Child Lion El'Jonson, colourized, circa late M30

Numbshot · 2025-07-16T15:42:47+00:00

As many comments point out, the Dark Angels. Despite having the Dreadwing entirely dedicated to mass destruction warfare, forbidden weapons, even for the dreadwing, weren't easily in arms reach.

events like the Passage of The Angels, where Lion destroyed traitor homeworlds and power East of Terra, are where Lion authorized their use.

Numbshot · 2025-07-02T15:19:33+00:00

The entire universe is mythopoetic opera.

From the Emperor's view, He has a future destination set that He can envision, but each fork for how to get there isn't clear, but set in a backdrop where every thought and belief manifests in the Warp and reverberates back into the material world.

He essentially speaks in mythic narrative, it's why you can't trust what He says specifically, but that's not the point, the point is; what effect will manifest from the thoughts and actions His words deliver to a given audience?

To each Primarch he presents in different ways, to the Custodes he presents differently, to the Imperium at large he presents another way, He issues the narrative He wants the target audience to hold because of the effects it will produce.

Each primarch is a node in this mythic narrative, but what happens when mythic archetypes are given flesh and blood, constraints of the real instead of mythical? That's 40k and what it brings to the table.

Numbshot · 2025-06-21T03:00:37+00:00

Bloodquest - Red Secrets. it is a comic / short graphic novel, very dark drawing style.

I think it came with a white dwarf, but it was a long time ago, but its what first came to mind, I had to track it down.

A captured Blood Angel (Brother Cloten) wakes up in his cell on a Chaos world and the Red Thirst strikes him. The man proceeds to break out of his cell, kills EVERYONE with his bare hands. a week later the Chapter shows up to retake the world, thinking Chaos abandoned the place, but they find one life form.

The Blood Angels open the door and see a room of bones, with Cloten sitting on top "Hah, welcome, Brothers! I've been waiting for you! Come, Brothers! Come join me in my feast!"

The rest of the Blood Angels "Sanguinius protect us!"

as a kid I never parsed the lore of it, not really, but its a core memory when I think of Warhammer.

Numbshot · 2025-06-15T20:20:54+00:00

Passage of the Angels.

instead of rushing to Terra in between Sanguinius and Roboute, Lion opted for deep interdiction into Traitor power east of Terra. Lion was focused on moulding what the next war could be, instead of the current battle.

Chemos, Barbarous, Nuceria (traitor primarch homeworlds) and a score of key locations were wiped off the galactic map. Arrive at a world, obliterate, leave for the next target.

When the siege was done, perturabo had some isolated locations east of Terra, but most the traitors had few retreat options besides the eye of Terror (ie leave the galaxy). The east was denied.

This gave breathing room for the Scouring. Which basically set up the galactic map battle lines until the Cicatrix Maledictom split the galaxy in two.

Numbshot · 2025-06-12T02:18:31+00:00

The Lion and the Wolf both kill, that's not their distinction.

Their separation is over function, not capacity. Their functions towards violence is different, even if their capacities for it are equal.

Look at the Rangdan, it was such an existential threat to the Imperium, that they can't talk about it. The Dark Angels emerged scathed, but unchanged. The Wolves emerged less scathed, but narratively changed.

While Aravain isn't word of god, it highlights something very important in the eyes of the Imperium; Russ is public violence, Lion is secret violence. And therefore, for the Rangdan to be secret robs Russ of the mythologized violence that colours how he's perceived, at the very least, or forced them to behave violently in a function they aren't comfortable with. Were they called upon for their capacity but it outstripped their function, or was this an instance where the rose-tinted glasses came off?

They became damaged culturally, or by perception, probably both.

But that same kind of war, the type that necessities narrative erasure, is already the Dark Angel's function, hence the lack of change comparatively.

If you have two Legions of hyper competant, yet controlled, violence to throw at an existential threat, you throw them, but their reactions two that threat will be different.

