The God Emperor of Mankind

Warmaster Horus Lupercalwas one of the twenty Primarchs created by the Emperor in the earliest days of the Imperium, just after the end of the Age of Strife. Like the other Primarchs, Horus was sucked from Terra by the Gods of Chaos and was placed on a faraway world in an attempt to prevent the coming of the Age of Imperium. 1 History 1.1 Rediscovery 1.2 The Great Crusade 1.3 The Betrayal 1.4. Horus vs the Emperor (1990) Description – The Emperor of Mankind battles his Warmaster, Horus Lupercal, at the climax of the Horus Heresy. At their feet lies Sanguinius, Primarch of the Blood Angels Legion. This is Adrian Smith's original black and white artwork of the scene.

Disclaimer: I do not own Warhammer in any version. This is a purely non-profit venture. With that said enjoy.

Author's note: I got this idea from reading Id4chan. In that, basically the fluff around the god emperor can be read that he's either space King Arthur or Space Hitler. I chose the latter because that's more fun and because human being have a way of distorting history until it's unrecognizable. So what if the Warhammer continuity we know is nothing more than human's distorting history until it's totally unrecognizable.

'[Religion] is the desire to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable tyrannical authority who can convict you of thought crime when you are asleep. Who can subject you—who MUST indeed subject you—to total surveillance around the clock of your every waking and sleeping minute.'

Christoph Hitchens, Pre-DAOT philosopher

'As long as a person is involved with warfare, trying to defend or attack, then his action is not sacred; it is mundane, dualistic, a battlefield situation.'

Chogyam Trunpa, Pre-DAOT mystic

Terra, Horus Heresy

Warmaster Horus realized that the Emperor did not blink. In the nearly two hundred years that the Emperor had known Horus and Horus had known his father, never once had the God Emperor of Mankind blinked. Those eyes of limitless depth, unnamed colours and boundless wisdom just kept staring at you, daring you to turn away, daring you to meet his gaze and forcing you to realize that there was no winning.

The Emperor stared at Horus, his old warmaster, now traitor, how arch-heretic; showing no emotion whatsoever except for an approximation of fatherly love. His fathomless eyes twinkled as he stared down at his son from atop his throne.

The God Emperor took a sip of wine from a simple glass vessel, sniffing the crimson liquid before he did. Off to the right of the golden throne, Leman Russ screamed with unimaginable agony and vainly tried to tear his power armour off. The wolf king roamed at the mouth and his eyes bulged out of their sockets like his head was about to explode.

The Emperor gently put down the wine glass and reached into the front pocket of the white silk shirt he wore, opening a golden case full of Cannabis Sativa cigarettes. In a gesture that was almost joking, he popped a cigarette into his mouth and lit it with psyker fire from one fingertip; the cutest sort of parlour trick.

Russ continued to scream and rave, clawing at his face and shouting in a mix of high Gothic and the native tongue of Fenris.

Horus looked at his father and at Russ with a mix of pity, love and hatred; making for an emotional state of unparalleled grief and disappointment in the man he'd once thought of as father and still loved dearly. 'You're a psychopath,' Horus accused, his voice hoarse with exhaustion beyond human limits, 'A sadist, a puppeteer, murderer and liar.'

The Emperor took a puff of his cannabis cigarette and the acrid smoke circled around him like a wreath, 'Horus, I've never been anything but honest to you and your brothers.' He put the cigarette back in his lips and took another drag. 'It was bad enough that you engaged in high treason against me and turned to the chaos gods, but to drag my good name through the mud would get any other man or women in the Imperium erased. Like your two brothers that don't exist.'

Horus looked at the Russ, who was now on his knees and begging in his native tongue to be killed. The sheer enormity of it rocked Horus to the core and he clenched one power fist in helplessness. There was nothing he could do for Russ, any more than anything could be done for Magnus, Angron, Mortrarion or the rest of his former allies who'd come down with this terrible infection from the warp. 'Do you even have a name?' he asked of his father, still trying to muster up the courage to finally kill his father.

To his great surprise, the Emperor burst out laughing; long, loud, hearty laughter that boomed through the continent wide halls of the Sacred Palace.

Horus found himself paralyzed by the laughter for how sincere it sounded. Volume aside, this could have been the laughter of any ordinary man and for a few moments longer Horus was paralyzed by the hope that his father wasn't the force of pure evil that he'd proven himself to be.

When the laughter died down, the Emperor smiled once more at Horus; the smile however did not reach his unblinking eyes. 'Thank you, Horus. I haven't laughed like that in . . . well I don't know how long. Honestly sometimes I just forget, kind of like I'm just making up everything as I go. Some days I don't remember . . . anything.'

There was a flicker in the emperor's eyelids, a sort of partial wink; maybe a thought went across his mind before being quickly forgotten. Casually, he threw his half smoked cannabis cigarette into his half drained wine glass. The Emperor's voice turned stereotypically solemn, like what people would imagine a disappointed god would say; only the glittering, unblinking eyes stayed the same.

In the corner, Russ had stopped screaming and was twitching in a pool of his own vomit, blood and tears.

'Horus, you took to defying me. You took half of your brothers in rebellion against the loyalists and against me. The last seven years of war have seen more human being killed than have ever been born in history up to this point; but that's not what makes me really upset, Horus. No, what makes me really upset beyond words is that you've shown compassion, that you don't hate me, that you don't fear me.'

The God Emperor of mankind stood up, brushing off imaginary cigarette ashes from his black slacks. Turning around, he looked at the four glass bottles on top of the golden throne, each one containing one of the dreaded chaos gods. Slaanesh, Tzeetch, Khorne and Nurgle. 'Horus,' said the Emperor, tapping a finger playfully on the glass bottles holding the most terrible beings in the universe, 'If you had been afraid of me I would not have been forced to siphon off some chaos energy and turn your traitorous brothers into chaos fuelled monsters. It's your fault Horus that I let chaos into the world. If you were afraid then you would have just followed the Imperial creed of atheism, science and obedience and all of this could have been avoided.'

At this point, Horus burst out in anger at his so called father. 'DON'T TRY TO TURN THIS AROUND ON ME!' The Warmaster pointed an accusing finger at the master of mankind, 'You committed genocide against any human group that would not obey you in totality, you allowed poverty, disease and ignorance to thrive on countless feral and feudal worlds, under your reign the hive worlds have rotted into crime and degeneracy while squeezing them of their resources to feed a few core worlds! Whole planets are strip mined and the peoples enslaved for you! You are worse than the xenos overlords you claim to 'liberate' people from and worst of all you tried to infect me with a Nurglite blade?!'

