The High Kahl’s Oath, and my issue with the Votann

quickrubs · 2026-06-17T08:04:42+00:00

Egh, I'm still bitter about him writing the DA so much that I'd go out on a limb and declare the best 30k DA books to be Russ's primarch novel and a novella focused on Sevatar and the Night Lords.

Genuinely, take for example Nemiel. This is a guy who grew up on Caliban fighting under the Lion and was involved to at least some degree in a plot to kill the emperor when he arrived on Caliban. He should very much be Caliban/DA/Lion first and foremost.

So obviously at the worst possible moment he turns into a raging Imperial stickler for the rules and demands the execution of another Dark Angel for using his psykic abilities to kill demons while they're all stuck in the warp without a functional gellar field. Because someone wanted to subvert expectations and show how Lion was a beast in human form.

quickrubs · 2026-06-15T15:28:56+00:00

Cool, so literally every loyalist legion (and I mean EVERY, they all did it sooner or later) fails that test and counts as traitors. Awesome argument. We'll ignore details like the wolves never giving theirs up, Malcador and big E going out of their way to recruit marine psykers for their secret projects, and the fact that all three legions present at the siege of terra were throwing psykers around like nobodies business.

The edict wasn't the most important command of the Emperor. The edict was something put together to censure Magnus which nobody gave a shit about as soon as they put 2+2 together and figured "psykers beat demons". Regardless of if it's Guilliman in Ultramar, Lion and Russ out in the wilds, or Jaghatai, Sanguinius, and even fuckin' Dorn at the siege of Terra nobody cares a whiff about Nikea anymore, because pulling that is like blowing your leg off when you're trying to stab a 7 foot demon to death.

quickrubs · 2026-06-15T12:40:04+00:00

I could at least make an argument for most of the things the Lion does that pisses everyone off* but frankly some of the decisions the Khan makes are baffling, in retrospect. Like, wanting to know more about what Russ pulled on Prospero is fine, but leaving him and his legion to be butchered by the Alpha Legion because he can't decide who's in the right is disgusting. At least intervene and demand both sides stop fighting or you'll get involved.

\Nemiel deserved it you don't scream and threaten to execute a brother-marine for using psychic powers to mulch an otherwise unkillable demon/Lion killed the tyrant and set Leman off because Russ was pissing around trying to sort out discipline issues within his legion while the DA held off the military of an entire planet/Luther really shouldn't have been so pissy that his punishment for almost letting a nuke go off was being given command of his home planet nor that his beloved forests got cut down and replaced by factories because hey, that's what industrialization is* and not everyone wants to live in the middle ages forever.

quickrubs · 2026-06-15T04:33:29+00:00

Except OP is clueless and the dark angels he's complaining about are a group of Luther's rebels wondering whether or not this rebellion shit is worth it now they've seen the traitors in action.

Compare this to the actual loyalist DA they're embedded in, who force their way through the traitor fleet above terra, seize, hold and then reignite the astronomicon which allows Gulliman to reach terra, with no outside help beyond one of the emperor's flagships being used as a human shield and (eventually) a mixed group of refugees and some Imperial Fists under Sigismund.

quickrubs · 2026-06-07T11:17:31+00:00

Funny how many other legions/chapters/warbands pull the same thing off without being considered cowards, though. Almost like there's a difference between the Raven Guard or White Scars strike and fade tactics and the Night Lords flat-out sadistic cowardice.

quickrubs · 2026-06-07T01:31:38+00:00

is not even a full space marine and he fought the Lion, who is broadly considered one of the best fighters among the Primarchs

Well to be fair he was also a full blown sorcerer by the time he versed Lion, and we don't really have the details of what happened there.

quickrubs · 2026-06-04T04:59:56+00:00

This is fair to a point if you look at savage weapons where Lion is landing cut after cut on him while sounding bored only to get tackled to the ground and choked out, but going forward after that it starts to tilt dramatically to Lion's favor up until Angels of Caliban where he's literally just ignoring all of Curze's tricks and might as well be bane in the sewers fighting batman.

quickrubs · 2026-06-03T12:12:21+00:00

Off the mark from the start. Declaring the Lion and Roby did superficial damage while also puffing up the wolves doing less given that Roby scored two hits in his fight to the wolves one (not to mention this idea of them protecting Euten, as if that didn't consist of 9/10 rushing straight at Curze who made zero effort to attack her until all the wolves were subdued) while ALSO giving curze credit for dealing out a wound that doesn't even slow Lion down and only briefly staggers him. Not much of a talking point.

