The Beast Arises

[Xisor]

 

Some people might say that the journey is more important than the destination.

 

Destination is the main result and expected result of every journey ;)

What is the destination of a wander?

[Forward Assist]

Just finished Watchers in Death and, for my money, it was a disappointment.

 

 

It's all getting a bit repetitive and it wasn't really helped by Annadale's writing style. Again we had:

 

- Ork moon destroying another fleet.

- High Lords bickering.

- Another rushed hunt for a legend from the Imperium's past.

 

Just felt boring.

 

Other points:

 

- Vulkan's death was massively brushed over and felt inconsequential.

- The Deathwatch's formation was massively shoehorned in.

- The Deathwatch's strength isn't versatility or experience; it's plot armour.

 

Only cool bit was the line 'why are those rhinos flying?'. Otherwise, not worth the price of admission.

 

 

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

 

Another legend from the past???

Flying Rhinos?

 

[BNG1991]

Just finished Watchers in Death and, for my money, it was a disappointment.

 

 

It's all getting a bit repetitive and it wasn't really helped by Annadale's writing style. Again we had:

 

- Ork moon destroying another fleet.

- High Lords bickering.

- Another rushed hunt for a legend from the Imperium's past.

 

Just felt boring.

 

Other points:

 

- Vulkan's death was massively brushed over and felt inconsequential.

- The Deathwatch's formation was massively shoehorned in.

- The Deathwatch's strength isn't versatility or experience; it's plot armour.

 

Only cool bit was the line 'why are those rhinos flying?'. Otherwise, not worth the price of admission.

 

 

You have got to be kidding me... I am start thinking whether I should collect the whole series or not...

[Forward Assist]

 

Another legend from the past???

Flying Rhinos?

 

 

Sisters of Silence aren't all dead. The Inquisition chooses to reveal this fact only now...

 

[Vesper]

- Vulkan's death was massively brushed over and felt inconsequential.

 

 

Is he still a perpetual ? And if he is, doesn't it make sense that it's a boring thing to see him die ?

 

[DarkChaplain]

 

- Vulkan's death was massively brushed over and felt inconsequential.

 

 

Is he still a perpetual ? And if he is, doesn't it make sense that it's a boring thing to see him die ?

 

 

 

 

It looks like he is dead for good now. He embraced oblivion at the psychic tentacles of the great green

 

[caladancid]

Really? I did not get that it was permanent from the last book at all.

 

Also, the series is definitely dragging now. I feel like I could have skipped the last three and read a one paragraph summary and been fine.

[Jarl Kjaran Coldheart]

 

 

Another legend from the past???

Flying Rhinos?

 

 

Sisters of Silence aren't all dead. The Inquisition chooses to reveal this fact only now...

 

 

that makes zero sense.

 

on par with the majority of this series.

[DarkChaplain]

 

Without having read the book yet, I think it actually does make a certain amount of sense that the Sisters of Silence, or what remains of them, are only now appearing.
 
For one, nobody expected the orks to be psychic. If anything, previous Mechanicus experiments showed that as a more recent development, or at least that their psychic potential has grown significantly. Then, we got the hint of wyrdboys being one of their big strengths and weak points via the Kalkator/Magneric plotline - but the latter blew up with his ship iirc, and never got to tell the rest of his findings properly.
 
Up until actually encountering the Beast themselves and experiencing its power, both via Librarians in communion above Ullanor and when seeing it for the first time, and arguably Vulkan's duel with it, nobody knew or expected their big foe to be a psychic messiah not unlike the Emperor himself (throne included).
 
What point was there to involve the null-maidens when the threat appeared to be brutal, blunt but overwhelming in numbers and unpredictability, rather than of the psyker-type? We all know the Inquisition guards its secrets jealously, even within itself. I'd also be surprised if these are original SoS, rather than a pet-project by the Inquisition.
 
I will agree that the story seems to drag now, if the spoilers up above are all there is to this one. With a bit of condensing of plotlines, and without making these half-length novels in the first place, 6 novels would have been more than sufficient. For 12 books where each has to have a big bang towards the end AND can't actually kill the Beast or make good progress in eliminating the ork threat until the last few installments, I'll argue there was no way for it not to drag and start to feel repetitive.
I definitely like the idea of having a monthly novel series like this, but the story suffers from requiring the Imperium to be disorganized and stupid for too long, while taking the spotlight away from the politics too often.