'Your infection by chaos was necessary, Horus,' the emperor explained kindly, 'With my secret project on Terra complete, chaos was now under my control; you were a guinea pig to see how precisely I could use chaos as a weapon and you should have been honoured to sacrifice your soul in my name.'

'Why would you do that?' Horus screamed, tears rolling down his face, 'Why would you try to control the most evil force in creation? What possible purpose could that serve? Why would you keep all of us, your sons in the dark about something that could literally consume our very souls and grew stronger in ignorance?'

The Emperor was starting to get annoyed, his eyes remained unchanged but his tone was getting terse and his tone was getting clipped. 'Horus, you know that under the imperial truth there can be no gods; there is only the rule of my law. Under my law your life had no value and I'm very sorry it had to be that way. I'm truly sorry that I infected you with Chaos, Horus; but I was always planning to cure you of it when the time was right; always. By throwing out the demon possession you irrevocably ruined my plans and you needed to be killed for that.'

'YOU MANIAC!' Horus accused his father, 'WHAT WAS THE POINT OF ANY OF IT? MORE HAVE DIED IN YOUR GREAT CRUSADE THAN IN THIS CIVIL WAR! IT'S PUBLIC RECORD! ANYONE CAN SEE THE BODY COUNTS IN THE PUBLIC LEXICANUM!'

'Horus, public records can be changed easily. In less time than you can blink the records will say what I order them to.'

Emperor Of Mankind Vs Horus X

The Warmaster hissed through his teeth, 'that's if I let you cover this up.'

The emperor's lip curled slightly, just by a micron. 'Horus, I don't like the way you're speaking to me. I didn't intentionally try to infect you with chaos. I was only trying to test you. My ultimate plan is not to use chaos as a weapon but to destroy it, which should be obvious.'

As he spoke, the emperor's aura grew stronger; trying to overwhelm Horus's sense of logic and reason, but Horus was well past this little trick.

Over on the ground, Russ began to gradually get up, strange creaking noises coming out of his armour.

'Horus, just kneel now and swear a new oath of loyalty to me and I'll forgive you, I promise,' The Emperor deadpanned now, growing agitated that his aura wasn't having the desired effect.

Horus just matched his father's facial expression, 'Like when you promised Magnus that Russ was only coming to detain him? Like you promised Curze that your surgery would cure him of his visions? When you promised Angron that you'd teleport his brethren away with him? When you gave Fulgrim that demon possessed blade and told him it was a reward? Frankly, papa, your track record is shit.'

Perfect white teeth gritted as the Emperor took in Horus's words and his tone became cloyingly sweet. 'Now Horus, there's nothing that we can't discuss as a father and a son. I'd never hurt my sons.'

'This is your last chance, father. Step down from your thrown—

'Now Horus,' the Emperor ground out sweetly, 'Let's not say anything we'll regret.'

'Abdicate as the leader of humanity and destroy the imprisoned demons you call the chaos gods—

'Horus, you're not listening to me.' The emperor warned, his attention fully turned away from the imprisoned eldritch gods.

'Go on trial for your crimes and face the laws that you—

'DON'T! YOU! EVER! TELL! ME! WHAT! TO! DO!' The Emperor roared, slamming his fist down on the golden throne with every word; the force of the impacts causing earthquakes all over terra and seeming to frighten the imprisoned gods with the weight of his rage and anger. Horus however refused to cower before a tyrant. His cause was right and it would disrespect the memories of his dead or chaotic infected brothers

Horus stood before his father, too frightened to run or attack; frightened of the most powerful human in existence and possibly the most powerful lifeform in the materium.

Without warning, a look of remorse came over the Emperor's face. 'Oh my son, I am so sorry. I don't know what came over me.'

As he did so, Russ sprouted several tentacles from random spots on his body; horns rising up out of his forehead and razor sharp fangs. Taking up his chainsword in a horribly mutated tentacle hand, he looked at Horus and bellowed 'BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!'

The once King of Fenris and father of the wolves charged at his brother Primarch. Horus sidestepped the attack and struck at the back of Russ's neck with a power fist. The blow should have shattered the Primarch's diamond hard bones into powder but with the unnatural strength of Chaos he roared and slashed at his brother like a rabid animal.

The Wolf King and Master of the Luna wolves clashed in a deadly dance around their father's throne room. Their blades clashed with enough force that they could be heard across the planet, it could even be heard over the sound of chaos infected forces, the 'loyalists' and the last remaining untainted members of Horus's original rebellion. The Emperor watched it all with the same non-blinking eyes.

The palace shook and rumbled, both from the two titans fighting and from the ongoing battle outside, the Emperor could feel through his immense psychic powers that his loyalists were had killed off the last of the untainted rebels and that the chaos tainted traitors could be used to drag the battle on for a few more days; try to make things look more exciting for the Remembrancers.

The Emperor was drawn out of his contemplation when Horus chopped off Leman Russ's head. Almost comically, the Emperor ducked while the dead Primarch's head sailed over and bounced off the golden throne.

The tall, dark haired man didn't pay a second glance at his dead son Leman Russ, instead focusing his attention on the charging behemoth coming at him full tilt.

Horus raised his power sword, ready to cleave his father in half; all traces of doubt and fear gone from him. Yet as he prepared to commit patricide, there was no hate in his heart, no hate for the man who'd tried to turn him into a demon finger puppet. In a way, this was a mercy killing; saving the memory of his treasured father from the man that he really was.

The retaliation was swift and brutal, the Emperor swung at Horus with a great flaming sword, pulled seemingly from the ether. The impact of the Emperor's blade with his own shook every atom in Horus's body and threw him back. Horus didn't feel the impact right away; his father struck him with such force that he only started feeling pain several seconds after he'd been hit.

Golden coloured walls adamantine exploded and were ripped down as Horus flew straight through them. In an epic act of destruction, Horus crashed through walls and chambers beyond number. By the time that momentum ran out, he'd been knocked over five hundred kilometers from the central throne room.

Rubble and dust cleared as Horus's vision finally returned to him. Rolling over, his power armour fell apart and crumbled off of his body. The bronze skinned, bald headed Primarch groaned as he thumbed the switch on his chainsword. A buzz and a vibration confirmed that his weapon was working, one bit of good news today.

His healing factor had barely even begun to start working on his numerous internal and external injuries when he heard the footsteps of an impossibly tall man. Footballs reverberated like the approach of a fairy-tale hero.

The handsome prince stepped over his fallen son, looking to offer him redemption. After all, why waste resources? That's something that chaos would do.

