Lord Nord in Gravis Armour

Hopefully the upcoming Space Wolves codex will finally acknowledge those events - that was one of the factors driving the indecision about the book's validity, being left unacknowledged in the last few codex releases. But at least as of the writing of The Wolftime, which was a few years later, it still seemed to be canon as Thorpe showed the same Ultramarines lieutenant forging his association with the Wolves (I believe those are still his only two appearances to date). And The Wolftime ended with Njal setting off on his mini-quest that he was returning from in the opening of Ashes. Granted, none of that means anything given that no one seems to be steering the ship over at Black Library... and certainly not doing anything as esoteric as actually plotting a course.

Aggressors weren't in the Dark Imperium box, though. That slot was filled by the Hellblasters.

The Cypher novel Lord of the Fallen should be added quite early to that reading order. It explains what happened to Cypher after his imprisonment upon Guilliman's arrival on Terra. The ending is a bit cryptic, but offers a springboard for speculation about the actions and motives of certain parties, not all of whom are named Cypher. I'd put the Helbrecht novel Knight of the Throne in there as well since he was on Team Rubicon by that point. You should definitely read Void King before The Martyr's Tomb. You have Indomitus listed, but that book is a mess from a current canon standpoint. Not really Thorpe's fault. The plans for how and when the Imperium learned of the events in the Pariah Nexus changed several times and pretty much made that story impossible as things currently sit. Though I fully expect that The Silent King will re-re-retcon the Nexus storyline and possibly make Indomitus canon again in the process, even if that means invalidating events from other stories, including earlier books in the Dawn of Fire series. Other potential additions would be the Mephiston trilogy, which alternates with the Dante books chronologically, but isn't essential. Likewise, the Lazarus short story and novel are an optional side-path.

I will accept that the original translation was right, then. It just seemed weird to me that a fleet would be described as fighting to protect the humanity of a single individual, Space Marine Captain or not. But I guess hyperbole is still a thing. As for Epathus, he died during Hand of Abaddon in what I complained about at the time as a very poor hamfisted way of elevating Ferren to Captain status within the posterboy faction. It was particularly poorly handled given that Ferren had already been promoted to Captain in his previous appearance but he needed to be a Lieutenant here in order to be able to be appointed to the Ultramarines chapter and thus be in the line of succession within the company to replace Epathus in a time of crisis. This would allow him to eventually have his status be made permanent when the crisis subsided rather than have one of the Smurfs' more senior Lieutenants or Captains-at-large put there instead. So they just downgraded him back to Lieutenant between books without acknowledging it. And then they included an ironic testimonial about what an amazing officer he was. (Yes, so amazing that according to the needs of the same story, he now hadn't seen an advancement in rank in the decade since he'd thawed out, even in the fertile ground of the Unnumbered Sons).

Google Translate's summary for Ferren Areios: Master of Rites: Over a decade ago, the Imperium lost control of the Khorsari Expanse. Hidden behind warp storms on the edge of the Great Rift, their worlds were invaded by the Death Guard, their inhabitants slaughtered by the servants of the Plague God. But these are the worlds of Ultramar, and their protectors are not far behind. Ferren Areios, Captain of the Sixth Company of the Ultramarines, has been dispatched to reclaim the worlds of the Khorsari Expanse and free them from the corruption of the Death Guard. But as the Plague Marines entrench themselves and the body count grows, Ferren realizes the limits of his Chapter. Trapped in the realm of the Plague God, the fleet fights not only to reclaim the worlds, but also to protect Ferren's humanity. I suspect at least that last line is poorly translated (I doubt it's "Ferren's humanity" but instead "the humans Ferren has sworn to protect"), but my Deutsch is nicht gut so who knows...

This one does, definitely. The original from Tooth and Claw looked like the barely-Wolfy Lieutenant equivalent he was meant to be. No cloak, no iron halo, and much less surface area covered by the wolf pelt. It does make me wonder what they think they're going to do if they ever release an actual Primaris-scale Wolf Lord model. This guy pretty much stole all the expected bling.