 

[Vesper]

 

 

- Vulkan's death was massively brushed over and felt inconsequential.

 

 

Is he still a perpetual ? And if he is, doesn't it make sense that it's a boring thing to see him die ?

 

 

 

 

It looks like he is dead for good now. He embraced oblivion at the psychic tentacles of the great green

 

 

Oh. Well that's something.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

 

 

- Vulkan's death was massively brushed over and felt inconsequential.

 

 

Is he still a perpetual ? And if he is, doesn't it make sense that it's a boring thing to see him die ?

 

 

 

 

It looks like he is dead for good now. He embraced oblivion at the psychic tentacles of the great green

 

 

 

haven't finished TBA9 yet but where's everyone getting Vulkan's permadeath from? I saw nothing at all to indicate as such, given that practically every single character that knew about him almost assuredly didn't know that he was a Perpetual.

 

[DarkChaplain]

 

Vulkan went to Ullanor expecting it to be his final battle. He made sure to hand the torch over to Koorland. He did not expect to leave the place, and the whole book went on and on about "legends needing to stay dead". And then this:

 

 

He reached out into the undulating waaagh, tapping into that warp-born part of himself that had been for every primarch a blessing and a curse. He allowed his primal essence to mix with that of the orks, his Emperor-created body absorbing the surge of energy like a sponge.

He allowed the pure orkishness that had killed so many Librarians to infuse his body. Vulkan felt the Great Beast tense, its thoughts moving to him with tectonic slowness as it realised something was amiss. It tried to pull back the waaagh, to wrest the raw orkish power from the mind of the primarch.

Vulkan only had a moment before he lost the battle, before the power of the orks and the last dregs of his life were both spent.

 

If anything, it looks like he is messing with his very core of existence, using his soul-stuff to absorb and dissipate the waaagh energy. He is spending the same essence of himself that is what roots a perpetual to life. He compromises his eternal being to keep the waaagh at bay just long enough to do what he has to. And even for that he had to unravel part of himself, psychically, or be completely drowned by the green.

 

I honestly can't see him coming back from that without making the entire arc of his sacrifice and weariness of the Imperium and being perpetual lose all its meaning.

 

And then we have his musings from chapter nineteen:

 

 

And at the end I become what I must. A beast to face a beast.

 

Did anybody else think that this makes the book's title relate to Vulkan himself rather than the Beast? The Beast Must Die would thus refer to both the Imperium's need to slay the Great Beast to survive, a desperate necessity for survival, but also Vulkan's need to pass into legend at last and leave everything behind.

 

 

And now I am the one that stands alone and I can take no more of it. There is no healing the wounds of the soul.

 

Can a legend not just stay dead?

 

Once more, dear friend, once more. Now is the moment.

Let them find their own path, wayward and wandering. They do not need my dreams to guide them astray.

 

All of these musings indicate that Vulkan is ready and desperate to depart. He must die.

 

 

 

[Apothecary Vaddon]

 

And yet, when they first met him..

 

 

‘Does it.’ The primarch grunted. ‘I’m sure that is the belief.’ He raised his head, looking skywards as if he could see the stars. ‘I am doubtful. There will come a time when I must return.’ His voice was hollow. ‘There will come a war. This is not that time, or that war.’

I think specifically referencing the inborn 'Warp born' part of himself in the quotes you posted, seems to indicate that Vulkan gained some measures or abilities when he was presumably spending the years/millennia at the Eternity Gate. I don't think that refers to being a Perpetual, however, as it's framed within the specific context of "every primarch" - this much we know from past lore: the Emperor used various technologies including Warp-based ones to create them. And we know that not every Primarch was a Perpetual, therefore to narrow it down to that specifically doesn't make any sense at all to me.

His musings are much in the same boat - he is weary, as anyone who has fought the wars he has fought would be, and perhaps he will simply fade into the periphery until he is needed again; namely, the Time of Ending. Of the musings, only the first you posted could be construed to mean that he's truly dead, the others almost indicate the polar opposite.

