# Prospero Burns - What did we learn?



## sakura (Jan 24, 2011)

Hello,
I just finished Prospero Burns. I know there are mixed reviews on it, but I thought I would start a thread with new information about the HH revealed by the book. I would be interested to know if anyone else saw any HH mysteries solved by PB or came to different conclusions than me.

1) The purpose of the Sixth Legion is the Emperor's executioners. When another legion rebels or displeases the emperor, the "sanction of the sixth" is used to destroy them. Thus, they are used to destroy the Thousand Sons.

2) The sanction of the sixth has been used before. This is the inference from Russ's remark that such a use was not "unprecedented." I assume this partly explains the mysterious absence of two legions.

3) I remember reading elsewhere the Sixth Legion was the largest. PB also makes the claim they are the most fierce. The inference is that in their role as executioners, they need to be this way so that it is clear they can take any other legion.

4) Rune Priests apparently understood the warp, demons, and the consequences of dabbling many years before the HH. I thought this info was unknown to most everyone except the emperor and his closest advisors. Even Magnus didn't understand the danger of the warp. 

5) Magnus was ignorant but innocent. The conflict between the sixth and 15th was instigated by a demon (possibly the same which would possess Horus) in order to incapacitate the two legions which posed the most threat to the rebellion (the greatest psykers and greatest warriors). He was hoping they would destroy each other.

6) Russ was forewarned by two sources of Horus's impending wounding and rebellion but dismissed it as misinformation planted by Magnus. We don't know if he made the emperor aware of that intelligence.

Finally, a question: in 40k, are the silent sisters still a force? If so, under whose command do they fall? I know Eisenhorn had his blank academy but that was largely destroyed.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

sakura said:


> 3) I remember reading elsewhere the Sixth Legion was the largest. PB also makes the claim they are the most fierce. The inference is that in their role as executioners, they need to be this way so that it is clear they can take any other legion.


No, the Thirteenth Legion (the Ultramarines) are far and away the largest, at _least_ 3 times larger than the Space Wolves Legion.



sakura said:


> Finally, a question: in 40k, are the silent sisters still a force? If so, under whose command do they fall? I know Eisenhorn had his blank academy but that was largely destroyed.


No info has been published regarding the Sisters of Silence and their fate post-Heresy.


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## space cowboy (Apr 3, 2009)

I was also under the impression, and I don't remember what source, that the Word Bearers were only outdone by the Ultramarines in size.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

space cowboy said:


> I was also under the impression, and I don't remember what source, that the Word Bearers were only outdone by the Ultramarines in size.


Well it's said in _The First Heretic_ that only the Ultramarines are larger than the Word Bearers, but in _HH: Collected Visions_ that at their peak the UMM were 250,000 strong.


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## OrdoMalleus (Apr 24, 2009)

Baron Spikey said:


> Well it's said in _The First Heretic_ that only the Ultramarines are larger than the Word Bearers, but in _HH: Collected Visions_ that at their peak the UMM were 250,000 strong.


Seconded. C:SM and various other sources state that the ultramarines were split into 23 chapters at the second founding which would make them around 250,000 when you account for all the specialist such as techmarines, apocatherys etc.


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## Hooobit (Dec 5, 2010)

Number alone wouldn't of been enough of an advantage for the Space wolves to destroy another Legion if needed, unless we are talking millions of space wolves. They would have had an "Ace in the hole" so to speak, something that would have taken away the main advantages of other legions, possibly relying on the Wolves rarely using advanced technology (EMP would have been a fair shout).


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

OrdoMalleus said:


> Seconded. C:SM and various other sources state that the ultramarines were split into 23 chapters at the second founding which would make them around 250,000 when you account for all the specialist such as techmarines, apocatherys etc.


No that wouldn't really make any sense at all.

They were split into 24 Chapters, 23 2nd Founding and the Ultramarines Chapter itself  
They'd been so mauled by the Scouring that over 90% of the Legion had been destroyed by the time of the Legion breakup.


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## Roninman (Jul 23, 2010)

Ultramarines splitting to many chapters dont necessarily mean those chapter started full strenght. They would have been given their base of operations ie. home world and of course ordered to started recruiting to bolster their ranks.

I was thinking that those splitted forces coud have been less than half chapter strenght when they started. Even now i doubt if there is any chapter that is full strenght all time. 

