Attention institute personnel! We’re conducting a special field
investigation at the moment and operating on a reduced schedule. To help fill the time though,
our friends over at OwlCat games have provided a whole host of keys to the Warhammer
40,000 Rogue Trader Closed Beta. If you’d like to see how things are looking in the Koronus Expanse,
you’ll find these keys in the video description. Act swiftly, they’re first come first server.
The Space Marines legions were never just an army, they were a symbol. Of what
exactly would depend on their beholder. Military perfection. Humanity’s unwavering determination,
the might of the Emperor. A good Interator could convince the crowds that gathered to see them,
that the Legionnaires represented any number of things. Yet above all,
they were living testament to the Great Crusade. Physical evidence that roared across the skies
and stomped through the mud that this ultimate human undertaking wasn’t just a bunch of lies
or a deluded fantasy. They were proof that a better world in a better galaxy was possible.
The decision to shatter the legions into various chapters, a decision made in the
aftermath of the greatest conflict the Imperium had ever endured, was therefore not one made
without every consideration. For this was a tacit acknowledgement that the dream of the
Emperor was dead, and the tools required to bring it to fruition, were better dismantled,
and repurposed in saving what remained. But it was also a somber recognition that the Legions
were not above the taint of corruption or the perils of internal strife. Only by dismantling
the Legions and dispersing power, could the Astartes become a more decentralized
and resilient force. Only then, could another Horus Lupercal be rendered an impossibility.
Or at least that's what the proponents of the Codex Astartes argued. Those opposed resented
the loss of unity the restructuring would bring. They drew attention to the fact that mobilizing
dozens of chapters to the destruction of a particularly powerful foe would be far more
cumbersome than a single legion. With individual chapters specialized in a certain form of warfare,
the collective versatility and adaptability of the Astartes would be weakened. There
would be a tremendous loss of institutional knowledge, with the archaic technology and
methods harbored by the legions fragmented even further. And finally, to dissolve the
Legions would destroy centuries of tradition, remove the shared heritage of the Astartes,
and risk the very identity of the successive chapters.
Ultimately, the Legions were dissolved and the Codex Astartes was adopted but even ten thousand
years later, the question remains, was this the right decision? As the 42nd millennium dawns,
could the Imperium have found itself in a much stronger position if instead of 1000 independent
chapters it could command the assembled might of ten or more Astartes Legions? Even the
man directly responsible for their destruction, Roboute Guilliman, with the benefit of hindsight,
might reflect on that question. But on this episode of Incoming, I’ll give you my own opinion.
Now I must confess, earlier in my career I considered this question to have a pretty
clear answer. Breaking the legions was a mistake. And my rationale was pretty
simple. Developing the doctrine for how an armed force operates requires
answering a few key questions such as “is this force meant to defeat external threats,
or is it devoted to internal security. No military is purely one over the other and an
enormous number of interlocking factories will ultimately determine where on this spectrum it
ends up, but in most cases, being better at one will make you worse at the other.
Breaking the legions into smaller chapters definitely qualifies as a fairly major shift
towards “internal security” and as a consequence the Astares and now just that much less suited
towards fighting external threats. Compared to a Legion, a Chapter has a greatly reduced offensive
capability, ill suited to long campaigns or wars of attrition without Imperial support. When they
are supported, there can be a lack of experience or coordination when running joint operations.
They have a limited strategic focus, with smaller military units only able to exert power across a
correspondingly smaller area. These and the other arguments initially made against the
Codex Astartes are totally valid. Some of the military doctrine that was adopted to prevent
large scale rebellions amongst the astartes, will directly inhibit their ability to conduct a war.
And this was enough for me. The Legions were demonstrably better suited to protracted campaigns
and large scale battles than the Chapters, therefore breaking the legions was a mistake.
But while this mindset is reasonable and rooted in reality, it repeats the oldest
and gravest mistake humanity can make. Like so many others across the history of the Imperium
I failed to seriously regard the threat posed by the dark gods of Chaos. The Imperium of Man does
not have the luxury of facing down powers who only play by the conventional rules of war and
behave in predictable, self serving ways. . Sensible policies, check and balances,
these are all completely impotent weapons when it comes to preventing the defilement of the soul.
Xeno races too have grown increasingly capable of supplanting Imperial Rule,
and while the psycho-conditioning of the Astartes has so far proven resistant to alien philosophies,
there is no guarantee this will always be the case. In this kind of environment, internal
security needs to be regarded as absolutely essential not only during times of heightened
alert, but constantly. In his arguments Guilliman was right too. Another betrayal on the scale of
the Horus Heresy would destroy the Imperium with no chance for recovery. In this case,
shifting towards internal security was not a direct pivot away from external threats,
it was more nuanced, hindering some elements but making others more resilient.