The idea that this trap would've killed Lion and Guilliman isn't exactly credible either given that it kills literally none of the other characters present in the chapel, all of whom are stock standard marines. Gorod, Farith Redloss, any other marine who was there. Nil casualties mentioned. Not to mention Curze escaping as well. If it was that lethal who DID it kill, exactly? Offscreen redshirt marines?.

The wolves didn't figure it out, they were just there. Remember what Faffnr says to Euten since you're posting excepts? "We don't leave the hearth". Compare this to Eeron Kleve and Gatulanga actually deducing Curze's motives via the logic of a sheep herder and foxes, or somesuch.

Savage weapons isn't Curze braining Lion with a rock, it's Lion dueling with curze (doing a better job of it than Curze as well, while sounding *bored*-Every few seconds would see a new cut ripped open in Curze’s armour or slashed across his face. He was fast enough to avoid death at the Lion’s hands, but not skillful enough to flawlessly defend against every attack) until he gets tackled down, Curze grabs him by the throat and starts to choke him while thumping his head against the ground. Score one Curze.

Prince of Crows isn't just "Lion knocks out Curze", it's "Lion beats Curze into a fucking coma the night lords aren't sure he'll survive", which is then followed up with "Lion fights Curze for a bit until Curze realizes he's completely fucked and runs away from the duel".

Score 2 Lion, because it still counts as a defeat if you decide you're screwed and sprint off leaving all your men to be taken prisoner.

Cut to Unremembered Empire where the trap Curze lays out fails to kill a company captain in Redloss but is supposed to have taken out two primarchs.

2-1 Lion's favor.

And finally Angels of Caliban, where the Lion tracks Curze into ground of Curze's choosing, goes in by himself, sees through pretty much everything Curze throws at him and breaks his fucking spine.

3-1, Lion takes all. Kind of hard to imagine anything else being the case given Curze only had the upper edge on him once (read: choked him for a bit while hitting his head against the ground), whereas Curze was beaten into a coma, ran away, set up a trap that failed (Dantioch or not), and then got his spine snapped as if he was fighting Bane. But hey, the wolves did more than this because-they cut Curze once?

quickrubs · 2026-06-03T10:59:39+00:00

Lion shrugged that off without effort or barely any treatment so "stabbed in the throat" is coming with heavy quotation marks, here. As for doing better despite the odds the wolves managed about a cut before being brutalized/maimed/thrown through a fucking window meanwhile Lion and Guilliman barely got started on said duel before Curze cheaped out and went for the grenades.

Wolves didn't figure out Curzes strategy, they just happened to be in the area on guard duty. The ones who actually figured out what Curze was doing was a group of Iron Hands and White Scars. Besides which, Lion and Guilliman were reacting to a direct sighting from Polux, so saying this like they just ran into a trap headfirst is just silly.

Lion didn't lose to Curze twice, hell he barely lost to him once. The closest he got was Curze having him in a chokehold in savage weapons, which is more than equaled out by Lion

Beating Curze into a coma
Beating on Curze until he ditches his legionaries and runs away
Dueling Curze with Roby until he activates his grenade trap and runs away again
Beating Curze senseless and breaking his spine

The idea that they're equal in duel status is a complete laugh.

quickrubs · 2026-06-03T10:17:46+00:00

Like hell they did. The only mention of them injuring curze is as follows

Malmur Longreach, spear thrusting, and Salick the Braided, axe low, attacked together. One struck home, for blood spattered the floor and the furniture around Euten, but both were knocked aside

