Chaeron Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 He'll be back.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warsmith Aznable Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 OK, just listened to it myself. The biggest problem with the story wasn't that Doomrider was defeated, but how boring the majority of it was. It's an hour long, and Doomrider doesn't even show up for the first forty minutes. It's another ten minutes before his bike shows up, but at least it gets better from that point on. Doomrider should have shown up on his bike, bursting from the Warp in fire and awesomeness. Instead he's summoned like any other daemon, which should be insulting to the Doomrider. I never really got a feel for the setting. A giant highway in the sky sounds cool, but I was never sure how big it was or where anything was. The "haulers" weren't clearly defined for me, either. When that dude does the super cliche "lay my bike down to slide under" thing I pictured them as large trucks, but then that other dude rides his bike up the back of one and ends up in a chamber inside of it big enough to have gantries and Doomrider dramatically riding his bike up an interior wall. Which was stupid. I didn't get the idea that it was completely over for our friend Doomrider. He was still alive in that head, even though he had been ignominiously captured. Maybe he'll escape in a later story? And despite having listened to this audiobook, I will still hear Dr. Rockso's voice in my head when I think about Doomrider. So there is that. I didn't really like it, but at least Doomrider is still part of the current lore, and so maybe could get a dataslate at some point. Why knows? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hellios Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Damn this... I was working on a rap, for Doomrider... and I was trying to have a go at all of the loyalist primarchs.... This new story means I can't really have a go at Ferrus Mannus for losing his head. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebris Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Doomrider will ride no more! I hate Black Library when they do that. Is that wrong to make someday, sometime the Chaos forces win, and a cool character like Doomrider to have a proper scene and feel, or is Chaos simply there for the loyalists to play heroes? How disappointing. When I have heard that there was a novel with Doomrider I found it asap, only to find my every single shred of hope for a proper Chaos representation shattered beneath the ceramite ubermanliness of the loyalist space marines... I hate Black Library when they do that. I really do... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Iron Skull Mask Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Ok, Doomrider was just a Ghost Rider rip-off to begin with, but he still was kind of cool and deserved better than this. Even if a char goes down to make others look better, he can do so in a dramatic and (anti-)heroic fashon. This was lame. Anyhow, I will still smile with joy every time I see a cool conversion of him. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forté Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 Can't blame writers who may be 'in the office'. They are rarely at the office so to speak ;) A lot of special characters have been killed at some point anyway. Doesn't mean you can't use them though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rune Priest Ridcully Posted January 7, 2014 Share Posted January 7, 2014 I think everyone is more pissed off that A) A chaos charecter get curbstomped by a loyalist yet again. and B) The ease the imperium seems to be finding permanent ways of dealing with daemons kind of destroys the whole "you just banished them, lets hope it was for a long time" vibe of chaos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daboarder Posted January 8, 2014 Author Share Posted January 8, 2014 Can't blame writers who may be 'in the office'. They are rarely at the office so to speak A lot of special characters have been killed at some point anyway. Doesn't mean you can't use them though. Not really, A lot of them have been dead when their entries were written, and a lot of them have been brought back to life. But only eldrad and tycho have ever actually been killed off, and one of those was retconed, the other is so awesome it has to stand, but this.....this is bad fan drivel Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KingDeath Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 BL writing mindnumbingly bad fiction? Colour me suprised... Seriously, Doomrider was/is in all of his crazyness one of the few, still entertaining parts of Warhammer, appart from ever dumber Horus Heresy novels, space marine drivel turned to almost unbearable levels and pathetic attempts of, for lack of a better word, grimdarkification which strangely enough only turn the setting more juvenile instead of creating atmosphere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A D-B Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Can't blame writers who may be 'in the office'. They are rarely at the office so to speak Yeah. I've not been in "the office" for about two years (Heresy meetings take place in meeting rooms and Bugman's Bar, etc.), and I've spoken to Josh Reynolds (who seemed lovely, by the way) for about four minutes in my entire life, also about two years ago. Besides, randomly telling other authors what to write is pretty rude. "Hey, Aaron, don't write about the Black Legion." "After careful consideration of your opinion, I invite you to eat my balls." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Nephilim Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 "After careful consideration of your opinion, I invite you to eat my balls." I'm so using this in my next argument. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebris Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Bar accusations and other things that ruin the overall purpose of this topic, I have a simple question, why Chaos and its iconic characters are always the losers, not once be it Pandorax, Master of the Hunt... and other recent novels, not once Chaos wins. It is some kind of taboo, a forbidden topic, is there a death sentence decreed if one writes Chaos as victorious? I enjoyed the novel up to the moment when Doomrider appears. I know that the aimed public is the one which is supposed to buy shiny new toys but are not Chaos Space Marines toys too? Or are a lesser product, a side range that require no support from Black Library. I do not ask about HH, splendid works of fiction all, but the M41 books... all are mere executions of chaos space marines like they are simply shooting dummies for the loyalists. Last time I heard about chaos victorious was Perfection, and even that ended badly for team Chaos... really will we ever see once a massive battlefield where the Imperium is soundly beaten, an important and playable loyalist character killed and Chaos the sole and indisputed victor? Hell even xenos novels allow them to win and appear as frightening opponents... while Chaos... those are mere targets at the shooting range. I salute the attempt to present a fantastic character such as Doomrider in a novel, even an audionovel at that, but really, did BL really had to kill of such an iconic character, and even a chaotic one on top, could it not have been the Khan, is really such an affront to humiliate a loyalist chapter in a novel? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disciple of Fulgrim Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 @ Tenebris: Have you read "Storm of Iron" by Graham McNeil? If not you might want to consider it (for reasons I'll leave you to discover on your own, if you wish.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darrell Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 I'm not an author, for Black Library or otherwise, so I'll have to offer some guess work. Authors write what they are inspired to write, I think, would be the easiest explanation for it. I doubt Black Library higher-ups are standing over a room full of authors, chained to their computers, cracking whips and saying things like "Kill another Chaos character! That Chaos Lord better be as two-dimensional as this sheet of paper! Double the number of times you write 'wolf' in that Space Wolves novel, then TRIPLE it! How many Imperial Fists did you kill off so far? 100? ADD A ZERO!" I imagine the scenario is more likely to be a writer approaching and saying, "Hey, I have an idea for a story. This is what I want to do" and then BL says yes or no. There will be editing, of course, and some suggestions if the story is written. But, I'd say a good idea is largely left alone. When BL does make requests, it's probably along general guidelines. "Hey, we want to do some short stories themed around X", "We want to explore some lesser-known Chapters", "Who's up for a Space Marine battle?" In the end, I'm wagering the most important thing BL asks is: does the story entertain? The question then becomes, why aren't authors inspired to write more Chaos victories? (This is a hypothetical, because I don't read/listen to every story released so I don't know how often Chaos is winning or losing.) It's the same reason some authors are inspired to write science fiction instead of fantasy, or horror instead of romance. Some stories, characters and concepts resonate more with authors. They are inclined to tell those stories over those which do not. It's not a deliberate thing, it's human nature to have preferences. Chaos is probably an extremely difficult thing to write well, especially Chaos Space Marines. You're trying to convey a transhuman mind that's been swimming in hellish madness for a while. It probably hard to pull off in a way that gives justice to the material. It has been done well, though. Storm of Iron saw the Iron Warriors hand out a good beating. Dark Apostle showed the Word Bearers having their way with a planetary populace and an Imperial war-machine. Those are the only two Chaos-centric novels I have, but they're both good. One of my philosophies is to never attribute to malice what can equally be attributed to something else. In this case, I don't believe BL or GW is maliciously picking on Chaos. I'm inclined to believe there aren't a lot of authors who have been inspired to write a great Chaos victory story, or that not many writers have been able to really pull it off well. As for the audio in question, my bet is it started off as "I wonder what would happen if two dudes on bikes had a crazy bike fight?" and evolved from there. I read about Doomrider the first time like two weeks ago, and my first thought was "I bet this guy and the White Scars would have some crazy bike races". Maybe they flipped a coin to see who would win, maybe the author thought Doomrider losing would be a better story for whatever reason, I don't know. But, I doubt it was because the guy just had a thing for killing Chaos characters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sception Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 I believe somebody wanted to have a cool bike off to showcase the white scars, doomrider was a bike based guy in the lore that they could kill to be awesome, and nobody at the black library, forgeworld, or GW proper had any intention of doing anything with him now or in the future, so he was deemed expendible. That's all there is to it. GW prefers lucius to doomrider, the doomrider mold is likely broken or unusable at this point (else the black library probably would have given us a data sheet for him last month), and would have been an awkward plastic/finecast hybrid mess anyway, etc. He got popular on the internet lately, but I'm not sure anybody involved with this knew or cared about that. And it's not like it couldn't be retconned later. Or even used. Imagine the Khan mounting the skull, still with the essence of the daemon, on his bike as a trophy, and then slowly being corrupted by it, becoming more erratic and prideful, getting many of his men killed in overly risky stunts and attacks, and generally acting like Dr. McNinja under the influence of Sparklelord. And then one day he accidentally gets some cocaine in his mouth when riding down some filthy degenerate cultists, and bam! Doomrider rides again. There's precedent for that sort of thing among the servants of Slaanesh. Heck, it's kind of Lucius's entire deal - a deal I hope we one day see better reflected in his rules (something like "if lucius is slain in a challenge, the model that killed him must pass a morale test at the start of each of their remaining turns if the model is on the table and not embarked in a transport. If they fail, remove them as a casualty w/ no saves of any kind and replace them with Lucius. If they were part of a unit, lucius is placed in close combat with that unit). But now I'm getting off topic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warsmith Aznable Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Victories should come at great cost in the 40k universe. It should be pointless, pyrrhic, or a giant mistake for the battle to have been