'My boy, my precious boy; you've fallen so far,' the Emperor comforted his son as he put the point of his sword over Horus's throat. 'You were my favoured son; I chose you over Guilleman or Dorn and all of your brothers to be my warmaster. I think that my withdrawal from the crusade threw you off balance; in the future I won't give you that same rope to hang yourself. But even after all the pain you've caused me and the choices you've forced me to make I think I can forgive you.'

Horus spat out a wad of blood and mucus as he met his father's aura enhanced gaze. 'I almost didn't turn away from you, even when the evidence was plain as the nose on my face. It was Malcador who showed me the truth about you.'

'Malcador?' the Emperor said with surprise and amusement, 'Oh, he's dead; nasty accident. It's okay, he was only a glorified lawyer; one less lawyer in the galaxy won't bring civilization to its knees.'

One mighty hand grabbed Horus by the neck and hoisted him up, turning him so that he could see the final battle for Terra winding down; the fires and devastation beyond belief. The mere sight of such destruction and body count would have driven even the worst tyrants in human history mad with grief. Even now, the loyalist legions were busy torturing the last survivors of the rebels while the chaos infected were apparently gone without a trace. The screams rose up with the smoke, worse than all the suffering in the Dark Eldar city of Comorragh.

The Emperor breathed in the fumes and smiled just as the sun was rising. 'You see Horus, in less than a day this will all be cleaned up and only the sanctioned truth will be known. Even the public records you love so much will be scrubbed.'

If he was about to say anything else, the Emperor never go to it as Horus thrust a dagger into his father's belly, hidden in the under layer of his destroyed armour. The Emperor hardly seemed to feel the dagger to the gut, humouring his son.

With his other hand, Horus rammed a vortex grenade into the gaping abdominal wound before it rapidly sealed shut.

Planting his foot on his father's chest, Horus kicked the two of them apart. With his remaining strength, he pushed himself as far away as he could as the warp field detonated inside his father's body. The effect was indescribable. Simultaneously the warp field ripped apart the atomic and subatomic particles of the emperor's body while also erasing them from existence and sucking the existent/non-existent particles into the immaterium.

Through ragged breaths, Horus watched the spot where his father had once been. The black hole like phenomenon should have destroyed him, but after everything he was not ready to do a victory lap yet.

Horus raised himself up, still painfully aware of the battle dying down outside the palace house. With a heavy heart he surveyed the insanity below. From here he really had no idea where to go, the chances of really killing the Emperor were slim to none. A good point perhaps would be to deactivate the golden throne and leave the ruinous powers forever entombed in it.

All his hopes however were dashed when a rip in the fabric of reality tore open like a vortex grenade in reverse. A light so bright it was unlike anything he'd ever seen blinded Horus. The light was so bright that it shone through his hand, through his eyelids and seared his retinas. A mortal man or even an astartes would have died from the light but Horus was cursed to see.

Through the rip in the warp was a bright glow. The glow was beautiful and it was specifically designed to shut down the logic and reason centers in the human brain; rendering all who saw it into dumb, obedient animals following a crude and evolutionarily obsolete god instinct. In the center of the brain killing light was an incinerated skeleton taller than anything human anatomy could support.

The nephelim skeleton casually strolled through the gateway between the warp and the real world and closed the tear behind it. In less than a second, the charring on the skeleton went away and flesh and tendons regenerated. The emperor smiled as soon as he had a face, flexing his body to work out the kinks in his joints. Over his newly regenerated skin a kind of black body suit formed. He had no morals, nor regret or remorse or empathy but he did have a sense of modesty after all.

Willing a brand new sword into existence, the Emperor clicked his tongue mockingly at Horus. 'You're lucky I still need you, Horus,' the Emperor chided gently. 'After seven years of death and destruction my obedient citizens need a scapegoat.'

With a mental command, the golden throne lit up and the four bottles containing the prisoner gods vibrated. From the golden throne, invisible to any senses but those of the emperor, a stream of warp spawned power radiated through solid matter and space and shot into the heart of Horus. Last time, it was only an artifact of Nurgle that had tried to corrupt the leader of the Luna wolves, now the power of four ruinous gods would do the job.

The fallen Primarch screamed as the chaos energy filled him and began to file down his soul to a nub. With all his might and willpower he could only delay the inevitable. His father smiled with great satisfaction at the pain his son was going through.

'Koschi.' A ghostly voice called out.

Surprise momentarily flashed across the emperor's face, too large for lies or deception; for a brief millisecond his eyes widened before he turned around and faced the ghostly apparition. The identity of the spectral caller almost made the Emperor laugh for the second time today. 'I don't know anyone named Koschi, Eldrad.'

There like a Shakespearean portent of doom, the psychic portrayal of the great Farseer watched the scene unfold with grim, dark resignation. Utorrent ad free download for windows 10. 'It's over, imperator. Everything has not gone according to plan, but this will do.'

The Emperor turned away from Horus as the last of his son's soul was eaten by starving gods. 'Please, no' he sarcastically mocked, 'Tell me that the plan hasn't turned out.'

Eldrad just smiled and pointed an astral finger behind the emperor.

The master of Mankind turned around just in time to see Sanguinius of the Blood Angels strike down a chaos infected Horus; chopping off his head and killing him. This disappointed the Emperor greatly as he was hoping for some good news feeds. Couldn't have his son killed Horus when the security cameras were up and running again?

'My son,' the Emperor said with a mix of false sadness and fatherly love that utterly fooled his winged son. 'It is over,' he announced gravely.

His son knelt before him, smiling as he did. 'Father, the traitor legions are no more and the survivors are being rounded up and executed. And better still, I have returned what was stolen from you.'

'Thank you my son,' The Emperor gently spoke as he put a hand on his son's shoulder. Eldrad's ghostly figure watched unseen to Sanguinius and gave a grin.

From his belt, Sanguinius drew a small uncarved sandalwood box. 'When you contacted me father at the start of this final battle I personally went to find the relic that had been stolen from the heart of your palace.'

The Emperor started at his son, keeping up the act but frozen in place. The God Emperor licked his lips as though his mouth had suddenly gone dry. 'Son, what was stolen from me. I never contacted you about any theft.'

Sanguinius looked at his father with confusion. 'Father, you told me of your webway project and how the black sphere was the keystone of it. I have risked all to get this back to you,' the box opened and inside the Emperor's eyes blinked at the sight of the pitch black crystal sphere; Baba Yaga's black thirteen.

