Warhammer 40K: Solar War. When scale actually matters.

I’m a fan of Warhammer 40K; I have been for years. I started reading Warhammer 40K books after the great Disney reset of Star Wars crushed my childhood so they could tell their new half-baked stories. 40K told the stories of intergalactic war, epic space battles, and ground-pounding fights I wanted from my space operas but without all the Skywalkers.

Today, we will talk about the book “Solar War” which is the first in the Siege of Terra series and about #62 in the Horus Heresy series. Given its place as a pivotal point in the series, it’s impossible to talk about it without giving a little background. Don’t worry; this isn’t going to turn into one of those 10-hour Warhammer 40K history deep dives.

In the 31st millennium, the Emperor of Mankind (sometimes called the God-Emperor) launched a grand crusade to reunite humanity under one banner. To do this, he tasked his 18 Sons, the Primarchs, with traveling through the Universe and bringing mankind to heel wherever they are and by whatever means necessary. When the Emperor had to return to Terra, he placed his most beloved son, Horus, in charge of the crusade. After a mortal wound healed by dark magic, Horus, with the help of 8 of his brothers, betrayed their father and threw the universe into a massive civil war.

Solar War takes place after seven years of civil war, and Horus has finally brought his army to the birthplace of mankind, the throne world, Holy Terra. Horus launches a massive campaign to take the world and kill his father. Standing in his way are three of his brothers: the Angel, the Hawk, and the master of defense, the Pretorian himself. And fast on his heels is the Lord of Ultramar and the master of the largest army, Roboute Guilliman. But Horus is not alone; leading his army is the Siege Breaker, the Lord of War, and the Plague Lord. Additionally, Horus’s armies are bolstered by the armies of demons created by the dark god of the Warp; the neverborn.

Ok, I know that was a bit of a word soup, so I want to point out two things from my description. The book has the Master of Defense versus the Siege Breaker. Or more the man who has never lost a defense fight against the man who has never lost an offensive one. You’d think this book would be one giant chess game where Perturabo (the Siege Breaker) constantly has to adapt to the defenses of Rogal Dorn (the Pretorian), but it’s not. The “fight” essentially boils down to Perturabo throwing a shitload of ships against Dorn’s defenses. Dorn kills a shitload, but there’s still another shitload left, and eventually, after another shitload dies, Perturabo overruns Dorn’s defenses. While overwhelming numbers is a valid military strategy, it isn’t engaging or fun to read. And it’s made all the worse by one of Warhammer’s significant problems: scale.

40K has always had issues with scale; how does humanity have enough resources to launch a conflict this significant? How many people are in a legion? Does money matter? Etc. Warhammer will frequently have conflicts where thousands of soldiers die in every battle. How can an army sustain that many losses with every fight? The description of “The Lost and the Damned” (book 2 of the Siege of Terra) says, “Billions die for every step the enemy takes.” Think about that for a second—billion, for every step. Look down at your feet and try to imagine billions of people lying on the ground right where your foot is. Now think about how many steps it takes between your front door and your location. How does the scale of that work?

Warhammer has never really cared about scale, and the frequent answer is essentially “Who cares?” in my opinion, it never mattered. The best Warhammer stories are never about the war. They’re about individual characters trying to survive the war. They’re stories about personal relationships, not war. Wars just create a backdrop for the characters, and to the credit of this book, it also has stories about individual characters. Unlike the other books, the Siege of Terra is very much the focal point; the War is what matters. We aren’t reading this book to understand more about certain characters; we’re here to see if Horus reaches his objective or taking Terra, what obstacles he’ll have to overcome, and how he’ll manage it.

And that’s the problem. The only price we see Horus pay is some unknown number of nameless soldiers. The only challenge he must face is a constant barrage of surface guns on the planets between Uranus and Earth. And this is where scale matters, and why 40K’s typical attitude of ignoring scale hurts this book.

• How many ships did Perturabo lose taking Uranus? A lot.

• How many ships does he still have left in his fleet? More.

• What percentage of Horus’s army is Perturabo’s Navy? More than 0%.

• Will Horus have to change tactics because of how many casualties he suffered? No.

• Does anyone personal to Horus die? Nope.

Every scene is just “a lot of ships flew at the orbital defenses. The guns fired, and lots of ships died. More ships showed up, and they also died. Even more showed up, and they overwhelmed the guns. Next planet.” Additionally, the Dorn never really had a moment of victory. Obviously, Horus and Perturabo would win in the end, given there are seven more books in this series arc, but you need to have a back-and-forth. Dorn is the master of defense; he should make Horus pay in a way we care about. If there’s no scale, then losing a lot of ships doesn’t matter because we have no reference to understand what effect that has on Horus. We also don’t see any of the characters we’ve read about and come to know (if you’ve read the Horus Heresy 1-5 Arc) pay a price. None of Horus’s close allies die, and none of the leaders of his army die. Nothing matters; there’s no price.

So we have a book that tries to showcase a terrible, all-encompassing war. Except there’s nothing interesting. The battles are technically uninteresting, the scale doesn’t matter (which for Warhammer is really saying something), and the characters’ individual stories don’t matter. This book could have been a chance to really build on the characters of Dorn and Perturabo by showing their back-and-forth fight. A cat and mouse game where Perturabo must adapt to Dorn’s defenses and Dorn is dealing with Perturabo’s innovations.

Thankfully each Warhammer book is a different author and “The Lost and the Damned” by Guy Haley seems to understand what makes 40K books good a lot better than John French.

by AnApexBread