Personally? I think he'll be back. His apparent ability to see the distant future and prophesize as such seems to indicate as much. It'd be the ultimate statement of being a Perpetual and an echo of his Father; to be cursed to eternal life, to see that which you fought and bled for torn down by the very race you fought to protect. That's pretty heavy stuff.

 

 

[Arkangilos]

Please tell me before he died he told his guys to find his relics and that that would return him...

[Tiger9gamer]

Please tell me before he died he told his guys to find his relics and that that would return him...

He didn't, but that doesn't mean he didn't do it before. He avoided the salamanders a little bit and didn't give them 'special privileges' during the war.

 

Well, I read the watchers of death and David Annandale did it again. He made something so cool and interesting annnnnnnnnd he made it seem boring and glossed over. I'll get to it tomorrow, but I feel pretty disappointed after the last book.

[drooling blood]

Whats with all the spoilers all of a sudden?

But flying fething rhinos, I loled, shook my head, and pictured that death watch flyer theyre selling. Not sure how the SOS have managed to reproduce, If everyone feels wonky around them.

As usual GW fell into the Heresy trap. Stretching it out to far, in all the wrong places. Cant have Wiesland talk to the sisters much, we have to write a action scene about taking over a Gork/Morkatitan.

Annandales stealthy Death Watch storming a Morkatitan was exactly like I expected regular, not painted black marines to do it. Apart from special weapons.

Watsons, brain gobbling scouts infiltrating a Titan was much more death watch like.

[Tiger9gamer]

Soo, yea, Watchers in death kinda sucked. while I normally would suggest reading it just to know what happened after, just get the cliff notes here just to save you the money because honestly, This book sucked.

so the deathwatch idea came from koorland and Vangorich, deciding to use more stealth and infiltration than regular assaults or warfare, right? slit up into small groups and ambush the enemy/infiltrate them and complete missions behind enemy lines. It's a cool idea, to be sure, and makes sense... Hey, isn't there a chapter that already does this and bases their entire tactica on this? Not to this book their isn't! no mention of the Raven Guard or the sons of Corax doing the same sort of anywhere in this book at all. You would think they would at least mention the best stealth fighters (not the alpha legion ) in the entire imperium at least somewhere when trying to come up with an army based around stealth and infiltrations.

speaking of unmentioned chapters, where the heck are the iron hands, white scars, salamanders and raven guard? All the other first founding chapters are on terra but these guys are strangely absent. I'm not asking for a lot, maybe a small mention that the salamanders went home after ullanor to morn the loss of their primarch. Maybe the White scars and Raven guard sent some of their best stealth and hunting teams to assist with the battle, but due to warp disturbances arrived afterwards and seek to make up for lost time by assisting in the death watch. maybe make a mention of the iron hands stopping to help out forge worlds along the way to terra, Anything.

So the black armor of the deathwatch was to morn the losses after ullanor, and I cannot tell if that's a good or awful explanation for the reason why their armor is black. The kill teams all decided to meet up before deployment for a pint or something, and a few marines were already painted all black with only the livery showing. They decide it was fitting, and all start pshyching themselves up, chanting and shouting stuff like "We are the watchers of death" until a dark angel bloke yelled out "We are the Deathwatch!" and they decide to go with it.

I expected something... different for the color choices. Maybe vangorich or Koorland realize how stupid it would be to have a stealth team in bright red and blue armor instead of something less eye-grabbing, or Koorland deciding to unify his strikeforce with a neutral color so the High lords did not expect him to be legion building... I dunno, I thought it would be something else so in the future they didn't have to explain the Deathwatch armor was colored black because the imperium got it's ass handed to them and they were sad.

Did that one plot with the side company of Fist Exemplars and Iron warriors go anywhere after that one chapter? I honestly can't remember.

Why is a group of five space marines able to be so awesome and kick so much ass when five chapters of them failed at almost every battle against the orks? is this like Dr Mcninja's inverse ninja law? (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/17p70/) or is it because they were stealthy? if so then the Sons of Corax should never lose a fething battle because they are the stealthiest of stealthy marines. Seriously, the death watch didn't suffer a single death in the entire book.

Why did the Thunder hawk transporting the deathwatch to the Gargant have any weaponry to speak of?

and finally

Why are flying rhinos considered awesome in an imperium that has regular anti-grav vehicles like speeders or jetbikes?