The thirteenth sphere of the witch's rainbow seemed to stare back at the Emperor with a power greater than him or the chaos gods. Black Thirteen, or the God Killer as it had once been known seemed to burn through the emperor's aura, cut through the divine disguise he wore so often that it had become him. For the first time in over thirty thousand years of life, the God Emperor of Mankind blinked before the unwinking gaze of the black sphere.

Sanguinius looked up at his father with concern. All colour had drained from his father's face and his lips pulled back in an expression of utmost pain. His breathing grew ragged and laboured when true concern and terror came upon Sanguinius. He was killing his father.

'Father!' he cried out, seeking to throw the orb away from his father. Perhaps this had been some devilry of the traitor Horus; in which case Sanguinius would never forgive himself for bringing this damned thing to the leader of humanity.

He never got the chance to, as driven by pure hind brain, the Emperor clamped his hands around his boy's neck. Without even a pause, he lunged and sunk his teeth into Sanguinius's throat.

'Fa—ther . . .' he croaked as the God Emperor began to drink his son's blood.

The Blood Angel's Primarch's eyes rolled back in his head as the life was sucked from him.

Gasping for breath, the emperor pulled back from his son's gaping neck wound. With a twist of his arms, he tore off Sanguinius's head like a doll's. His cyclopean hands cracked open his son's head and he devoured the brains hungrily. Next he opened his boy's chest and devoured his heart.

Spinning around, the Emperor faced Eldrad, blood, brains and chunks of primarch heart running down his chin; hair gone pure white from the deadly gaze of the Black Thirteen. 'They're idiots,' he rasped, more to himself than to Eldrad, 'Everything I've done was for them; every effort to create a world without free will or choice. It's all been for man.'

Body becoming thinner and weaker, the Emperor hunched over like an old man before the gloating farseer. 'Ashurnisarpal, Adolf Hitler, Osma Bin Laden, Kalagan of Ursh, Cardial Tang; I backed them all and all of them failed to unify mankind under freedom from choice and thought. Humans think and learn too much, they grow too much and I've always aimed to stop that.' He coughed up blood and turned rapidly dimming eyes towards the Farseer, 'Was it too much that I wanted to lobotomize the human race and have them be ruled over by perfect leaders and wipe out all non-human life?' Sanguinius's blood and life had bought the Emperor time, but that was running out.

'You're feeling my answer right now,' Eldrad smirked.

The emperor vomited up his intestines, literally. Buckets of blood and squirming organs spewed out of his mouth and his left eye exploded in its socket.

Black Thirteen watched the emperor with its own kind of alien, unfathomable intelligence.

The emperor's once deep voice came out as barely a squeak, 'You kill me with the very relic I used to weaken and imprison the ruinous gods; but I'm stronger than they are. The Eldar will all die or worse and I'll come back, no matter how long it takes.'

Then it was the Farseer's turn to be surprised as the Emperor let out one final scream of unbearable psychic might, stronger than the birth screams of Slaanesh. Before his astral projection vanished, a look of surprise came across Eldrad as the Emperor changed the timeline through sheer force of will.

Black thirteen exploded, its essence soon to coalesce into the warp and become the fifth chaos god, the renegade god. On the golden throne, the glass bottles containing the four gods exploded and their essence evaporated back into the warp; throwing space and time into flux. Trillions died with that one scream across the galaxy; the emperor was only sad that more did not die.

The modern age of the Imperium of Man began and ten thousand years of grim dark suffering and misery started. Again, the emperor only regretted that more suffering and death would not take place during this time. He was the leader of mankind and for daring to oppose him, humanity would suffer. When they'd paid their penance and suffered enough the Emperor would forgive them.

For now, his flunkies in the Mechanicus and other toadies among the astartes and Custodes would carry him to the golden throne and stabilize the damage caused by the black sphere of the witch baba Yaga.

Soon everything that happened on this day would be forgotten, replaced by lies and half-truths so simplistic and clear cut that a child could have invented them.

The Emperor sat on his golden throne, seemingly dead but waiting for his time.

He could wait ten thousand years, maybe more.

He'd come back.

And he'd be very angry when he did.

I'm not entirely satisfied with that story. I'm still not sure if I believabley made the Emperor into a figure of pure evil. But I guess I wrote this story because I find the Emperor a very scary and barbaric figure. Here's a guy who dazzles people Edward Cullen style with his aura and anybody who defies him is brutally murdered; somebody who preaches a totalitarian truth and murders any dissenters. And yeah I know the fluff can spin him as Space Jesus/King Arthur but to me the idea of a supreme leader of absolute rightness is wrong and sickening.

Anyways, I'm particularly keen to hear any criticism or complaints as I'm very interested in improving my writing.

Thank you so much and I'm glad you enjoyed.

Ta

Master of the Boot

'Let the galaxy burn.'

– Horus Lupercal

'Better to reign in Hell than to serve in Heaven.'

– Satan in John Milton's Paradise Lost.

See Full List On Vsbattles.fandom.com

'Angels are bright still, though the brightest fell.'

– William Shakespeare

Horus Lupercal, The Breaker of Tyrants, The Warmaster, The Arch-Traitor, or FUCKING HORUS! was the Primarch of the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus/Black Legion, and the main figure in the event known as the HorusHeresy (this is NOT a dead giveaway. Oh no), who is generally known as 'THE GUY WHO FUCK'D IT ALL UP', but not really really.

Overview[edit]

Once the most favoured son of his father the God-Emperor of Mankind, he began to resent his father's treatment of him and other Primarchs, and believing that the Emperor's secret plan was to become a god using his own Primarch sons as a tool (when in fact all this is due to the lies of a certain religious zealot), eventually turned to Chaos. If you really need to be told any of this, what in the actual fuck are you doing on /tg/ in the first place? This is such common knowledge, that the outlines of the Horus Heresy and every bad ass taking part in it, are more or less engraved in the mind of every /tg/ reader. Much like the Emperor being crippled and the Imperium devolving into a bureaucratic grimdark empire, the death of Horus and the placement of Abaddon as the most influential Chaos champion ever, turned the Traitor legions from a genocidal force bent on utter domination for the glory of Chaos into a Saturday-morning cartoon villain organization. Also his armour made him look like an egg.

It is argued that Horus was not actually evil but possessed by the Chaos Gods or that he was a victim of Lorgar, who is officially labeled as 'The First Heretic.' However, he was still a massive dick. Hence the common saying in the post-Heresy Imperium: 'Of all the mighty Primarchs, Horus sure was a dick.'

