I. The Death of Hope

"Regardless of where the blame truly resided, many within the Iron Hands Legion, now fatherless, dealt with this traumatic crisis on a personal level in a simpler and more direct fashion; they went violently insane."

- Horus Heresy Book 2 : Massacre

For me, if the Horus Heresy is about one thing, then it is about the death of hope. Mankind stood on the edge of a golden age, a pax imperialis, free from fear, free from superstition; but that fragile dream has come crashing down, and in the best traditions of tragedy, the Imperium contained within itself the seed of its own destruction.

It is a setting that I find perhaps far more compelling than the 41st millennium. Its characters seem more recognisably human and that makes the darkness all the darker, the tragedy all the more tragic.

For a while I had been in a hobby slump that I couldn't shake, this is until I realised that it was indecision which had made me grind to a creative halt. On the one hand, what had enticed me back to this hobby after a gap of over 20 years was the amazing miniatures I had seen coming out of the Inq28 community. So, my first tentative steps to rediscover the joys of painting and modelling revolved around acolytes and death cult assassins and their ilk. On the other hand, I had begun reading the Horus Heresy novels and had fallen in love with the stories and setting.

Yet the Horus Heresy hobby seemed the complete antithesis of Inq28. One was about creating small bands of lovingly crafted conversions, the other about 20 man tactical squads and giant tanks.

The solution was so obvious that I could not at first see it. The novels I loved to read were not just about huge battles; they were also about individuals. They were as much about small bands of Astartes, as much about the ships' crews, the astropaths, the remembrancers as they were about Drop Pod Massacres and Titan Legions.

An idea began to germinate and it has taken a long time to take shape.

The Doomed Ship

"... in the aftermath some Iron Hands units and, in some cases, entire Clans shunned the Medusan Council's assumed authority and went their own way, consumed by their own hatred and need for revenge."

- Horus Heresy Book 2: Massacre

Ferrus Manus was dead. This terrible news filtered through the galaxy, astropath to astropath, until it reached the escort ship Euripides. Now, lost and leaderless, the Iron Hands astartes will have their revenge ...

One ship, its crew; the space marines and mortal men who call it home.