Best traitor legion?

Without Word Bearers the GC grinds on until the Emps goes Thunder Warrior on your asses and exterminates the lot.

All hail Lorgar, bringer of salvation to Astares loyal and otherwise.

Ave Dominus Nox, we have come for this thread

Either Iron Warrior or the Sons of Horus.

They're all cool, but the Sons of Horus are the most flexible.
I've always thought that the Iron Warriors are the most pragmatic though.

Let's talk about the serious lack of Emperor's Children in this thread. I know people tend to shit on them for "LOL HEDONISM" and the incompetence of a named character or two, but their very name is a mockery of the exemplary status they once enjoyed. We're talking about the legion that was given the exclusive right to wear the Emperor's personal fuckin' standard for SAVING HIS LIFE, dedicating themselves to being the paragons of what it meant to be Astartes and then decided "You know what? Fuck this. We've got better stuff to do". Even during the Heresy they did mostly what they wanted to and their Primarch is the only one who successfully killed another Primarch and had two more very close to the edge (Bobby G and everyone's precious Perty)

Thousand Sons post-Heresy

Emperor's Children pre-Heresy

Death Guard are my personal favorite. They even had the most loyalists come the heresy and one of their own was the first Knight Errant. Tough motherfuckers.

Thousand Sons both post and pre-heresy. Egyptian space-wizard nerds and their story is a beautiful tragedy. Whats not to love?

I think all of them are interesting except thousand sons, world eaters, post traitor emperors children, and post traitor death guard.

Perturabo is one of the more tragic characters regarding the Horus Heresy and I believe that his mistreated thinker/nerd character makes a lot of fa/tg/uys empathize with him. I also suspect the same goes for Magnus.

Pre-heresy traitors tended to have pretty bomb-ass color schemes.

Death Guard and World Eaters with those white-heavy paintjobs to show off all the blood and grime.

Alpha Legion with that cream-your-pants blue metallic.

Emperor's Children with the super duper regal look.

And Thousand Sons since Forgeworld decided to go for gloss red and make them look like wizards wearing racecars for power armor,

Everyone who claims to like the Iron Warriors should smash one in ten of all the models in their collection to be closer to their spiritual liege.

New headcanon: the world eaters chose their colour scheme just to be dicks to the poor bastards who had to clean their shit

You're saying you don't do this already?

Id love to also say the death guard cause theyre my personal favorite, but unfortunately they dont do enough in the lore anymore, i dont here about them being a threat to the imperium or taking over worlds and such. Id say as far getting stuff done i like the night lords
>tfw terror tactics equal cummies

Only absolute retards do that. Just like Peturabo.

In midnight clad, my brother

Retarded enough to not get a joke?

>best traitor legion?

Played a small game against custodes saturday, after all hope of victory was lost, i walked my dudes forward into the meat grinder and charged. Post game i was ready to let 1 in 10 live.

Is this boast badass enough?

I just want to hug Magnus. Boy needs a hug. Actually all of the primarchs need hugs but I like them less so...

While I agree with your statements, do you have a plan for getting around the horntits?

Also someone rate Primarchs from most huggable/in need of a hug to least.

Pert should have spent less time moping and more time hanging out with Ferrus Manus.

>"Rest? We were not made to rest; we go on, unflinching, unstoppable, unending in our strength. The Emperor did not make us for such mortal concerns as hearth and home, vanity or contemplation; we are his engines of war, his hammers, beating out the fabric of existence into a vessel fit for Mankind to inhabit."

Sons of Horus. I get they have problems, and people hate the Black Legion they end up becoming, but they're tactically flexible and I find their veneration of Horus appealing. Not to mention a really cool colorscheme.

It looks even better on-model.

Best would be the Word Bearers. Simply because Logar had a real reason to be pissed and kick off the whole thing given how he got shit on for being idealistic and trying to do what he felt was right. Having his city burned to the ground and forced to kneel was much. Emps botched that situation hard.

Honorable mention: Sons of Horus. I feel they get the best of all worlds being the main chaos faction.

Also: Emperor's Children. Not because of their hedonistic shit, I just like how they piss all over the Dark Eldar who are gimped due to being barred from having psyker powers. Having a faction that actually takes Slaanesh to all extremes rather than cowering at psyker powers is pretty cool. And I like their story a lot. Their pursuit of human perfection is what led them to becoming inhuman monsters.