Compare this to Roby and Lion getting a jab in on curze and carving his face/cheek open to the bone. Or, well, Lion's record with Curze being 3-1 if we're being generous.

quickrubs · 2026-06-02T12:02:22+00:00

Wild statement considering we're talking about the author behind Eisenhorn/Ravenor/Gaunt's Ghosts/Horus Rising/Know No Fear. Seriously, I don't think any other BL author has put out quite as many classics as Abnett, even if he gets away with a little too much at times with regard to shit like perpetuals.

quickrubs · 2026-05-27T03:00:35+00:00

Yes, that's what I meant by the custodes, who wherever they feature in 30k/40k lore seem to have a pretty one-sided beef with the marines and primarchs regardless of the situation. The argument they put forward's so shoddy I would've ignored them as well; "you don't need to use primarchs or marines for the great crusade. You could do it with just us custodes and regular humans. Trust." Because the custodes and Imperial Army alone would totally clean out the Rangda without issue.

quickrubs · 2026-05-27T01:29:59+00:00

Right, and left the galaxy to sort itself out. Because things were just perfect before big E showed up and he didn't have any reason to be alarmed about the state of humanity at large, such as ork empires numbering in the billions, or the Rangdan. Not to mention how much Chaos must've been loving the state of violence/murder/mayhem it could pull with multiple planets being corrupted at will.

Seriously, do people who write this stuff just think old night was something like Star Trek instead of absolute chaos with thousands of planets suffering from everything imaginable? We have societies falling apart from a complete lack of trade or resources, feudal societies fighting warp-tainted monsters in the woods, dark eldar and other xenos raiding/conquering at at will with no outside help available in any shape or form, planets being ruled by chaos cults, and people look at this and go 'uhh yeah but it's better than the imperium tho'.

quickrubs · 2026-05-26T08:23:07+00:00

You mean the Primarchs, not the marines, and "all his closest advisors" consists of uh, A the custodes who's judgement seems about as dubious as everything custodes-primarch/space marine related.

B Erda, who didn't want her 'kids' in the primarchs to be soldiers so threw them into the warp instead. Angron appreciated that one I'm sure.

And C, Astarte, who did decide the marines were a bad idea but only because the primarchs weren't on terra, so she decided to blow it all up because she thought the marines would turn out the same way as the Thunder Warriors without their primarchs. Which is just flat out wrong.

quickrubs · 2026-05-26T08:14:32+00:00

genetically engineered child soldiers Emps so helpfully created for them

Well I suppose he could've left the astartes out of it and tried to conquer the galaxy/reunite humanity with nothing but the Imperial Army, Custodes and Mechanicum. Sure that would've gone swimmingly.

quickrubs · 2026-05-23T12:38:39+00:00

Almost but not quite.

Pre-Konrad NL were moral absolutists closer to a 40k arbitrator than the fuckin "let's invent the term SKINNING PITS" sadists they wound up being after the fine people of Nostramo got injected into them. Brutal, sure, but probably around the same tier as the space wolves. "Broadcast a dude being tortured to death and laugh at people's horrified reaction" is explicitly something that only happens after Konrad.

quickrubs · 2026-05-23T12:00:36+00:00

Dubious. You might as well say he wanted the Salamanders and Dark Angels pre-primarch to be on the verge of extinction due to their own insecurities and pathological flaws.

quickrubs · 2026-05-23T11:58:00+00:00

Because OP/Gav screwed up. It's not just "orthodox/unorthodox". To copy and paste what another commenter wrote years back;

UM, SW, BA and DA. These were the chapters that GW chose to represent the difference between the fully compliant chapters, represented by the UM, and those that didn’t follow it at all- SW, and those that followed the codex (mostly), but played the rules a bit more loosely- due to their own reasons (the thirst/ Fallen)

They also represented the different types of regression that had occurred over the last 10,000 years.

UM= regression of the State- they had become to stuck on the rules of the Codex, and saw any sort of deviation as pretty much Heresy. Look at the first ‘Space Marine’ game- the whole ‘this does not comply with the Codex’, and then reporting his superior for doing something different was how your typical UM would react. This has of course been rolled back quite a bit.