[Sete]

Im a sorry to interrupt but the best stealth fighters of the Imperium is Alpha Legion :P

[Vesper]

Soo, yea, Watchers in death kinda sucked. while I normally would suggest reading it just to know what happened after, just get the cliff notes here just to save you the money because honestly, This book sucked.

so the deathwatch idea came from koorland and Vangorich, deciding to use more stealth and infiltration than regular assaults or warfare, right? slit up into small groups and ambush the enemy/infiltrate them and complete missions behind enemy lines. It's a cool idea, to be sure, and makes sense... Hey, isn't there a chapter that already does this and bases their entire tactica on this? Not to this book their isn't! no mention of the Raven Guard or the sons of Corax doing the same sort of anywhere in this book at all. You would think they would at least mention the best stealth fighters (not the alpha legion ) in the entire imperium at least somewhere when trying to come up with an army based around stealth and infiltrations.

speaking of unmentioned chapters, where the heck are the iron hands, white scars, salamanders and raven guard? All the other first founding chapters are on terra but these guys are strangely absent. I'm not asking for a lot, maybe a small mention that the salamanders went home after ullanor to morn the loss of their primarch. Maybe the White scars and Raven guard sent some of their best stealth and hunting teams to assist with the battle, but due to warp disturbances arrived afterwards and seek to make up for lost time by assisting in the death watch. maybe make a mention of the iron hands stopping to help out forge worlds along the way to terra, Anything.

So the black armor of the deathwatch was to morn the losses after ullanor, and I cannot tell if that's a good or awful explanation for the reason why their armor is black. The kill teams all decided to meet up before deployment for a pint or something, and a few marines were already painted all black with only the livery showing. They decide it was fitting, and all start pshyching themselves up, chanting and shouting stuff like "We are the watchers of death" until a dark angel bloke yelled out "We are the Deathwatch!" and they decide to go with it.

I expected something... different for the color choices. Maybe vangorich or Koorland realize how stupid it would be to have a stealth team in bright red and blue armor instead of something less eye-grabbing, or Koorland deciding to unify his strikeforce with a neutral color so the High lords did not expect him to be legion building... I dunno, I thought it would be something else so in the future they didn't have to explain the Deathwatch armor was colored black because the imperium got it's ass handed to them and they were sad.

Did that one plot with the side company of Fist Exemplars and Iron warriors go anywhere after that one chapter? I honestly can't remember.

Why is a group of five space marines able to be so awesome and kick so much ass when five chapters of them failed at almost every battle against the orks? is this like Dr Mcninja's inverse ninja law? (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/17p70/) or is it because they were stealthy? if so then the Sons of Corax should never lose a fething battle because they are the stealthiest of stealthy marines. Seriously, the death watch didn't suffer a single death in the entire book.

Why did the Thunder hawk transporting the deathwatch to the Gargant have any weaponry to speak of?

and finally

Why are flying rhinos considered awesome in an imperium that has regular anti-grav vehicles like speeders or jetbikes?

To be fair, the deathwatch doesn't really make sense when you have Space Marines Chapters around. It exists just for the cool factor, but if you think a bit about it, it is just redundant, so I'm not surprised they failed to make it believable. Because it simply isn't in the first place.

[Arkangilos]

It's not unbelievable. The death watch allows an inquisitor to have a small force with several space marines of various specialities report directly to him, and not to their chapters.

[Tiger9gamer]

Soo, yea, Watchers in death kinda sucked. while I normally would suggest reading it just to know what happened after, just get the cliff notes here just to save you the money because honestly, This book sucked.

so the deathwatch idea came from koorland and Vangorich, deciding to use more stealth and infiltration than regular assaults or warfare, right? slit up into small groups and ambush the enemy/infiltrate them and complete missions behind enemy lines. It's a cool idea, to be sure, and makes sense... Hey, isn't there a chapter that already does this and bases their entire tactica on this? Not to this book their isn't! no mention of the Raven Guard or the sons of Corax doing the same sort of anywhere in this book at all. You would think they would at least mention the best stealth fighters (not the alpha legion ) in the entire imperium at least somewhere when trying to come up with an army based around stealth and infiltrations.

speaking of unmentioned chapters, where the heck are the iron hands, white scars, salamanders and raven guard? All the other first founding chapters are on terra but these guys are strangely absent. I'm not asking for a lot, maybe a small mention that the salamanders went home after ullanor to morn the loss of their primarch. Maybe the White scars and Raven guard sent some of their best stealth and hunting teams to assist with the battle, but due to warp disturbances arrived afterwards and seek to make up for lost time by assisting in the death watch. maybe make a mention of the iron hands stopping to help out forge worlds along the way to terra, Anything.