It isn't, though: "Wolf Guard Battle Leaders are field commanders who hold roughly the same rank and duties as the Lieutenants of the more Codex-compliant Chapters." Woof Historical context aside, GW has clearly and explicitly been positioning the Battle Leader as the LT equivalent since the Primaris line launched. Thus the "Haldor Icepelt" model showing up alongside the 8th Ed codex just as the Blood Angels and Dark Angels each got a special Lieutenant model with their books.

Calling it now: The reason they're promoting different upcoming releases as separate things (Salamanders, Imperial Fists, Raven Guard, etc.) is because Marine players will be fleeced granted the amazing opportunity of buying one of SIX special editions of the SM Codex 2.0 with their chapter's artwork on the cover as well as an only-insultingly overpriced set of datacards specific to that chapter. The actual contents of the book will be the same. What, you expected bespoke rules? Sorry, the current "Tic Tac Toe is Too Complicated" rules committee won't be having any part of that.

March 27th, 2025. They said it would never happen. But someone FINALLY managed to forget that Ultramarines exist.

Well, Blood Claws SHOULD have 15, but they probably won't. (Hey, I found something for Wolves players to actually complain about).

That is NOT terrain. It is "Tyrrain."

Oaths of Damnation (Robbie MacNiven) - Rating: PASS Enjoyed this one, although it took a while for me to get through due to outside factors. The novel-length format doesn't always work for BL - some stories would have made good novellas but get stretched into dull novels. Others wind up feeling rushed at the end to the point that you feel an editorial edict was made late in the game to compress a two- or three-book series into a single novel. Not the case here. We didn't really have any false starts or false finishes. At its core, you could certainly summarize this story into a sentence or two, but the journey from setup to resolution was still worthwhile simply for the very different nature of the Exorcists compared to other chapters and MacNiven's characterization of the cast. The impact of the Orison sub-cults on what is already a very unique chapter was a mechanic I found interesting and potentially something that MacNiven could do a further story based on. Because otherwise, there's not much call for a sequel to this particular story. Again, not that the characters or events weren't compelling, but simply that things were wrapped up effectively enough that the next story would best be a journey down another path. Early candidate for "Bolter Corn of the Year."

The comparatively lackluster presentation of Shrike's Primaris model actually bolsters the speculation about Sharrowkyn potentially returning and taking over the chapter master role. Aside from the issue you mentioned, there's also the fact that unlike every other Primaris chapter master model we've seen, he was designed with a 40mm base and even painted to still have his 3rd Company pauldron trim. The latter would have been easy enough to change and even with a longer lead time than most people realize the 'eavy Metal team has (a year and a half in the case of the Bladeguard), Shrike still would have been known to be chapter master when that paint was applied. BUT... maybe Sharrowkyn was expected to show up earlier in the lore. That being the case, painting up Shrike as still being 3rd Company Captain - and more notably, putting him on a 40mm base - would make sense if they only planned for him to be in the Chapter Master role for a short time before stepping aside. A classic case of future-proofing a product. (Then again, if Sharrowkyn debuts in 2025, that will mean that Shrike model would "only" be pretending to be a chapter master model for six years, which is a rounding error for GW's release schedule). I'm tempted to speculate that this could even explain the pauldron issue. But then Dante and Azrael both have lackluster right pauldrons as well, even if they at least get a raised scroll. Instead, I'll just note that out of that entire post-Calgar line of models released for the First Founding chapters in 2019 and early 2020, Shrike was the only supposed Chapter Master. It was otherwise a collection of company heroes, in which context the Shrike model looks right at home. But place him next to every Primaris chapter master model we've seen and he looks out of place.

Is the Voice of Mars still a thing in M42? I figured that was being set up to be done away with in the concluding Guymer novel that was never published (and which was set a few hundred years earlier). But I'm by no means an expert on "present day" Iron Council politics... aside from the fact that Kardan Stronos apparently has compromising information on everyone else involved. Otherwise, I'm in complete agreement with your sentiments - pure laziness/apathy on GW's part to toss the Iron Hands into the "codex compliant" stew.