Emperor Of Mankind Vs Horus Symbol

But long story short, the Imperium got into this fucked up state because this guy had daddy issues (honestly, who didn't?), he got scammed by religious nutjobs, and because the Chaos Gods showed him horrific visions of the future, supposedly under the Emperor's rule, all while conveniently leaving out the fact that it would be his own efforts to avert said future that would cause it in the first place. Lol-irony. They did show him that the Emperor was planning to discard him and the other rest of the Space Marines when their usefulness ended, and in fairness, that was actually completely true as Master of Mankind shows and which totally contradicts previous Horus Heresy novels where the chambers the primarchs were supposed to live in once the Crusade ended were depicted. Why would you build large apartments for your 'sons' if you really did not give a rat's ass about them? Or was the EMPRA intending on luring them into their respective apartment and then strangle them to death? Why go through all the effort when his psychic might was enough to force Lorgar to kneel (causing a small brain hemorrhage as evidenced by blood tricking out of his nose. See 'The First Heretic)? He could have just BLAMMED them all Thunder Warrior style with all his psychic prowess and shit. Either way, you know what they say- the best lies contain a grain of truth. The Chaos Gods did show Horus the future he would create which seemed to prove that the EMPRA had planned his own ascension all along (so he obviously must enjoy to be chilling on the couch as a decomposing corpse these days).

It also doesn't help that there's prior precedence provided by Malcador committing damnatio memoriae on the 11th and 2nd Primarchs, a conspiracy which was first uncovered during its development by 'Alpharius' and brought to the attention of the Warmaster himself, leading to a confrontation between 'Alpharius', Horus, Jaghatai Khan & Malcador the Sigillite on Terra. After calling each other ambitious freeloaders, Horus threatened Malcador's life, to which the Sigillite said if they didn't like the erasure of the recently lost legion, they could shove that precious vainglorious memory of theirs where the sun don't shine. When Horus tried to speak his dead brother's name as an act of defiance, Malcador froze his brain & had to be talked down from sploding his grey matter all over the room by Jaghatai & 'Alpharius'. When he got back up, Horus flipped a table and gave Malcador the bird when he had his back turned, effectively planting the seed of resentment & pouring boiling piss over it.

It is during this confrontation that it's revealed that Horus had always disagreed with the idea of standard humans ruling over themselves & believed that since it was he, the other Primarchs and their Astartes who conquered the stars, that it should be themselves who rule over the compliant planets; rather than this opinion being implanted by the ruinous powers, it was merely exacerbated. His low opinion on mortals probably isn't helped by the fact that the conspiracy to condemn the memory of his lost brothers was concocted by baseline noble humans (there was even a noble present from House Carpinus by the name of Na-Baron Petronius Vivar at the confrontation with Malcador). Evidently, the other traitor Primarchs thought much the same when he revealed to them that it was the Emperor's plan to give the right to govern these planets to standard humans of noble houses, only to then discard the Primarchs and the remaining 18 legions (2nd and 11th style) once their stated purpose had been fulfilled. How this plan exactly meshes with putting Magnus on the Golden Throne to manage the Webway for Him is unknown, but we suspect it involves strapping an explosive collar around his neck that would detonate should he decide to peel his red ass off the chair. No bathroom breaks.

Either way though, the Emperor psychically nuking of Horus' body and soul means Horus is gone as fuck now, occasional Fabius Bile cloning shenanigans notwithstanding, and Horus' influence of modern 40K will remain posthumous.

Also, 40K(30K?) Horus has more of an reverse connection to his Egyptian god namesake, given the Egyptian Horus heroically took to the throne of the gods from a usurper while 40K Horus is instead the failed usurper.

New fluff[edit]

Recent fluff from the book Vengeful Spirit has Horus visiting the same gate to the Warp on Molech that the Emperor used to get some of his powers. While only seconds pass in the Materium, Horus spends what is basically implied to be an eternity inside the Warp battling rival Daemon Princes, amassing billions of warp-creature minions, and wrecking shit. In the end he somehow gains the same powers that the Emperor received to create the Primarchs, but Horus gets them in a 'legit' way (as far as the Ruinous Powers are concerned) by passing their near constant tests through sheer force of will, where the Emperor just took what he wanted. Refusing to become a slave to the Ruinous Powers (or perhaps that's what the Chaos Gods wanted him to think) he leaves his Warp-empire to return to his rebellion in the Materium. Horus' time inside the Warp was so long that he, a fully grown Primarch, had visibly aged. However with his new psychic hack abilities he disguises his over-the-hill face and still maintains his youthful appearance. Apparently the Emperor does the same trick. This was basically a big retcon by Black Library who previously explained Horus being able to fight toe-to-toe with the Big E as having all four Chaos Gods channel their powers into him at once.

It's important to explore this clusterfuck of nonsense to make sense of the lore before one comes to the rubbish conclusion that the Emperor only became god-like after Molech. This is balls-deep nonsense. This is what Horus (who is himself not in any way whatsoever a good source for reliable information regarding Chaos) thinks he knows from his own narrow/skewed/manipulated point of view. The more commonly held belief is that, as with the vision he received from the Great Fuckhead Himself, he was misled. That the Emperor, a being capable of trapping and fighting a C'Tan (that as it turned out had been tired out prior by another warp entity.. oops) during the Middle Ages, was always as powerful as He has been portrayed. It is explained that the Primarchs are more than just flesh and bone, and that each of them has a fraction of His personality in them that they themselves embody. Ferrus Manus' rather dramatic death highlights that inside Primarchs lies a great deal of energy. Now to the heart of it - Molech. Why would a being as powerful as the Emperor, who has to combat 4 monstrously powerful otherworldly entities whilst maintaining a beacon anywhere he goes, soul bound psykers and fight throughout the Great Crusade, split His formidable power 20 times into 20 beings? He wouldn't, he'd grab extra power to do so. That was Molech - a source and gateway to a wellspring of power claimed by Chaos for its use alone. A source the Emperor broke into and stole/took/tricked for His Primarch Project. Using the additional power, He crafted, with His scientific mastery, 20 genetically engineered super hosts. In the same way that god-aligned daemons are formed by splitting a portion off the God itself, He used each portion of power as a blank mould, investing them with a sliver of His personality and allowing the power to coalesce around it to form a soul/Emperor-Greater Daemon. That pseudo-daemon is then implanted in a host that can never die or degrade due to age, perfectly tailored to hold it. This explains why each Primarch radiates an aura of awe and magnificence. Horus didn't become as powerful as the Emperor, he retrieved the power that made himself and all his brothers and had it infused into himself. While it appears he has lost a significant chunk of this power (and a piece of his soul) after his duel with Leman Russ in the Battle of Trisolian, it is still likely that he is at least a match for the Emperor.