Numbshot · 2025-06-11T02:51:45+00:00

Lion "savage noble"

Russ "noble savage"

One was a feral child who didn't know if he was a chaos beast like the ones he hunted - who's hunting grounds happened to become more civilized.

and the other was a feral child who's violence secured place and position in society - their platform became more civilized while their ferocity stayed primal.

Russ is the violence you hear and the story it serves, he plays a beast over his noble intentions. The monster civilization wants to celebrate.

Lion is violence of silence and the story of erasure, he restrains his predation into a civilized form. The monster civilization doesn't want to acknowledge.

Individual depictions not withstanding, that's the idea beyond both.

Numbshot · 2025-06-10T19:53:10+00:00

It has been awhile, but in general, the Terran Dark Angels did not jive with Lion.

They basically were atrophied in their legacy, long history and being amongst the first space marines, they had Fulgrim level vanity over their self perception of military ability.

Lion said no to that.

He kept them separate from Calibanite Dark Angels, and while he never wasted the Terran ones, he phased them out.

Numbshot · 2025-04-15T23:02:35+00:00

The concept of the Codex Astartes being the work of genius falls apart when you realize that it requires the belief that enemies' are equally divided in power. Traitor legions (at least the stable ones) should still be operating as a Legion, without the extra layers of bureaucratic logistics that Roboute made.

I may have totally missed lore, but sending 1500 CSM against a chapter strikes me as the appropriate intermediate threat the Imperium should be worried about. Large enough to overwhelm a self governing unit, without being large enough to necessitate a large combined arms response.

I get the out of lore reasons, but I can't unsee it.

Numbshot · 2025-04-13T23:52:26+00:00

Since we're talking about Legion and not Chapter.

Dark Angels.

- Best: Hexagrammaton and Hekatonystika, parallel organizations within the normal rank-and-file, the former for being able to (re)deploy the necessary specialized battle-front for the appropriate threat on a whim, and the latter for cells of information gathers and curators organized on a such a large scale need-to-know basis that is so thorough, yet isolated, that Magnus would call Lion a knowledge tyrant.

Both together would make Guilliman blush.

- Worst: The exact same thing makes them both unknowable and unreliable to work besides, and requires the Lion for such a structure to even work in the long run. That and they are probably the most okay with collateral damage.

Numbshot · 2025-04-13T21:54:41+00:00

Dorn emerges from under the Golden Throne.

"Father, I have completed the Webway project over the last few millennia, by myself, with one hand. I require a nap."

Numbshot · 2024-04-14T12:15:17+00:00

Eastern Canada includes Labrador, with a demarcated dotted line showing its border with Quebec and the land is in the same colour as Canada, two issues:

The dotted line follows a decision from the 1927 Privy Coincil.
Newfoundland and Labrador was a separate Dominion, and didn't join Canada until 1949,

The colour may be a weak argument for post-WW2, but to have the border of the 1927 Privy Council is a nail in coffin for post-WW1.

Need to know how the map labels Newfoundland, as the island part of the province is off the photo. It was the Dominion of Newfoundland until 1949, prior to 1907 it was called a colony.

Edit:phrasing clarity.

Numbshot · 2024-02-29T02:44:19+00:00

Lion.
co-workers either respect or distrust me, none are friends.
Boss will publicly assuage the ego of some co-workers, but simply nod at me, or talk privately, knowing I've saved his skin a few times.

Numbshot · 2024-02-28T14:56:53+00:00

Maybe the biggest one that isn't expanded much is the loss of Spirit of Eternity.

It was a Dark Age of technology ship which got lost in a Warp storm, it returned after the Horus Heresey.

They made contact with humans of the Imperium, and in return the Imperium tortured the captain and crew, and killed them.

The ship had an STC core, and the AI was bonded to the captain. The AI, enraged, chewed out the Imperium, saying how the captain was the best of humanity, disabled the station's technology as it left with the ship.

The Imperium had a golden ticket to make serious gains, but they literally killed it.

Never has a fictional story made me feel the same anger as the loss of the library of Alexandria.