Word Bearers are the best CSM.

Question so I can get this straight in my head finally:

So when they were the Luna Wolves that was pre-heresy.

Sons of Horus was DURING the Heresy.

And Black Legion was, of course, post-heresy.

Am I right? I get confused sometimes because of the "Grey Legions". Like how the Word Bearers were the Imperial Heralds before Lorgar showed up. The Luna Wolves was the name Horus gave them BEFORE the Heresy, correct?

Luna Wolves before Horus was found, Sons of Horus during the GC, Black Legion post heresy after Horus failed and they considered him a disgraced failure for dying to the Emperor in their duel.

More or less right, but they became the sons of horus before the heresy started.

They were always the Luna Wolves originally, I think, yes. Unlike the Imperial Heralds becoming the Word Bearers or the Dusk Raiders becoming the Death Guard, they didn't get a new name from Horus and the influx of Cthonian recruits until after the Triumph of Ullanor.

I like the idea of, and pre-Heresy, EC, but I don't like how they turned out.
It was McGuffin into debauchery and came off as dumb.

Oh, so Horus' boys just had TWO pre-heresy names? Fuckin' A.

This. Though there's also the Thrice-Cursed Traitors, warbands that did not join up with Abaddon and still use the old colorschemes - continuing to use the Sons of Horus, going back to the Luna Wolves, etc.

Good taste my brothers. We stand in midnight clad.

But honestly, I get the appeal of the Iron Warriors. While rebuilding yet another Chaos army after years of doing other armies I had considered doing some IW to mix it up, since I've done WB and NL in the past.

Their meat grinder tactics and supreme lack of regard for life drew me in, and their simple but effective color scheme too. But I still went with the Night Lords again. I just can't resist those stupid bat wing helmets.

It was during the GC, after Ullanor and I think 63 Nineteen, possibly after Murder as well.

The Heresy was pretty close to starting up when they changed, but not quite going.

Yeah, this.
Modern Veeky Forums loves fascism in all forms.
Ultramarines are the most fascist of all the loyalists, and Iron Warriors are the most fascist in Chaos.

ENJOY EM WHILE YOU CAN APPARENTLY TWO FUCKERS ARE SWITCHING SIDES NOW REBOOTY IS AWAKE.

>most of Veeky Forums has a huge hard on the iron "fuck you dorn" warriors
there's more desire to rustle loyalists than love for the iron warriors

Fascism? You mean injustice? Could have sworn you said injustice

Sons of Horus was their name throughout the Heresy, too. They adopted the Black Legion moniker partially in memoriam of their fallen father, because black was apparently still the main funerary colour 280000 years in the future, and also because they were the colours of Abaddon, the new de facto leader, and the First Company of Justaerin Terminators.

that rumour is bullshit

ALL RUMOURS ARE BULLSHIT TILL THEY AREN'T.

How would that even work?
That's dumb.

There's also the benefit that they aren't tied to a single chaos god. Nothing really stopping them from fitting whatever niche you want your warband to operate within.

Mortarion - most tsundere of primarchs and therefore my praifu

>s-stupid warp

SOME RUMOURS ARE MORE BULLSHIT THAN OTHERS

It'll probably be the twins. I guesd they go talk to ol' Gil.

THATS TRUE, I GUESS WE HAVE TO BE CAUTIOUSLY OPTIMISTIC.

>Sons of Horus are the most flexible
Have you ever heard about alpha legion? No? I thought so.

What's the best place to get a bunch of ponytail bitz from?

CSM heads off ebay

It can only be them, since all the other traitor primarchs are all daemons
Unless it's a loyalist legion going chaos, but I doubt it since they are setting it up to be ultramarine blowjob city

I could see them getting on well in some respects, though the Hands were proud, insular and often disdainful of allies in ways that I could see really annoying Pert - especially when you recall how Ferrus was far more able to say "no" to a shitty task than Pert, who basically did whatever he was told.

Also the one interaction we know between the two is Pert asking Ferrus if he sees the Eye of Terror too, and Ferrus just glares at him or something.