Following the duel with Russ, Horus suddenly entered a near coma, throwing the legion into disarray. Maloghurst later entered the Realm of Chaos and found that a part of Horus's soul - an uncorrupted part - was still trapped in the Warp. That part of his soul was suffering from the effects of Russ's spear, leading to the material Horus falling unconcious. The fragment expressed remorse over it's actions, as well as a morbid clarity that his rebellion was just part of the Gods plan and he had been manipulated into doing so. Left with no other option, Maloghurst destroyed the fragment at the cost of his own life, releasing Horus from his coma and giving him total control over the powers granted by the Chaos Gods, as well as leaving him utterly without doubt in his actions (however delusional they may actually have been).

In Path of Heaven he appears in all his pomp and Chaotic corruption to assign Mortarion to kill Jaghatai Khan, explain that all his other generals have gone doolally and wax lyrical about killing the Emperor, as well as make the point that being 'roided up by the raw stuff of the Empyrean doesn't get you out of having to manage the logistics of a galactic civil war. Soon after, Mortarion kills his Navigators in a fit of rage and makes the dumbass decision to go into the warp anyway. In other words, Horus was the only one of his brothers who had his shit together, which was why the Horus Heresy fell apart so quickly after his death.

Newest fluff heavily suggests that Chaos Gods' plan from the very beginning was for Horus to lose, but only barely. Apparently the Gods knew about the Cabal's plans and made sure they would get the outcome of a fucked up Imperium that lasts for millennia, feeding them with all the negative emotions they needed, rather than an Imperium of Chaos which would go to shit in a few centuries of infighting, taking humanity and gods themselves with it. It does make sense that at least Khorne and Nurgle would appreciate a bloody and decaying Imperium. One daemon even referred to Horus as 'sacrificial lamb' needed to stop the Imperium from turning into a prosperous empire of reason, and kickstart the Long War. The Emperor may have developed a counter-plan that caused the Chaos Gods to scream in frustration in The Outcast Dead but that book is fairly trippy. Later still, Lorgar hinted that the Chaos Gods were displeased with the Warmaster's unwillingness to become a slave to Chaos and that his ultimate defeat in the duel with the Emperor would be a punishment for his refusal to surrender his will to them.

Long after the Scouring, Fabius Bile succeeded in creating a stable clone of a pre-Molech Horus, who utterly wrecked a huge boarding party of traitor marines before being fucking impaled through the chest with his own talon by Abbadon. The clone was capable of speech and seemed to possess a semblance of memory from its twin brother's past (calling Abbadon its 'son', just before being turned into a kebab). It's unknown why it was so hostile to other Astartes or what degree of control Fabius had over it. Several prominent marines were adamant that such an abomination (cloned Astartes apparently being the closest thing to taboo you can get for even a traitor marine) would not be Horus in any way, because his soul was annihilated by the Emperor. It should be noted that Horus can still be found within the warp, performing his labors for the Chaos Gods to gain more power. Theoretically, since time in the Empyrean is dynamic rather than linear, this could mean he could be pulled back out of the warp from the middle of his trials to resume leadership of his legion.

Good Guy Horus[edit]

It's often forgotten by fans that before he was corrupted and decieved by Erebus and Lorgar, Horus was a genuinely nice guy, he could even be found regularly posting on the r/niceguys subreddit. Fans are quick to joke about 'that dick Horus,' but before Things Went Wrong he was one of the most personable, down to earth primarchs. Yeah, part of the reason people fell for him so easily was that he shared the Emperor's psychic magnetism, but he also went out of his way to be friendly and considerate of custom, if not necessarily polite. Granted, at times he had arrogance to match Magnus and choler to match Angron, but despite that he always made effort to honor those under his command, mortal and astartes alike. Whilemanyotherprimarchs saw their warriors as little more than tools, or werealoof and unnapproachable, Horus was a true father to his sons, guiding and shaping them personally. To most legions it would be unimaginable for the primarch to personally seek out and comfort a legionary during a time of crisis, but for the Luna Wolves, it was obvious. He was no saint or coddler, as we see him encourage rivalries within and between his legion and others, but in doing so he brought strength and glory. Even when dealing with outsiders, he always attempted diplomacy before making war, something even his gentler brothers cannot say. Horus was a cunning, brutal, supremely confident warlord with a huge cock who nonetheless took great pains to make sure his warriors and mortal retainers were treated well, and furthermore, from the very few pre-Davin POV scenes we get, we know he actually believed others deserved to be treated well, it wasn't simply feigned politeness or a calculated display of regard. Then fucking Erebus happened. Even his edgy rebellion and fall to Chaos was due to his honest love of people. He's basically 40k's version of Arthas Menethil.

On the Tabletop[edit]

Horus is everything you love about an HQ wrapped up in one man. He is a very good tactical HQ allowing reserves to outflank, giving every Son of Horus +1 to Leadership and seizing the initiative on a 4+. He and any Terminator unit he has joined may elect which turn they arrive in and they will not scatter if they choose to Deep Strike (and he bestows the rule to the entire unit). He also makes veteran-tactical squads and Justaerin Terminators troops choices (if he is the Warlord.. but then again when are you not going to make him your Warlord?).

He is good at shooting with a BS of 5, night vision, a thing that gives - if he chooses to not fire during his turn - a single unit within 6' (other than super-heavy or Independent Characters) +1 BS, a twin-linked super-bolter, and an orbital bombardment using his BS (also twin-linked). And, finally, he is a monster in close combat, being able to take down full terminator squads in 1 turn if you roll well for his 6 attacks plus +D3 attacks if he is fighting a unit or character of weapon skill 4 or lower. He can rape blobs, MEQ's, TEQ's and HQ's.

His weapons are the Warmaster's Talon (an AP2 lightning claw which saddles whoever survives it with a -1 penalty to WS and S for every wound it inflicts that in theory can stack, ensuring that even if he doesn't kill what he's fighting, his target will be completely unable to harm him or anybody else in close combat), and a S10 AP1 master-crafted thunderhammer called Worldbreaker. Combine this with an initiative of 6, and he will strike first most of the time. He's also pretty durable with a toughness and wounds of 6, 2+ armor save, 3+ invulnerable save, 5+ deny the witch, and an additional 3+ save against any psychic attack or adverse profile modifications, which comes to play more often then you may think, given most other Primarchs are bristling with Concussive, Strikedown, Blind or some weirder stat-lowering shit. As in 30k destroyer weapons don't have a 'deathblow' result, titan-killer weapons cannot one-shot him, but they still hurt a lot, and while Shadowsword cannot spam D-strength, Magnus definitely can, and the horrible abomination of cheese that is a Warlord-class battle titan could vomit out enough D to kill three Horuses in one turn, so don't get too cocky.

