”

What could be described as an elderly humanoid version of a chaos spawn stood before Lorgar. Here and there one could be signs of aging such as wrinkles, saggy skin, and a many-eyed tired and world-weary gaze.

The psyker drummed her fingers on her thigh as she meditated on the last thing Lorgar told her.Things were getting curiouser and curiouser.

“So the Flesh Change was the result of Tzeentch adding fuel to the fire because he wanted to claim my father after the Emperor went back on his bargain. Now that explains why he fell to the Changer, and why being near the Grandfather’s creatures sent me into fits of rage after I turned into this.”

"Funny, who would have thought that of all of my uncles you would be the one I was the most similar to. To go deep into the warp in a mad chase of answers...A long time ago someone told me that when a tragedy happens it is the smartest people who suffer the most. Because they question everything."

A smile twitched at the edges of his lips.

"Could it have been any but me?" he asked. "None of the others would have. Perhaps, in another life, Sanguinius might, looking for the answer as to why he had his wings. Curze could go hunting for a reason for the visions that assaulted him his entire life. But neither would." He snorted. The priest's gaze turned elsewhere, his voice becoming distant.

"I came to your father with questions first. Did you know that?" He tilted his head as though he were listening to someone whispering to him. "I asked him what was out there. He said nothing. I asked him why he kept peering into its depths. I asked him what was out there screaming my name. He told me that all I would find in the void was misery. So, in a way, I suppose you could blame him for my inevitable journey. At least in part."

[regina-bithyniae]

IGOUGO

There is a sort of consensus that the "Alternating" game turn structure is superior to the "I go, you go" structure, particularly focusing on wargames.

On its face there is a strong case for it: it keeps both players continually in the game due to the "turns" being an order of magnitude shorter, and it makes gameplay far more dynamic as the number of steps you can disrupt the other player's plan and outmaneuver him rises radically.

Most of the current GW sidegames I'm aware of follow alternating structures: Titanicus, Kill Team, Betrayal at Calth, Burning of Prospero. Core 40k/30k have stuck to IGOUGO, but alternating elements have crept in as the former's Strategems (vomit) and the latter's Reactions (gorgeous, gorgeous).

So, Alternating has won the argument. I still have my quibbles. Quibble. Singular.

Alternating turns "activations" (where a unit is selected and moves/attacks/does action) into a resource, and the more the better. Activations come with units. If one player has four units and the other three, the player with more can "burn" an activation early to force the other player to commit a unit earlier than he'd like, and then quite effectively move his pieces to counter as the outnumbered player is forced to make undesireable/counterable moves.

The first problem is that it compounds taking an early loss. Not only do you have fewer guns targeting more enemies, and more enemy guns targeting fewer of your units, but your actions become increasingly suboptimal as the other player gets more "tailing" activations to counter whatever you do.

The second, both a problem of "feel" and sanity, is that smaller groups ought to be easier to coordinate and maneuver, yet under an alternating turn structure, the larger your force is, the nimbler! Anyone who's managed a team project or scheduled a D&D group's meetups knows this is absurd.

[lordsofmedrengard]

Did the Word Bearers Lose at Calth?

I’m not so sure they did. They sent some 50 000 Word Bearers there, and most of them died - fair enough. But they killed almost 120 000 Ultramarines and injured tens of thousands more to the point where they were combat-ineffective, and many of the Ultramarine’s leaders were among those killed. The Ultramarines lost many of their heavy warships as well, and the Ultramarines had never been in possession of a particularly impressive fleet. To me, this reads like a tactical loss (since they didn’t kill Guilliman or wipe out the entire UM force) but a strategic win for the Word Bearers (since they halved the Ultramarines Legion and created the Ruinstorm).

[earltheartist]

The Betrayal

some fanart of a word bearer during the betrayal of Calth and the vengeance of Lorgar against the 13th legion for razing Monarchia.

pssst. @immanueldid

[just-a-loyal-ultramarine]

Comparing plastic HH to resin

Having built a HH army with the infantry represented by GW’s plastics once before, I’m probably only going to use parts bought from eBay (like the shoulder pads and maybe backpacks) for my Alpha Legion. The old FW resins (readily available through any number of recasters) hold sharper details, have more interesting poses, and have less wide helmets - the upgrade helmets won’t look out of scale. I don’t think I’ll use any Cataphractii beyond a squad of Lernaeans (maybe Siege Tyrants or Fire Drakes converted from a Lernaean base?), and FW used to make a good kit for Tartaros as well - might as well save on shipping and go to the same caster.

While the MK IV mostly comes down to preference, I think the plastic MK III is flatly inferior to the resin one - less sharp studs, heads with weird grilles, weird and less appealing trim on the shoulder pads, awkward mould lines and mould pressing away some of the details on the backpacks and legs... Yeah, If I get any MK III for them I’m taking my luck with resin.