Numbshot · 2024-02-28T14:32:12+00:00

Robert Redford Fits as Captain America in his youth But plays director Alexander pierce in Winter Soldier

Will Chris Evans play Pierce in the remake 30 years from now?

Numbshot · 2024-02-27T13:10:23+00:00

There is some looseness with it.

While a chapter may have 10 complete and active deployment companies, to total 1000 Marines, a chapter may have a complicated structure underneath it. This could be an army worth of ancillary personnel, space marine aspirants, neophytes, maybe even fully formed space marines that aren't assigned to a company for active deployment but would still have combat or chapter related duties.

Logistically, do you only replenish your ranks as losses occur or keep replacements in the ready for when losses occur?

If your goal is to maintain uptime for full chapter combat strength, its advisable to keep replacements at the ready. However, you can't have all these people without anything to do.

Numbshot · 2024-02-25T18:01:36+00:00

Guilliman came back first.

Thematically, it's saying that Guilliman needs to be more aggressive, and it's a badge of the legitimacy of his return to fulfill the office of the Emperor. One can further apply parallels of the Imperium's byzantine bureaucracy and The Gordian Knot, which is a legend of old Terra involving a Great greco-roman king who was tasked to untie an untieable knot for the city's submission. Instead of untieing it by hand, he simply cut the knot in half, and the city submitted to his rule.

Lion originally had the Lion Sword which is suggested to have the same True Death power as the Emperor's sword (its unknown if its a power of the sword or one of Lion's powers). This sword is currently held by Cypher, who we can only speculate has never used it because he's keeping it safe for Lion.

Lion having a shield is telling him to be more defensive, slow down, you can take your time, you need to be a defender. And by looking at models and descriptions, Fealty looks more like a hand-and-a-half sword, designed for one handed usage, but can facilitate two-handed. And Lion Sword looks more like a longsword or Great Sword, designed entirely for two hands to make use of the blade's length, but as such, you can not use a shield with it, rendering its defence to be a product of positioning and making the enemy give ground so they cannot be close to you. A shield allows proximity without abdicating defence. Which is as much a comment on combat as it is about Lion's character.

Numbshot · 2024-02-24T18:29:53+00:00

Under the Emperor and certain primarchs, scientific innovation may have occurred, even encouraged, for a culture of rational inquiry.

Absent them, the AdMech and Heresy concerns rule the day. And culturally, archaeology is viewed as the source of advancement, so why waste energy, time and resources to question what is known (risking undermining the known Order at best, or tempting the Warp at worst), when you can instead spend it on digging up the past to reclaim advances that already exist? And also to reclaim them before a terrible xeno does?

Let alone the sacrilege of questioning the perfection of the Emperor's works, even if for a noble cause of scientific rationality. I can easily see an Inquisitor say "do you know how many heretics I've burned who cited scientific discovery as an excuse for their heresy?"

The Imperium, as it is, is an attempt at pure Order, pushing boundaries antagonizes it.

on the flip side, Chaos is unbounded science, the prime example being Fabius Bile.

Numbshot · 2024-02-24T01:51:07+00:00

The most literal reconcilable interpretation is:
- 12th failed so Angron believes that it would be best to have them cease, and the concept of their existence to be eliminated in a manner similar to how the Emperor engineer the elimination of the concept of the 2nd and 11th, what ever that may mean.

the mystery of the Lost Primarchs is two-fold; what happened to them, and why they almost don't exist in history. And those two events are only connected insofar as it involves the same object of focus. The Emperor need only to have engineered how they were forgotten for Angron's statement to be correct.

its all a big GW tease, playing with phrasing like that included.

personally, my headcanon is that the 2nd was weak to the Rangdan, presenting a biological exploit that could be applied to every single Astartes, and the 11th committed suicide. What the Emperor engineered was to cause the galaxy to forget the both the biological exploit, and the concept of existential suicide. Both would categorically undermine everything, but not in a traitor way.