Horus is an absolute motherfucker, and can be thought of as everything a Chapter Master should be between his Orbital Bombardment and army buffs. Letting reserves Outflank makes crossing the board much easier. His Justaerinstar will make anything shit its pants. The Ld bonus patches his Legion's weak morale, and 4+ seize can make a huge difference. His Orbital Bombardment is also awesome. The multi-wound EWless models one finds in 30k will die, and you're likely to put vehicles out of commission. Unfortunately this comes at a really steep fucking price (500 points!) so use him wisely.

Emperor Of Mankind - Warhammer 40K Wiki - Space Marines ..

As this is said to represent him as he was during the Great Crusade and the start of the Horus Heresy, it is possible he may get an updated profile to represent him as he was when he got all Chaos'd up. When or if that'll happen is anyone's guess, however.

Horus VS other Primarchs:[edit]

Horus wins against any other Primarch except Leman Russ, super-charged Magnus, and Sanguinius if he's using the Angel's Wrath Rite of War (fitting). That's it. He beats ALMOST any other opponent he gets pitted against.

No seriously, what did you expect? With WS 8, 6 Attacks with a S7 AP2 lightning claw that cripples whoever survives his onslaught or a MC S10 Thunder Hammer and 2+/3++ he can destroy almost any other Primarch relatively safely. He's clearly built to be the hardest dude around and his gear is borderline unfair. Disabling Strike is just disgusting and it's directly intended to make sure he stays the top dog no matter how angry, pretty or wellequipped anyone else is.. so long as he doesn't piss off the Angel. Ouch, that Talon really hurts. So, yeah, almost no one can actually fight 1 on 1 with the Warmaster, barring some incredibly lucky rolls.

These are the old numbers on Leman Russ pre-FAQ:

• Horus vs. Leman Russ
  • Horus, Round 1: Hits 2 times, wounds 1.777 times with his Claw, 0.888 wounds after saves, and IWND brings it down 0.555
  • Horus Round 2 and on: Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 after saves and IWND brings it down to 0.111
  • Leman Russ, full Wounds + charge/Counter-Attack (Balenight): hits 4.667 times, wounds 3.502, 1.167 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 0.834 at the start of the next turn.
  • Leman Russ, full Wounds + charge/Counter-Attack (Helwinter): hits 4.861 times, wounds 4.051 times, 1.350 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 1.017 at the start of the next turn.
  • Leman Russ, full Wounds (Balenight): hits 4 times, wounds 3 times, 1 wound after saves and IWND brings it down to 0.667
  • Leman Russ, full Wounds (Helwinter): hits 4.190 times, wounds 3.492, 1.164 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 0.831 at the start of the next turn.
  • Sever Life: Being a pain in the ass to calculate, Sever Life will go off most of the time against Horus, but for the purposes of this mathhammer Sever Life's chance to not go off will be included in its average Wounds roll:
    • Every time Leman Russ Attacks Horus (as he'll always manage to Wound him and it doesn't say it's triggered via unsaved Wounds) Horus takes an additional 1.091 Wounds, only 0.364 of which will make it through Horus' save.
  • Keeping Sever Life in mind and the fact that Leman Russ can split his attacks, the ideal way to split them (for round one and two anyway) would be: 2 Attacks with Balenight, 4/5 Attacks with Helfrost. Here's what that looks like:
    • Leman Russ, full Wounds + charge/Counter-Attack: hits 4.851 times (1.333 times with Balenight, 3.518 times with Helwinter), wounds 5.023 times (1 time with Balenight, 2.932 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.674 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 1.341 wounds at the start of the next turn.
    • Leman Russ, full Wounds: hits 4.177 times (1.333 times with Balenight, 2.844 times with Helwinter), wounds 4.461 times (1 time with Balenight, 2.370 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.487 wounds after saves and IWND brings it down to 1.154 wounds at the start of the next turn.

Leman's negative to hit modifier is brutal, basically negating Horus' ability to do any damage, while Leman is still pounding him over the head. As stated, this includes Sever Life and Breaker of Shields, Bringer of Ruin. The theoretical breakdown of the match would be:

• Round 1:
  • Leman Russ, 6 Wounds, WS9, S6 + charge/Counter-Attack (2 attacks on Balenight, 5 attacks on Helwinter): hits 4.851 times (1.333 times with Balenight, 3.518 times with Helwinter), wounds 5.023 times (1 time with Balenight, 2.932 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.674 wounds after saves.
  • Horus, 4.326 Wounds: Hits 2 times, wounds 1.777 times with his Claw, 0.888 wounds after saves.
• Round 2:
  • Leman Russ, 5.112 Wounds, WS9, S6 (2 attacks on Balenight, 4 attacks on Helwinter): hits 4.177 times (1.333 times with Balenight, 2.844 times with Helwinter), wounds 4.461 times (1 time with Balenight, 2.370 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.487 wounds after saves.
  • Horus, 2.839 Wounds: Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 wounds after saves.
• Round 3:
  • Leman Russ, 5.001 Wounds (IWND puts him slightly above 5, but it can't regenerate his damaged characteristics), WS8, S5 (3 attacks on Balenight, 3 attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.188 times (1.5 times with Balenight, 1.688 times with Helwinter), wounds 3.498 times (1 time with Balenight, 1.407 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.166 wounds after saves.
  • Horus, 2.006 Wounds (IWND): Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 wounds after saves.
• Round 4:
  • Leman Russ, 4.557 Wounds, WS8, S5 (3 attacks on Balenight, 3 attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.188 times (1.5 times with Balenight, 1.688 times with Helwinter), wounds 3.498 times (1 time with Balenight, 1.407 times with Helwinter, 1.091 times with Sever Life), 1.166 wounds after saves.
  • Horus, 0.84 Wounds: Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 wounds after saves.
• Round 5:
  • Leman Russ, 4.446 Wounds (IWND), WS7, S4 (The Talon of Horus technically causes another unsaved wound here) (all attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.214 times, wounds 1.607 times, 0.536 wounds after saves.
  • Horus, 0.637 Wounds (IWND): Hits 2 time, wounds 1.778 times with his Claw, 0.888 wounds after saves.
• Round 6:
  • Leman Russ, 3.558 Wounds, WS6, S3 (all attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.214 times, wounds 1.071 times, 0.357 wounds after saves.
  • Horus, 0.28 Wounds: Hits 1 time, wounds 0.888 times with his Claw, 0.444 wounds after saves.
• Round 7:
  • Leman Russ, 2.67 Wounds, WS6, S3 (all attacks on Helwinter): hits 3.214 times, wounds 1.071 times, 0.357 wounds after saves.
  • Horus is dead before IWND kicks in for him and so cannot strike back.