The plastic Contemptor is beneath contempt, frankly.

Overall, unless GW brings back BaC it’s recast for most of the army. Even then I’d have to consider it carefully - I much prefer the way the resin looks, even if the material is inferior in every other way.

[titanomancy]

Not that I have the time to work on my own stuff, anymore, but I’ve got an idea for how to do a Sergeant Thiel kitbash to run a veteran squad. May try to sneak him in before I start on the next Titan.

[mousebartender]

Ok, I read some more and reflected on some of them. Also I removed the non-HH titles and put all new titles in bold. So...

Personal Horus Heresy Novel Rankings

In Progress: Ruinstorm

Betrayer

Fulgrim

Legion

The Unremembered Empire

Flight of the Eisenstein

A Thousand Sons

Nemesis

Angel Exterminatus

Angels of Caliban

The Crimson King

The Master of Mankind

Know No Fear

Horus Rising

False Gods

The First Heretic

Vengeful Spirit

The Outcast Dead

Deliverance Lost

Pharos

Scars

Fear to Tread

Galaxy in Flames

Praetorian of Dorn

Mark of Calth

Mechanicum

Prospero Burns

Fallen Angels

The Path of Heaven

I honestly think the Imperium Secundus stuff is actually quite good but that may be my Ultramarines fan bias showing. Biggest surprise on this list was Angels of Caliban, did not expect to like it as much as I did but the Luther stuff is solid. Biggest disappointment was Mechanicum, huge let down in my opinion.

Personal Black Library Rankings

In Progress: Void Stalker (Night Lords)

Betrayer Fulgrim Legion Soul Hunter (Night Lords) Flight of the Eisenstein A Thousand Sons Blood Reaver (Night Lords) Nemesis Angel Exterminatus Xenos (Eisenhorn) The Crimson King Horus Rising False Gods Malleus (Eisenhorn) The First Heretic Know No Fear Scars Hereticus (Eisenhorn) Galaxy in Flames Praetorian of Dorn Konrad Curze: The Night Haunter (Primarchs) Fallen Angels Prospero Burns

Unrelated but David Timson is the best narrator

[coolyo294]

Cerastus Knight-Castigator “Nepenthes” 

While infantry-hunting is a job typically looked down on by the aristocratic scions of Knight Houses, the Cerastus Knight-Castigator is an engine designed for that very purpose. Most would turn their nose up at the idea of using such a glorious weapon as a knight to scour mud-spattered infantry from their holes, but the Scions that pilot Castigators relish the job. Tanks, Titans, and Knight-analogues each pose their own threat, but a canny infantryman with a meltagun can be just as deadly to an unprepared Knight as any of those formidable foes, if given the chance. Therefore, it’s the Castigator’s job to ensure they never get that chance, wiping formations of infantry from the field with bursts of fire from their deadly Castigator-pattern Bolt Cannons and swipes from their massive Tempest Warblades. When no small foes can be found, the Warblade also enables the Castigator to hunt other Knights or armored targets. 

The Engine pictured here is the Nepenthes, helmed by Knight-Scion Ulas Karn of House Vornheer. House Vornheer was sworn by oaths to the Primarch of the Ultramarines Roboute Guilliman, thus they were present in their entirety at the muster of Calth and the subsequent betrayal by the perfidious Word Bearers. Most of the Household’s Engines were destroyed in the opening moments of the Traitor’s surprise attack, their muster fields at Platia City blasted into an atomized wasteland by ships in high orbit. Those that survived had only just embarked in a conveyor that was to take them to a transport barque waiting in orbit, though damage forced it to crash land in the seas off Ithraca. Led by the House’s commander, Duke Bhaevenwulf, Vornheer’s surviving Engines carved their way from the hold of their sunken transport and set off on an aquatic trek to link up with Imperial forces in Ithraca City. Little evidence remains to chronicle House Vornheer’s final moments when they emerged in the city, but the remains of their engines were later recovered from the ruins, all having fallen in glory against the hellish foes the Word Bearers unleashed there. 

Knight-Scion Karn was a decorated veteran of House Vornheer. His Engine is marked by two primary insignias. The first is the white band upon the red field that makes up Karn’s personal heraldry, symbolizing a great wound suffered in the line of duty, while the blue swords within the band indicate that the wound was suffered in service to the Lifewatch. The Lifewatch was an elite formation that fought as Duke Bhaevenwulf’s personal guard and its sigil makes up the other primary marking upon Nepenthes’s hull. The blue and white bear borne on the banner is Karn’s personal crest, an honorific awarded personally by his Duke.