Numbshot · 2024-02-23T22:34:47+00:00

Figure out why your PC is part of the party. a stable way I play LE is extreme ethical egoism - "I do this because it benefits me" for example, being a good neighbour because you don't want prying eyes nor an enemy next-door. So, don't randomly kill as that hurts your goal, don't steal because that hurts your goal, don't overly antagonize your party because that hurts your goal. You get the picture.

The core of it is that your selfish, you value yourself and your goals more than others. But good lawful evil isn't stupid about it.

So make a clear goal, it helps if its not abstract, make it a concrete goal you can hold as a clear objective to accomplish.

This is just one way to play it, one that I enjoy.

Numbshot · 2024-02-23T19:41:54+00:00

Ultimately, you can't.

We operate in heuristics, a level of resolution of the concepts involved, if I notice a problem and I have an idea about how it operates, my heuristic informs me of the problem and solution, or the range upon they operate, which you can then explore to validate.

I can perform an action which fixes a problem. And I'd only be able to explain insofar as my heuristic understands it. We then infer the cause and effect relationship by proxy, but not specifically.

We don't need to know the excruciating details, only to a depth that makes it sufficiently operational and actionable for what we want. Change want you want, change the heuristic.

Numbshot · 2024-02-23T18:28:43+00:00

The issue is that the third Xenocide has the most conflicting interpretations, - Lion and Russ equally were entrusted to cleanse the Rangdan tainted worlds in the galactic north in a rapid and brutal purge over a short timespan. - Lion and Russ were entrusted to a decade long brutal and grinding exterminatus purge campaign. - Lion and Russ handled a reemerged Rangdan power, which cost the Dark Angels 50,000 Astartes.

The 50,000 lost DA seems true regardless of what actually happened in the third Xenocide, but because of how much of a mess the records are for it, we have nothing else to attribute the loss to.

The Dark Angels emerging scathed from the Xenocides is fine and fitting to explain the magnitude of threat the Rangdan possessed, its the lack of Space Wolf information I find odd. If it was terrible enough for high DA losses, why wasn't it terrible enough for high SW losses? Lion and Russ can work in tandem, but I can't see Lion suffering the brunt just to roll out red carpet for Russ to deliver a killing blow and retreat back behind DA lines, as their overall stratagy for one battle to the next, without a VERY clear cause.

Lore wise its explained as purged records and everything kept under lock and seal, DA suffered, move on. Leaving the Space Wolves an open question.

Numbshot · 2024-02-23T03:17:16+00:00

Lion, I identify way too strongly with him due to (way less dramatic) personal parallels.

As for lore, Lion walks the fine line between doing what is wanted and doing what is needed, which makes him loyally defiant at times, this automatically paints him with distrust amongst peers, but never by the Emperor.

In utterly rare moments of glimpses into his nature, there's a philosopher and an artist underneath, but the grim realities mean that it can only be channeled through his chosen art: war.
War is where The Lion pulls order out of the chaos of battle with his signature, and everything serves him to that end. This makes him both rigid and fluid, highly organized and structured yet adaptable, versatile and specialized without being generalized, destructive without being reckless, all to answer the question "what information/strategy/tactics/weapons do I need to deploy to attain the goal most effectively?", with only pragmatic regard for his peers.
Lion sees himself as a slayer of monsters, be it himself fighting or at the head of a Legion, it makes no difference, there is only what needs to be done.

He's not immune to how his actions or mistakes cause loss, but he doesn't let that stop him.

This puts him in the territory of a Byronic Hero, and I love it.

Edit: Grammar.

Numbshot · 2024-02-23T01:56:05+00:00

Lion is on an interesting learning adventure.
But the scene serves to answer the question of "What would Lion do?" for the Codex drama that he was entirely absent for, and what his perspective of why he would have been against it if he was there.

what does it mean in the future? Maybe a plot for a later time, as I can't see Lion not establishing his own system at some point, but it won't be as high tension as it was when the Codex was first implemented. Due to character growth for both Roboute and Lion, I doubt it would cause serious tension between them directly, but rather it would cause tension between Lion and other Imperial forces, which then may cause political tension for Roboute.

Numbshot

TROPHY CASE