>killed another Primarch and had two more very close to the edge (Bobby G and everyone's precious Perty)
Hey fuck you he pulled some warp bullshit to fuck over perturabo, he would've got fucking obliterated in a fair fight it doesn't count. IRON WITHIN, IRON WITHOUT!

Also
>emperor's children legion
>still existing in any meaningful way
lel

>Only absolute retards do that
What like the roman empire?

Maybe the way the chaos gods fucked with the primarchs when they stole them away initally wasn't by putting the seed of evil in them necessarily ,but by putting the seed of good in them. Making Lorgar the sensitive religious man he was and Perturabo this autist who just wanted to build shit and then have them both turned into tools of war by their asshole, uncaring "father" would end up turning them just as reliably as whatever the hell was wrong with Angron and Kurze. There little joke I'm guessing, humanity is destroyed almost as much by what's good in it as what's bad in it.

>talking about who's the "most" fascist in 40k
That's like arguing about who has the least regard for the rights of sentient beings.

I may be utterly wrong, but to me, the Iron Warriors just seem the most... Humane? of all the legions.

Now hear me out. I know they're also very much turbo autists and Perry Tu Rambo is very much to blame for this, however there's this underlying theme of being neglected and disrespected from the other legions that eventually turned them all into the worst kind of nihilistic stoics. Although "Angel Exterminatus" is highly disputed, I simply loved how Perturabo was shown as a more tragic character, a person who repressed all his emotions because his wish was, ultimately, to function so he could please everybody. He built bunkers when he wanted to build palaces, he built trenches where he wanted to build highways. His legion in turn was condemned to toil in the dirt while others led glorious sortées to break a siege, breaking their backs as they did the heavy lifting. And once it was all done, they had to stay behind while other legions could move on and gain more glory. They were the unsung heroes deafened by the hymns of everybody else.
And the bitterness turned them all to stone, and the stone was ground up to get the iron out, and then the iron was melted into a bar that was then forged into a tool of destruction. They are the natural outcome of what happens when you feel underestimated, devalued, unappreciated.
Sure, come out with your "crybabbi didn't get his participation trophy" arguments. The truth is and always will be: If you have the least bit of self-respect and you know you did a fucking good job, but everybody else gets the pats on the back and the toasts and congratulations, at some point you just resent them all. The Iron Warriors have turned their backs on the people for whom they gave everything and never heard a thanks in return, and now their hatred is a cold, crushing glacier that breaks under its own weight but merclilessly crushes everything in its path.

The iron warriors were the most obvious and blatant example of how the Emperor didn't consider them "sons" at all but just expendable weapons to be used up and thrown away when not needed or no longer useful, just like the bolters they carry. What's a bet they would've been right at the top of the list for that eventual purge people talk about, right alongside the night lords and the world eaters not because they were born psychos but just because the emperor knew that some day he'd get his just punishment for what he did to them. Sort of like how slave owners always lived in fear of their slaves because deep down they knew what they were doing was wrong and that not only did they know a revolt was coming on a certain level they knew they deserved it. Perhaps that's what makes the iron warriors the most sympathetic, they epitomize why the whole heresy happened and what an utter load of crap the modern imperial propaganda is.

I think enough people have made a case for the IW, which I love for all the reasons exposed above, so I won't push it in any more
Alternatively, I really love the Alpha Legion too
The fact that they differ so much from other legions in their tactics (reliance on locals and auxiliaries, heavy use of intelligence and espionage tactics, deployment of lone operatives and the persistence of cells of legionaries, even cut off from the whole of the legion) as well as their ambiguity when it comes to their true loyalty (loyalties?) makes them very appealing
They can also have a very wide range of beliefs that makes them able to fit all possible spots on the spectrum of devotion to the gods and allows for infighting among themselves
As a bonus, the snake and hydra motif of their aesthetic is really cool and the "I am Alpharius" gimmick gives them a sense of both secrecy and unity
And a two-for-one Primarch deal is pretty sweet

I really love the pre-Heresy World Eaters. Warhounds might suit it better as they were called before.
Angron as he is now is a complete and utter douchenozzle, though, and I love it whenever people post noblebright versions of him. Something that make his tragedy palpable instead of a justification for him to act as the eternally buttblasted edgelord he is. The scene where he showed some genuine care for his ship's Astropath in "Betrayer" was fucking amazing, and such instances far too few and short.
I loved the genuine sense of brotherly rivalry in the World Eaters. Ranks were meaningless in their fighting pits. All were equal, stripped of all pretense of superiority. At the same time, their tragedy as a legion is just so delicious. A huge pile of bad decisions, starting with the nails to imitate their primarch, to keeping up with that shit until they all lost their fucking souls to Khorne.
Angron BTFO'd Russ and no amount of Space Wolf apologist mental gymnastics is gonna change that!