But what really changed my mind was seeing how Chapters are typically deployed in the 41st and
42nd millennia. The galaxy is in a very different situation than the one faced by the Great Crusade.
There is no ever advancing front, no area behind the lines. There are only pockets of resistance in
a sea of wilderness. The war is everywhere, with any system not under siege directly, nevertheless
on permanent war footing to support efforts elsewhere. Many important worlds are completely
cut off from one another and even the greatest bastions of Imperial strength might be assailed
by forces so devastating, that their resources must be wholly reserved for their own defense.
Within this theater of war, an entire Space Marine Chapter is rarely assembled in its
entirety. For the most part individual Companies, Squads or Fireteams are sent to wherever they can
make the greatest impact. The Astra Militarum and some other Imperial organizations are much
better suited to protracted wars of attrition, so the Astartes instead act as the tip of the
spear in the attack, or a critical point in the defense. They are force multipliers,
amplifying the effectiveness of the Imperium’s war effort beyond its inherent capabilities.
Only against the most powerful threats will an entire chapter be assembled,
and only once every few generations will multiple chapters need to assemble in common purpose.
The Wars of Armageddon, theSiege of Vraks, the Battle of Macragge and the Devastation
of Baal for example. And even in an era where encroaching Tyranid Hive Fleets and
awakening Necron Tomb Worlds makes these larger campaigns more and more common,
there are so many other threats that need to be dealt with first,
it is still very uncommon for more than a few chapter companies to be deployed together.
Even if the Imperium wanted to mobilize an entire legion,
its ability to do so has been greatly weakened. Sustaining
such a force requires a constant stream of ammunition, weapons, ships and technology,
all of much greater sophistication than the Imperium is used to producing. Logistically,
it is far easier for the Imperium to supply a thousand chapters than 10 or more legions.
So when viewed through the lens of the 42nd millennium, splitting the legions
doesn’t seem like the worst idea. Even if they had remained intact, the shifting nature of warfare
would require that they be deployed to an ever increasing number of war zones. What many critics
failed to realize, myself included, was that the benefits of the Codex Astartes extend well beyond
merely preventing another Horus. When he wrote the Codex, Guilliman was looking into the future,
he tried to imagine the type of warfare the Imperium would be engaged in across the millennia,
and described the type of fighting force that would be best suited to win that war.
And history has mostly proven him right. For ten thousand years the kinds of battles in which the
strength of an entire Legion have been necessary for victory were the exception, not the rule.
But this may be changing. With the fall of Cadia, the spread of the great rift,
encroaching hive fleets and rising tomb worlds, the galaxy is undergoing another seismic change.
Already Guilliman has made some amendments to the Codex Astartes, and who's to say the restrictions
on Chapter Strength might not be rescinded. Whatever you might think of the man, none
would deny he is a pragmatist, willing to shatter established norms in the pursuit of any advantage
But what is the final verdict? Was breaking the legions a good move or not? I think it
was. Even before the ashes had settled on Terra, Guilliman correctly identified what the future
of the Imperium was going to look like, and designed the force best suited to defend it.
Could Guilliman have been more diplomatic in how he presented his Codex to his brothers
and their respective legions? Of course. But I don’t think that was his objective.
The Codex Astartes was as much a display of political power as it
was a military treatise. In breaking the Legions, Guilliman solidified his place
as the Emperor’s successor. After the Heresy, the Imperium needed a confident,
central figure to rally around and in forcing the adoption of his Codex, Guilliman displayed
his capability as a statesman and leader. In accepting his doctrine, his brothers tacitly
accepted Guilliman’s authority to alter the designs of the Emperor, legitimizing his
governance in the process. Approving the Codex Astartes, was in a way, a vote of confidence.
But the right decision in the 31st Millenium is not the right decision in the 42nd. I
think the Tyranids alone provide a reason for reestablishing legion sized forces of Astartes.
Guilliman might call it something else, or make it a more centralized confederation of already
aligned chapters, but however it's done, I think the larger formations are necessary.
Is it actually possible? Can the Imperium support such an increase
in the production of things like power armor? And can the Chapters sustain such
numbers with their limited gene seed? Thats a question for another time.
But that of course is just my opinion. And even though I and I alone have pierced the veil of
ignorance to discover the true nature and deepest secrets of the far future,
I’d like to hear your thoughts. Was Guilliman right to shatter the legions? Has the time
come for their return? And can the Imperium even handle the logistics of such a force?
Let me know in the comments below and until next time, this has been incoming.