Mathematically, if Russ takes full advantage of Breaker of Shields, Bringer of Ruin then Horus loses the fight in 7 rounds (4 game turns!) while Russ still has 2.67 Wounds left. Whoah.

• Do note that IWND messes up the math a little at face value for Talon of Horus. Since Russ does not gain characteristics back that he lost because of Severing Strike, he'll appear to have fewer unsaved Wounds than he actually does.

The above was based on Russ' armour before it got nerfed, which before would make -2 to hits against by round two. Now it is only -1 for the entire battle.

Recalculations from Reddit by u/Fromageopain, showing Horus' win:

• Round 1 (Russ's turn, 7 attacks from charge. If turns are swapped, still 7 from Counter-Attack, but Horus makes IWND first)
  • Russ [6 Wounds, WS9, S6, 2 attacks with Balenight, 5 attacks with Helwinter]
    • Hits 1.333 times with Balenight and 3.912 times with Helwinter, wounds 1 time with Balenight, 3.2601 times with Helwinter and add 1.091 for Sever Life. That leads to 1.7833 wounds after saves.
  • Horus [4.222 Wounds, 6 Talon attacks]
    • Hits 2 times, wound 1.778 times, 0.889 wounds after saves and 0.444 after IWND.
• Round 2 (Horus' turn)
  • Russ [5.444 Wounds, WS9, S6, 2 Balenight 4 Helwinter]
    • Hits 1.333 times with Balenight and 3.201 times with Helwinter, wounds 1 time with Balenight, 2.668 times with Helwinter and add 1.091 for Sever Life. That leads to 1.586 wounds after saves and 1.253 after IWND
  • Horus [2.969 Wounds, 6 Talon]
    • Hits 2 time, wounds 1.778 times, 0.889 wounds after saves.
• Round 3 (Russ' turn)
  • Russ [4.555 Wounds, WS8, S5, 4 Balenight 2 Helwinter]
    • Hits 1.5 times with Balenight and 1.375 times with Helwinter, wounds 1.111 times with Balenight and 1.407 times with Helwinter and add 1.091 for Sever Life. That leads to 1.203 wounds after saves.
  • Horus [1.766 Wounds, 6 Talon]
    • Hits 2 times, wound 1.778 times, 0.889 wounds after saves and 0.444 after IWND.
• Round 4 (Horus' Turn)
  • Russ [4.111 Wounds, WS7, S4 (he is over 4 wounds thanks to IWND, but lost his characteristics since the talon wounded 4 times), 6 Balenight]
    • Hits 3 times , wounds 0.917 times and add 1.091 for Sever Life (let's be kind), 0.669 wounds after saves and 0.335 after IWND.
  • Horus [1.430 Wounds, 5 Talon 1 Worldbreaker]
    • Hits 2.5 times with Talon and 0.75 times with Worldbreaker. wounds 2.222 and 0.625 times. That leads to 1.111 and 0.313 wounds after saves.
• Round 5: (Russ's turn)
  • Russ [2.687 Wounds, WS6, S3, 6 Balenight]
    • Hits 3 times , wounds 0.917 times, add 1.091 with Sever Life (let's be kind again), 0.669 wounds after saves.
  • Horus, [0.761 Wounds, 5 Talon 1 Worldbreaker]
    • Hits 2.5 time with Talon and 0.75 times with Worldbreaker, wounds 2.222 and 0.625 times. That leads to 1.111 and 0.313 wounds after saves. IWND brings this down to 1.09 wounds
• Round 6: (Horus' Turn)
  • Russ [1.596 Wounds (IWND), WS5, S2, 6 attacks on Helwinter (Str2 cannot hurt T6)]
    • Hits 3 times , wounds 0.582 times, 0.194 wounds after saves (not enough to actually kill Horus) and IWND will mean that Horus will actually heal more than Leman inflicts, resulting Horus gaining 0.139 wounds at the end of the turn
  • Horus [0.900 Wounds, 5 Talon 1 Worldbreaker]
    • Hits 2.5 time with Talon and 0.75 times with Worldbreaker, wounds 2.222 and 0.625 times. That leads to 1.111 and 0.313 wounds after saves.
• Round 7: (Russ's turn)
  • Russ [0.172 Wounds, WS4, S1, all attacks on Helwinter]
    • Hits 3 times , wounds 0.582 times, 0.194 wounds after saves.
  • Horus [0.761 Wounds, gain +d3 attacks] and finish Leman..

Keep in mind that these results are made considering that Sever Life will apply regardless of Horus successfully saving the wounds inflicted by Balenight which is greatly benefiting Russ and is probably not the way the rule is supposed to work. On a side note, if Sever Life only triggers when Horus suffers an unsaved wound from Balenight, then the fight is way more one sided in Horus' favor because Leman would have to make more attacks using the sword in order to trigger Sever Life, losing damage since the axe hits harder than the sword.

The Wolf-king also has a secret weapon: Wolves.. yeah. Russ can choose to have both his dogs accompany him, both of which are characters. Thanks to how wound allocation and challenges work, Russ can force Horus to engage with the dogs instead of him for 2 whole rounds, making Horus use Worldbreaker to ID the dogs, since if he uses the Talon it'll take 3 wounds total to kill the dogs and he can tank the full Worldbreaker on himself to stop the other dog from dying too fast, which prevents his stats from dropping early. By that point there is a high probability Horus will be on his last couple wounds if not already dead when the attacks from the wolves are added in to augment Leman Russ. Meaning Horus will simply die even faster. Emperor's Executioner indeed.

Thanks to HH6: Retribution, the Mechanicum has its primarch-like character. Anacharis Scoria, lord of Xana and the first of the Dark Mechanicum used to be able to easily kill Horus thanks to a 3+ Invuln, Feel No Pain, and a weapon that wounds automatically and causes D3 wounds at AP2 per hit (making Horus' talon worthless). This allowed him to kill Horus in 5 rounds, whereas Horus needed 6 to kill him in return. He also got nerfed in the same FAQ that nerfed Russ, so now Horus kills him too.

Gallery[edit]

• Ah too many wolves.

Emperor Of Mankind Vs Horus Anubis