The issue I have with this is that they, particularly Pert, they didn't HAVE to do it.
It was something that they did to themselves, or let happen. Even from the beginning, before they got their reluctant primarch who couldn't say no no matter how he hated a job, they were so accepting of being split up.
This is then added to the way they kept at their terran tactics even as other legions evolved, and they become much more of a tool than drivers for the crusade, and they were far too stubborn (and later proud about being stubborn and doing these shitty jobs that they shouldn't have been doing) to have any self-determination.And for saying how intellectually intelligent they were, they were really shit at changing or adapting, which just made shit worse and worse.

Basically they were proud of their work rather than themselves, but the work they did was crap that they shouldn't have been doing, but they were too stubborn and unchanging to actually do anything about it.

I don't think that really is what the Emperor expected
He just didn't realize that he was asking too much of his sons, because being perfect and unwavering in his devotion to his magnum opus, he assumed that his sons, built in his image, would be as emotionless and dedicated as he was. And if he had raised them all himself, they might have been.
My personal theory is that, when the chaos gods dispersed the primarchs through the galaxy, they weren't trying to deprive the Emperor from his sons, otherwise they would just have dropped them in the warp and would have been done with them.
But they made the choice to have them "born" in very specific places, and it's the upbringing they received in these places that made some of them into heroes, some into spoiled children and some into monsters.
Perturabo was supposed to be indomitable and to comply with any task, even the most gruelling, because the Emperor had given him his endless resolve, but being brought up on a planet constantly plagued by infighting, pointless wars, assassinations and overall distrust and politicking turned his vigilance into suspicion and his strength of will into obstination. Coupled with the frustration of being sent to do trench work without honors while he had been raised like a prince, this made him a boiling kettle waiting to bust.
The Emperor's greatest shortcoming was that he considered his creations so perfect that they didn't require any upkeep and would work as intended regardless of exterior circumstances.

So, this is canon now. Peturabo had a sister who called him Bo.

Na man night lords is where it's at.

This scene is actually pretty sweet
Imo Haley did a great job of this book and of showing the conflict in the character
Perty only wanted peace, but he couldn't see any other means than violence to obtain it
Also when they meet again at the end, she gives him the verbal beating of his life, pretty intense scene

The only true choice

Thousand Sons are undoubtedly the most aesthetically pleasing, they have an interesting egyptian/mesopotamian feel and at least up until this retarded storm business they always had esoteric motives that no one understood but them.

>their Primarch is the only one who successfully killed another Primarch
*Coughs in Dorn*

To be honest, that's symptomatic of the immature treatment that everything relating to Slaanesh gets
I like to play up the angle of martial perfection, arrogance and impossibly high (and warped) standards for the EC, and include them in games or campaigns as either Blood Dragon (cf old school whf vampires) types or full on god-priests that prefer the company and worship of mortals than actual war
They have lots of possibilities as tyrants and subtle antagonists that aren't exploited as they should be imo

>Veeky Forums. Loving fascism.
Da fuck you on about dude

I wouldn't call it noblebright, but Angron as an asshole that hates his sons because of the job he has to do (see also: his convo with Russ) really works for me.

That's kind of cool, what book?

Pert having a little sister who tells him off and throws stuff at him is pretty amusing - even if he can't trust her because of who he is, it's nice that there's someone he likes and lets get away with things

>what book ?
Primarchs : Perturabo
Honestly, despite all the flaws it has, it's a solid book and it made me fall in love with the IW and Perty (didn't read Hammer of Olympia)
It was nice because it didn't stress one aspect of Perturabo more than the others and gave a pretty well rounded idea of who he is and good insight on what made him and his legion turn on the Imperium
Ironically, it was loyalty

Is Hammer of Olympia a story in the book?

