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Blackshield


Kilofix

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For a Death Guard, I enjoyed Blackshield almost as much as I enjoyed Old Night.

 

It was short and the story simple but it brought back old "friends" and some small plot points that I felt enriched the overall storyline.

 

 

 

1. Morturg and Decima make a re-appearance though Morturg didn't entirely survive Isstvan

2. Morturg's psychic abilities are demonstrated

3. Morturg's adversary here is Khorak of the Deathshroud; who went along with the Isstvan action but abandoned Mortarion when Mortarion sacrificed the other Deathshroud on Molech

3b. Khorak almost sides with Morturg save but for the display of Morturg's psychic power, at which point, Khorak also rails against Morturg <- Edit: forgot this important point previously

4. Morturg laments Khorak's eventual death and wonders if it would have been possible to have set Khorak against Mortarion

5. Morturg and Decima are heading back to Terra

 

 

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Sounds interesting. Could you elaborate on what you mean by point 1? Mortug's line intrigued me from the preview.

 

What's Decima like?

Not that much description of Decima himself but he survived and also managed to recover and rebuild Morturg after the latter was more or less "killed" on Isstvan III with only his psychic power sustaining him (does this foreshadow the Emperor in some way? Hmm...). Anyway, Morturg is now a whole lot of machine himself too.

 

He has his own Blackshield Warband operating out of a strike cruiser called the Malice. It is implied that quite some Death Guard are with him, amongst other shattered legions.

 

In this story, Morturg survives a Bolter headshot (without a helmet) due to his psychic ability (from the FW HH books - he has Biomancy - Endurance). Khorak, his adversary in this story (but who wasn't the one who shot Morturg), might have ended up siding with Morturg but upon seeing that psychic display, calls Morturg a witch / sorcerer and ends up railing against Morturg.

 

The irony is that Khorak participated in the Isstvan action thinking it deserving, but ends up a traitor of sorts to both Mortarion and Morturg. Which may imply that Mortarion and Morturg are not really that different in terms of their use of the warp in circumstances?

 

Anyway, at the end, Morturg and Decima decide to head back to Terra instead of hunting pockets of renegade legions as they were doing.

 

 

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I'll have to grab this story for sure! Very, very happy that Wraight is doing more Death Guard outside of Mortarion's appearances in his books.

 

Also, fun fact: Khorak first showed up with an art/profile page in Horus Heresy II: Massacre. Wraight seems to really like to pluck characters from those books. He did it with Konenos in Path of Heaven as well.

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I'll have to grab this story for sure! Very, very happy that Wraight is doing more Death Guard outside of Mortarion's appearances in his books.

 

Also, fun fact: Khorak first showed up with an art/profile page in Horus Heresy II: Massacre. Wraight seems to really like to pluck characters from those books. He did it with Konenos in Path of Heaven as well.

 

Let's hope this is a warmup for a full DG novel!

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I'll have to grab this story for sure! Very, very happy that Wraight is doing more Death Guard outside of Mortarion's appearances in his books.

 

Also, fun fact: Khorak first showed up with an art/profile page in Horus Heresy II: Massacre. Wraight seems to really like to pluck characters from those books. He did it with Konenos in Path of Heaven as well.

 

Let's hope this is a warmup for a full DG novel!

 

It's coming...I know it.

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Normally don't buy BL's short stories as I tend to view them as overpriced but boy was this worth it. Loved the descriptions of the wargear and characters in it too, tons of personality for characters that live and die in the space of a few pages.

 

Fully recommend

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Its a good short read. Though not sure how you feel about yet more dead people coming back to life..

 

 

 

Morturg? To be fair, he was never dead, Forge World's Book I said he survived Isstvan III, and Book VI talked about him in the Ghoul Stars.

It just so happens that he was only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.

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So...

 

 

with Khorak... do they get into anything about the Deathshroud? I know they take a vow of silence, do they explain anything about that or has that been thrown to the wayside? I know in Massacre I believe, they have a Deathshroud commander or something, and in another story or two they have them speaking. Any word on that?

 

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I really really hope we get a full Death Guard novel by Chris Wraight. Covering their transformation before Terra.

I hope so too, kinda sucks the only real death guard novel is more about the traitor Garro than the true Death guard I really want to see a novel about them becoming plague marines. Though a full black shield novel would be nice as well
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So...

 

 

with Khorak... do they get into anything about the Deathshroud? I know they take a vow of silence, do they explain anything about that or has that been thrown to the wayside? I know in Massacre I believe, they have a Deathshroud commander or something, and in another story or two they have them speaking. Any word on that?

 

 

There are some cryptic recollections by Khorak about how he gave up his name upon joining the Deathshroud but took his name back when he left the Deathshroud. Maybe someone can read more into it than I.

 

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Its a good short read. Though not sure how you feel about yet more dead people coming back to life..

Morturg? To be fair, he was never dead, Forge World's Book I said he survived Isstvan III, and Book VI talked about him in the Ghoul Stars.

It just so happens that he was only mostly dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead.

No one stays dead in Horus Heresy nowdays biggrin.png I'm Alpharius

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So...

 

 

with Khorak... do they get into anything about the Deathshroud? I know they take a vow of silence, do they explain anything about that or has that been thrown to the wayside? I know in Massacre I believe, they have a Deathshroud commander or something, and in another story or two they have them speaking. Any word on that?

 

 

There are some cryptic recollections by Khorak about how he gave up his name upon joining the Deathshroud but took his name back when he left the Deathshroud. Maybe someone can read more into it than I.

 

 

It's a neat way of dealing with Khorak appearing with a name in Massacre, as LetsYouDown pointed out. Tbh when I first saw the profile by FW I thought 'ha, they goofed, Deathshroud members are supposed to be nameless and anonymous' so the spoilered content a deliberate and nicely done way of reconciling that.

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So...

 

 

with Khorak... do they get into anything about the Deathshroud? I know they take a vow of silence, do they explain anything about that or has that been thrown to the wayside? I know in Massacre I believe, they have a Deathshroud commander or something, and in another story or two they have them speaking. Any word on that?

 

 

There are some cryptic recollections by Khorak about how he gave up his name upon joining the Deathshroud but took his name back when he left the Deathshroud. Maybe someone can read more into it than I.

 

 

It's a neat way of dealing with Khorak appearing with a name in Massacre, as LetsYouDown pointed out. Tbh when I first saw the profile by FW I thought 'ha, they goofed, Deathshroud members are supposed to be nameless and anonymous' so the spoilered content a deliberate and nicely done way of reconciling that.

 

Agreed on that

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