fought in the first place. That's what I came to expect when I first got into 40k background, anyway. It's disappointing in 40k when something seems too easy or too good. That whole "grimdark" thing we joke about. The White Scars are letting the IG lose to a Slaaneshi cult in order to get to Doomrider. That's pretty grim, but as it occurs it's just faceless mooks killing faceless victims, and there's nothing to really care about. Doomrider kills several of the WS, but nobody with a name or personality, or even that was doing anything noteworthy. The closest it came to that was Doomrider jumping his motorcycle into the sky to stab the Stormtalon pilot who was smart enough to cut him off during the chase. Sure, the Khan came close to losing, but at the end he's just as OK as he was when started. At the end, we could have seen some consequences of the WS single-minded pursuit of glory and hubris through the mayhem that the Slaaneshi army was certainly perpetrating against the hive that the WS had not defended just so they could focus on a trophy kill. That would have been pretty grim. Instead, Khan hefts his prize and the story is abruptly over. And it could have been said, or more strongly hinted at, that his prize wasn't just not worth it, but not the prize he thought it was. That would have been pretty grim. It could have been shown that the Khan's single-minded pursuit of a trophy, ignoring the cost of human lives around him in search of a token of pride, was exactly what Slaanesh wanted in the first place, just part of the path to damnation. Any of those things could have preserved the feel of 40k's "grim darkness of the far future" schtick. I feel like they were wasted opportunities that would have made the story quite good, instead of being bolter porn where a popular character gets jobbed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sception Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Agreed on the grimdark fail. Too much 40k fluff of late is unambiguous goodguys winning clear and easy victories over unambiguous bad guys. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caboosebe Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 I think the loss of the Grimdark is because they wish to speak to a younger audience. For many the concept of evil winning over good is just impossible to comprehend because of all the other non-warhammer media. Good always wins against evil. (Mostly to inspire people to do good) As for Chaos fans, we are mostly an 'older' generation. Even though there a few books that centralize on Chaos, most of them have a far richer storytelling than those of our loyalist brothers. I will not say there are no great Loyalist books, because there are, but mostly it will come down to: " I'm good, you're evil, I auto-win. " It is thus harder to write a book that creates an evil character, one that isn't the 'I Evil, I Smash' kind of character. I do believe that people like ADB have to put more time into character development for a Chaos main character than a loyalist one. (Please still sell me your books if I'm wrong, I need my fix). See it like this: loyalists hide things from the Imperium to make them think they are the good guys, always winning, never losing. And this reflects on writing the books too. 'I have carved into the heart of Mortarion, and I am the only survivor, so nobody can denay it ... or prove it.' And the Warhammer universe is so open that anything could happen. There are no fixed rules. Abaddon could very well assualt the Khans fortress just to get Doomrider back because he needs a pact with Slaanesh (or Khorne) to destroy a planet that would build a ship in 10 years, just because his sorcerers said so ... and get away with it fluff-wise. I understand the rage, but the only thing that's really, really dead are squats. And if you denay that, then I have proven my point. edit: excuse my french, for I am dutch and thus make japanese mistakes in my english Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Ambroz Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Definitely agree on the notion that books from a chaos perspective usually (but not always) turn out to be better written than loyalist books. I can't remember the last book I read (besides The Emperor's Gift, but that doesn't really count). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helterskelter Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Yipee aye ohhhh yipee aye aaaaaayyyy ghostly doom riderrrrrrs in the skyyyyy yeah. Its ok ive got an anthame, 666 sacrifices, and pinky purple armour in the cupboard. He shall be reborn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenebris Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Point is that it is always Chaos to do the dying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
helterskelter Posted January 8, 2014 Share Posted January 8, 2014 Not so, xavier of the sallies and tycho of the angels have been bumped off, v. Sergeant naaman, isnt grimaldus also deceased? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uprising Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 Not so, xavier of the sallies and tycho of the angels have been bumped off, v. Sergeant naaman, isnt grimaldus also deceased? Grimaldus still lives and breathes. I dislike the fate of doomrider but, I would say he will escape somehow, simply because he is DOOOOOOOOOMMMMRRRIDDDEEERRR. I quite like this character and fluff, I may have found a use for my csm bikers, and Dark vengeance bikers. Time to summon the rider of doom. Yes i am a ghost rider fan by the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the jeske Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 For many the concept of evil winning over good is just impossible to comprehend because of all the other non-warhammer media. Not an awesome story for someone who likes chaos , but at least it fits the character and one of the important things it doesn't bring the happy chaos family with it . good guys win , stuff happens . A demonic csm is a demonic csm , and that is sometimes better then reading about child soldiers captured in superhuman bodies. not that the second one is always bad , but sometimes a simple thing is good too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hellios Posted January 9, 2014 Share Posted January 9, 2014 They should have killed Lucius... 1) No one cares. 2) He will be back. 3) His head is totally not worth it as a trophy... and we all know what would happen to the Khan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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