If Wolves were meant to target bigger legion for example Word Bearers or Ultramarines i cant see how they would do this. I think they are not necessarily meant to kill all of legion in question, just command structure of it and maybe detain certain inviduals. Unless its whole Legion that opposes them without surrendering themselves. Fighting bigger Legion than themselves without any advantage or suprise would just get most of them killed. They almost act like Samurai of 30k world. But they are not better than others in fighting, its just their mentality of doing things.


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## Brother Subtle (May 24, 2009)

somewhere in TFH they mention 100,000+ word bearers. That a pretty sizeable force. With numbers like that, theres no way i could see the Wolves taking either the Ultrasmurfs or the Word Bearers pre-heresy. Maybe 1 on 1 a SW could take down another SM from any chapter. But 2 on 1 i reckon they'd struggle. 3 on 1, no chance.


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## AK74Bob (Oct 2, 2010)

Which is why I don't understand how Horus' legion supposedly conquered the most planets. Obviously the larger legions like the Ultramarines and Word Bearers would have conquered a hell of a lot more than a small legion like the Sons of Horus.

How big was a chapter during the HH? Cause you guys are saying the Ultramarines split up 23 or 24 chapters, that would only amount to 24,000 space marines in 40k. I thought they had around 200,000 space marines during the HH.


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## Brother Subtle (May 24, 2009)

They were all different sizes. Exact numbers are impossible. What we do know is the ultramarines were the largest with around 200,000-250,000. Word Bearers had over 100,000. I'm not sure about the other legions. 

The reason why the Lunar Wolves complied more than any of the much larger legion is a two-fold answer: 
1. Horus was an amazing diplomat, he was able to bring many worlds under complicate without a shot fired. And thus, avoid a lengthy compliance war.
2. While the Ultramarine the Word Bearers where much larger in size, they were a lot slower in moving on after a basic compliance was reached. The Word Bearers particularly were very slow in moving from compliance to compliance. The Lunar Wolves on the other hand has a very fast compliance to compliance turn around time. I hope that helps. If you read Horus Rising and The First Heretic you'll get a more detailed explanation of the 3 mentioned legions compliance processes.

DSM


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

AK74Bob said:


> Which is why I don't understand how Horus' legion supposedly conquered the most planets. Obviously the larger legions like the Ultramarines and Word Bearers would have conquered a hell of a lot more than a small legion like the Sons of Horus.


A large number of times the Ultramarines would campaign with the Luna Wolves, they'd achieve victory over a world and Horus would claim the glory whilst Guilliman was left with the clean up operation and final pockets of resistance till true compliance could be confirmed.



AK74Bob said:


> How big was a chapter during the HH? Cause you guys are saying the Ultramarines split up 23 or 24 chapters, that would only amount to 24,000 space marines in 40k. I thought they had around 200,000 space marines during the HH.


They lost some where in the region of 175,000-225,000 Astartes during the Scouring, the 7 years between the Heresy and the breakup of the Legions, where they were the dominant Legion holding the Imperium together.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Numbers clearly don't mean everything as far as the Legions are concerned. Biggest example being the Lion. He notched up one of the highest number of victories of the Primarchs, sitting just behind Horus and in more recent fluff behind Dorn aswell. Considering he was only active for roughly 50 years of the Great Crusade makes this achivement pretty significant


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

sakura said:


> 1) The purpose of the Sixth Legion is the Emperor's executioners. When another legion rebels or displeases the emperor, the "sanction of the sixth" is used to destroy them. Thus, they are used to destroy the Thousand Sons.
> 
> 2) The sanction of the sixth has been used before. This is the inference from Russ's remark that such a use was not "unprecedented." I assume this partly explains the mysterious absence of two legions.
> 
> 3) I remember reading elsewhere the Sixth Legion was the largest. PB also makes the claim they are the most fierce. The inference is that in their role as executioners, they need to be this way so that it is clear they can take any other legion.


Its not so much as hint or direct source, but in TFH it is mentioned by Magnus when Lorgar fears he will end up the same way like the 2 lost brothers, and that Russ pleaded for his cause not to. This could come from the fact as you mentioned, he has done this before.


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## sakura (Jan 24, 2011)

I was thinking of the 40k SW which I think are the largest chapters because they have 12 companies rather than the codex 10. 

Thanks for the reminder about the info about the other two primarchs in TFH. It would be interesting to get a book about what went down with them. Of course, it may just remain part of the mystery. 