So the black armor of the deathwatch was to morn the losses after ullanor, and I cannot tell if that's a good or awful explanation for the reason why their armor is black. The kill teams all decided to meet up before deployment for a pint or something, and a few marines were already painted all black with only the livery showing. They decide it was fitting, and all start pshyching themselves up, chanting and shouting stuff like "We are the watchers of death" until a dark angel bloke yelled out "We are the Deathwatch!" and they decide to go with it.

I expected something... different for the color choices. Maybe vangorich or Koorland realize how stupid it would be to have a stealth team in bright red and blue armor instead of something less eye-grabbing, or Koorland deciding to unify his strikeforce with a neutral color so the High lords did not expect him to be legion building... I dunno, I thought it would be something else so in the future they didn't have to explain the Deathwatch armor was colored black because the imperium got it's ass handed to them and they were sad.

Did that one plot with the side company of Fist Exemplars and Iron warriors go anywhere after that one chapter? I honestly can't remember.

Why is a group of five space marines able to be so awesome and kick so much ass when five chapters of them failed at almost every battle against the orks? is this like Dr Mcninja's inverse ninja law? (http://drmcninja.com/archives/comic/17p70/) or is it because they were stealthy? if so then the Sons of Corax should never lose a fething battle because they are the stealthiest of stealthy marines. Seriously, the death watch didn't suffer a single death in the entire book.

Why did the Thunder hawk transporting the deathwatch to the Gargant have any weaponry to speak of?

and finally

Why are flying rhinos considered awesome in an imperium that has regular anti-grav vehicles like speeders or jetbikes?

To be fair, the deathwatch doesn't really make sense when you have Space Marines Chapters around. It exists just for the cool factor, but if you think a bit about it, it is just redundant, so I'm not surprised they failed to make it believable. Because it simply isn't in the first place.

it makes sense when you think of them as Ordo Xeno's Hitmen. They are loyal only to the inquisitor handlers rather than a chapter master, and as such they deserve a special place in hell the imperium.

that brings up a new nitpick:

the Inquisition didn't have a single hand in making the deathwatch apparently. I'm still shakey on knowing if ordo xenos exists at this point or not, so it probably comes during the war against the Beast I guess. Would have been nice weihland came up with the idea of needing a whole seperate wing of the inquisition to deal with the non-chaos stuff, and a task force to end it in this book considering how the Deathwatch is the Ordo Militant of the Ordo Xenos.

[klisof]

Due to my dislike of eBooks I won't get to read the book until Saturday but I would not expect anything like the 40k deathwatch. Anything in this book will just be 'proto-deathwatch' before they have had time to accumulate knowledge, establish traditions and bed in relationships with the inquisition and other imperial organizations. They really would just be normal space marines until then.

 

It would be nice to see something later on about how the deathwatch/inquisition alliance formed. That could make a good source book for the RPG for historical scenarios.

[DarkChaplain]

As per Throneworld, I believe, different Ordos do not yet exist. There is a tendency to group in factions within the Inquisition, but it isn't formal in any way, and it is one whole rather than split. Wienand and Veritus, with the help of Vangorich iirc, consider the possibility of specialized branches shortly though.

[Vesper]

It's not unbelievable. The death watch allows an inquisitor to have a small force with several space marines of various specialities report directly to him, and not to their chapters.

 

it makes sense when you think of them as Ordo Xeno's Hitmen. They are loyal only to the inquisitor handlers rather than a chapter master, and as such they deserve a special place in hell the imperium.

 

I don't really see what prevents an inquisitor to requisition a group of SM from Chapter X in order to complete a mission.

No, I still think it is utterly redundant.