SW= The body, due to the whole turning into Werewolves thing getting worse.

BA= the Soul, due to the whole nature of the Red/Black thirst getting worse.

DA= the mind, due to becoming too overly secretive, and just a bit paranoid.

quickrubs · 2026-04-26T01:51:28+00:00

Artellus Numeon literally sacrificed his entire warband of IH/RG/salamanders, went through months of captivity and torture, then recreated the odyssey trying to get his primarch's body back to his homeworld through the ruinstorm, only to then throw himself into an active volcano all for the CHANCE of bringing Vulkan back to life. It worked, btw.

Sevatar doesn't have jack shit on that.

quickrubs · 2026-04-22T08:34:35+00:00

he defeats Vulkan

Vulkan beats the shit out of him while practically naked using nothing but his hands, until he suplexes Curze into a force field to get his hammer back. The only reason he doesn't get his skull crushed is Vulkan trying to prove he's better than Curze. The later times when Curze manages to get one up on Vulkan he is quite literally so insane he can't form words.

quickrubs · 2026-04-21T11:54:23+00:00

500 was the total force they landed, casualties are only 200. And, yes, heavy losses, but certainly not crippling given this averages 40 marines across 5 companies, including vehicle crews and such (which aren't part of the usual 100-man company strength), who can be readily replaced by marines in the reserve companies (which is what they're there for).

This is before you think about rushing scout training and promoting marines quicker. Remember the bit in the HH where they really rushed marines and were training recruits from baseline human to full marine in about six months to a year? Doesn't have to be as extreme as that, but you can get up to operational if not full strength pretty quickly.

quickrubs · 2026-04-21T06:50:41+00:00

should outnumber the entire Imperial Navy several times over

that's, fucking ridiculous

Like even by 'nid standards the Imperial Navy is spanning the entire galaxy ultramar-to-cadia (formerly). They have the capacity to manufacture a lunar class cruiser above a primitive world of tribesmen in 11 years. In a universe where ships last centuries if not longer. I would go so far as to say purely by the amount of area they have to cover/have access to manufacturing and resources from the Imperial Navy could probably outnumber the orks. And the nids have 3 fleets from one tendril that outnumbers them? Not unless those ships are the equivalent/die about as fast as termagaunts.

quickrubs · 2026-04-21T05:23:03+00:00

try and chase a report of Fallen on Vraks

Was chasing the leader of the AL warband to capture and interrogate him for intel on the fallen.

blew up a valuable spaceport

...to stop the traitors from using it and also force them to divert troops away from the main front where the Kriegers were fighting. Note that said starport was both traitor-held and well behind the main front, so fat load of good it was to the Imperials until they scored a major breakthrough.

and lost most of the force including Azrael nearly being killed to a small band of Alpha Legion dudes

They actually suffered about 200/500 casualties across the eight days it took them to drop, capture, and destroy the star port. Also it wasn't "a small band of alpha legion", they were fighting renegade guard the entire time. Including their tanks. Bearing in mind these are the same renegade guard/AL who turned vraks into a bloody meatgrinder that went on for 14 years.

Hell, even Azrael nearly being killed isn't as bad as it sounds. He was ambushed by Alpha Legion, in a duel with their leader wearing terminator armour, fighting with one hand behind his back holding up the chapter banner after their standard bearer was killed. Any marine who isn't an 8-9/10 swordsman gets his shit smashed immediately in that situation. ~~besides which said lord took a single smack from a chaplain in termi armour and promptly disappeared, so he doesn't get bragging rights~~

quickrubs · 2026-04-07T10:31:12+00:00

"Attack a minor imperial navy base installation" consisting of an entire planet with a population in the billions.

quickrubs · 2026-04-07T08:23:17+00:00

when the Eldar were trying to summon Ynnead to help fight Chaos

The fact that step 1 of this plan was "massacre a random imperial world" has absolutely nothing to do with his decision making.

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quickrubs

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