The post about the SW not needing to wipe out a whole legion made sense. Perhaps some marines would remain loyal and be incorporated into other legions. Actually, now that I write that, I seem to remember something about that in another HH book as an explanation of why the Ultramarines had so many marines. Was that TFH?

Sorry if that's confusing but it's hard to keep track of all the plotlines.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

sakura said:


> I was thinking of the 40k SW which I think are the largest chapters because they have 12 companies rather than the codex 10.


There are actually a few Chapters who use a different number of companies than the standard 10, you're right the Space Wolves are larger than most because they don't follow the Codex standard of having 100 men per company.

The largest Chapter in 40k, though is the Black Templars who far and away eclipse any other chapter in terms of numbers (having some where between 5,000-6,000 Astartes).


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## Hooobit (Dec 5, 2010)

How is it that the Black templars have upwards of 5,000 astartes Or is this including the neophytes aswell?

Space wolves would be bigger in size than a regular chapter becuase of how their organisation and recuitment system is, by just forming new squads after battle losses and reforming the old squads into more veteran units, if they lost 5 men from a regular squad they might reform the orignial squad into long fangs (or something along those lines) and create an completely new full strength squad, thus losing 5 men but gaining a long fang squad and a full tactical squad leaving them with extra men.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

Hooobit said:


> How is it that the Black templars have upwards of 5,000 astartes Or is this including the neophytes aswell?
> 
> Space wolves would be bigger in size than a regular chapter becuase of how their organisation and recuitment system is, by just forming new squads after battle losses and reforming the old squads into more veteran units, if they lost 5 men from a regular squad they might reform the orignial squad into long fangs (or something along those lines) and create an completely new full strength squad, thus losing 5 men but gaining a long fang squad and a full tactical squad leaving them with extra men.


Well of course it include Neophytes, for all intents and purposes they are Space Marines (just like you include Scouts in the total number of any other Chapter) but the Initiates massively outnumber the Neophytes if you're thinking the aspirants make up half the Chapter's numbers.
The reason they have such massive numbers is that they Crusade everywhere, spread out throughout the entire Galaxy recruiting at every suitable planet when they feel the need.

You realise all Chapters form new squads after battle losses right? That's the idea behind recruiting. And you wouldn't have a pack of Grey Hunters formed into a Long Fang pack just because they were low on numbers, they would have to be considered suitable for the role.


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## Hooobit (Dec 5, 2010)

The thing i said about the way the Space Wolves creat squads is litterally what it say in the lexicanum about them, and long fang is the only type of Space wolves i can think of, seeing as its been like 4 years since i played against them.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

Hooobit said:


> The thing i said about the way the Space Wolves creat squads is litterally what it say in the lexicanum about them, and long fang is the only type of Space wolves i can think of, seeing as its been like 4 years since i played against them.


Yes Long Fangs are created from the veteran remnents of packs of Grey Hunters (to continue your example) but they won't be promoted* just *because they've become small enough to create a LF pack.

Just like a devastated Blood Claw pack wont be promoted to Grey Hunters just because there isn't many of them left- if the SW promotion system operated in that way they'd have been wiped out years ago.


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## Hooobit (Dec 5, 2010)

Fair point.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

Hooobit said:


> Fair point.


Sorry if I sound snappy, I don't intend to be but I thought I'd apologise just in case you read it that way.


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## genesis80 (Jan 12, 2011)

Brother Subtle said:


> somewhere in TFH they mention 100,000+ word bearers. That a pretty sizeable force. With numbers like that, theres no way i could see the Wolves taking either the Ultrasmurfs or the Word Bearers pre-heresy. Maybe 1 on 1 a SW could take down another SM from any chapter. But 2 on 1 i reckon they'd struggle. 3 on 1, no chance.


Hmm, i always figured Abbadon could take any SW one on one. Even kharn for that matter.


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## Child-of-the-Emperor (Feb 22, 2009)

genesis80 said:


> Hmm, i always figured Abbadon could take any SW one on one. Even kharn for that matter.


I think he meant generically. But even then it's still an assumption based on a very biased viewpoint. In my view there is no established lore by which to logically make such a statement. In fact I find it absurd to suggest that an Astartes of the Vlka Fenryka would trump an Astartes from another Legion every time.


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## Brother Subtle (May 24, 2009)

I was being very 'generic' in my response.