Seems intriguing, "loyalty" isn't what I'd ascribe to Pert's betrayal, other than in a "doing what you're told until it breaks you" sense

THICC

One of Perturabo's titles is "the hammer of Olympia" and it's the subtitle of the book, just realized I mixed it up with Angel Exterminatus which is an earlier novel about Perty and the IW...
Not sure what it's about but I remember people complaining that he came off as a whiny manchild in that one

And in Hammer of Olympia, it's exactly that : stubbornness in the face of something he hated, to the point of doing it "too hard" out of spite and going too far

I might be biased about it because I worked on that text for months on end and grew attached to it (cannot go into more detail because of contractual obligations, just know that I'm not the author shilling his own book) but now I know it inside and out

I hope this isn't you Laurie. Or is this ADB?

Or are you one of the people brought in to edit it for canon and continuity? I used to do that job myself for a while under LG.

Wouldn't you like to know ...

If it is ADB, then I'm honestly surprised you're still here, given the level of irrational hate for him I've seen these days. I mean, I have my issues with Master of Mankind I hope to tell the man someday, but I cannot agree with those who claim it's ruined the Emperor forever and made Chaos best stepdad.

As for anyone else, as someone who was once in the BL mill in a limited way, it's nice to know they're still bringing in outsiders to look things over.

Huh, BL's here.

But yeah, that makes sense from the rest of what we know.
I wouldn't say Pert's as tragic as Angron, Morty or Curze, but he is definitely relateable - the "guy who does the shit jobs so people would like/respect him, but then gets no respect and is bitter about it", that's a common enough person.

Well yeah, he's the most Veeky Forums primarch, followed by Magnus.
They're the chunky nerd and the lanklet nerd, respectively.

Dorn killed at best half of primarch

>BL's here
I'm independent, not shilling for the GW monies or company image or whatnot
I just had a blast with the book and had the time to analyze it in depth
Since people were talking about Pert, I felt somewhat qualified
Not ADB, I didn't even know he browsed /teej/

Yeah, ADB used to post here. I think he wisely got out when the hate for him started to grow.

And as for Peturabo, Haley had the issue of trying to reconcile two almost incompatible visions of Peturabo. McNeil's tortured Genius who did nothing wrong, and French's Decimating Space Stalin. I'm not sure he managed to pull both together, but he did try hard to bring them together, and he deserved kudos for that.

>Thousand Sons
>traitors

I didn't read what McNeil and French did on ths subject but I agree with you in that the internal conflict was pretty well rendered, as well as Perturabo's irrational rage that ruins everything

I haven't read Master of Mankind, but the very idea of a novel centered on the Emperor doesn't seem very wise to me
What were the points that made the grognards angry ?

As far as I gather it's mostly that the Emperor was extremely pragmatic and rational to the point of coming across as quite cold. A lot of primarchfags are salty that he (in private with the people closest to him, at least) refers to the Primarchs by their numbers/the numbers of their Legions (Horus is the Sixteenth, Dorn is the Seventh etc).

Some people disliked how the Emperor vs infinite army of daemons-fight played out/was written, but eh. Most of it was pretty cool.

I liked the book a lot, plenty of badass Custodes/SoS moments with some titan, knight and admech action and the odd BA being badass.

All in all, the novel isn't really centred on the Emperor, it's centred on the war in the Webway with Arkhan Land, Tribune Ra and a few others making up the "main" cast, the Emperor only shows up in, what, five chapters plus the pro- and epilogues. The book explores the Custodes mostly, with some cool bits about the unification of Terra and various possible origin-stories for the Emperor being presented.

Basically, it's a classic ADB with lots of unreliable narrators talking shit, people interpreting that as pure fact and then sperging over it, and some great dialogue and fight scenes.

>Luna Wolves before Horus was found, Sons of Horus during the GC
What? No. They were the Luna Wolves during the Crusade and the Sons in the years leading up to the Heresy.

They were Luna Wolves until Horus got wounded on Davin, after he took the Emperors advice and renamed them the Sons of Horus

We come for you!