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## AK74Bob (Oct 2, 2010)

Any idea what the size of the other HH era legions are? 

On a 40k note the Grey Knights are exempt from the 1,000 SM "limit" of the codex astartes, so how large is their chapter? Do they even operate in company strength? Cause in the Grey Knight novels there is usually only a squad (6-10) of them present.


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## genesis80 (Jan 12, 2011)

AK74Bob said:


> Any idea what the size of the other HH era legions are?
> 
> On a 40k note the Grey Knights are exempt from the 1,000 SM "limit" of the codex astartes, so how large is their chapter? Do they even operate in company strength? Cause in the Grey Knight novels there is usually only a squad (6-10) of them present.


I dont think you would even need more than a 1000 grey knights at one time. 100 grey knights were enough to banish angron (considered among the best cc primarchs). So 400 would be enough to banish all 4 primarchs of the 4 gods together. Still utilizing less than 1/2 strength of the "chapter".

Got the below from lexicanum
In 444.M41, Angron invaded the Imperial hive world Armageddon. He and his daemonic entourage were ultimately cast back to the Warp by an elite force of a hundred  Grey Knight Terminators. 
At the time of the Horus Heresy it is said that no other Primarch could have bested Angron in single combat save for Horus and perhaps Sanguinius.4


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## AK74Bob (Oct 2, 2010)

Well I said "company strength", which is 100 SM's, so I guess they did to fight Angron. I wonder if it is the norm or the anomaly.


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## genesis80 (Jan 12, 2011)

AK74Bob said:


> Well I said "company strength", which is 100 SM's, so I guess they did to fight Angron. I wonder if it is the norm or the anomaly.


I would say that "normally" they would just need to send 6-10 GKs. But when Mortarian or Fulgrim decide to poke their head out of the warp, then 100 have to get stuck in.

I wonder if there's ever a situation which requires the full chapter? (considering they only send a measly company to beat up a primarch)


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## Brother Subtle (May 24, 2009)

AK74Bob said:


> Any idea what the size of the other HH era legions are?


The Alpha Legion are one of the smaller (if not smallest) legions. But they don't need large numbers to operate how they operate. Even if they are the smallest, during HH era they still would have had several thousand marines, maybe even ten thousand?


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Actually i don't think it's ever stated how large or small the Alpha Legion were. There is no reason they shouldn't have been around the 80,000 mark that most of the Legions were. The only Legions specifically noted as being small that i know of are the 1000 Sons, Emperors Children, Salamanders(i think) and possibly the Wolves aswell


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

Really? I recall that the Salamanders, Thousand Sons, and Emperor's Children were qualified as having smaller-than-normal numbers at one time or another. E.g., the Thousand Sons due to the mutations they suffered early on, the Emperor's Children due to the accidents that ruined their Geneseed banks, the Salamanders (if nothing else) due to the Dropsite Massacres... not sure I've ever heard of the Alpha Legion being described as small, though.

EDIT: Beaten to the punch by the Angel of Blood!


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## deathbringer (Feb 19, 2009)

Just bought a copy signed by abnett and about to start it. Considering a thousand sons was my favourite book of all time and the mix of negative reviews i must admit I'm fearful about beginning this one. especially as im very keen to start heldenhammer

Gutting thing was graham mcneil was in my gw the week before and i missed my bloody hero.


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## Cambrius (Nov 4, 2010)

I may be mistaken, but I thought there was something in TFH about how the Ultramarines ended up absorbing many or most of the Astartes from the Legions of the two expunged primarchs, making them about thrice as large as other Legions.

And the Codex: Black Templars plainly states that they are the largest Chapter, but that since the various Crusades don't congregate - and due to a paucity of evidence - no one has bothered to level a charge against them.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

That bit of TFH was (imo) just the Word Bearers gossiping or talking about rumours. ADB said so himself i believe, that he added it in just to cause a stir or something.

Kinda confused as to how the Black Templars are relevant to this, but yeah they are the largest chapter probably, although the Grey Knights could possibly be larger as we have no idea just how big they are.


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## Cambrius (Nov 4, 2010)

Angel of Blood said:


> Kinda confused as to how the Black Templars are relevant to this, but yeah they are the largest chapter probably, although the Grey Knights could possibly be larger as we have no idea just how big they are.


The discussion developed a tangent about which contemporary Chapter might be largest.


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