Let's talk about Angels of Caliban by Gav Thorpe

[Terminus]

Dark Angels were doomed the moment they caught Thorpe's interest. :(

[Chaplain Lucifer]

I'm almost finished with the book and I have a few stuff to say. Gav Thorpe did his best job so far, regarding DA. It redeemed him a bit in my eyes, but there are still skeletons in the closet.

First of all: Those that still maintain the Lion is fence sitting or that The Fallen are the true DA and the DA are the Fallen: You can take a long walk out of a short pier. Utter nonsense as this book proves. The loyalty of the Lion is unquestionable.

Furthermore, we see that the reason that the Lion was not at Terra is probably Guilliman! Yes, he was upset because Lion played with his toys and follow the letter of the law, to capture Curze *facepalm

The book ties some loose ends and gets us other ones... like.. who is Cypher? He should be a known character!

Nice to see Curze without plot armor, a shame that he had it in other books.

Zahariel turning to Chaos was expected, but a letdown. Luther seemed noble and still not chaos tainted and Astelan is a curr for lack of better words. I will have no qualms spoiling anyone that will say that Astelan was loyal, from now on. What an ignobile, treacherous son of a grox.

Nice details about Dreadwing and Deathwing, I wanted to know a bit more about Firewing. Now we only need to know which is the 6th wing!

And... the original DA were actually better than any other marines around. We were the templates!

[Kasper_Hawser]

I always respected the 1st Legion. But it looks like Gav Thorpe made things even more murkier by corrupting certain characters and making a lot of complex muckups like the whole situation on Caliban, and the Lion's strange interpretation of events that result in him being Curze's keeper in the end.

[Chaplain Lucifer]

I actually lost respect for the Ultramarines Primarch.

I get it that Jonson did make use of excessive force, but Curze loose would do much, much more damage . And since both UM and BA were fumbling in the dark, trying to get Curze and failing, methods would have to be extreme.

So I don't understand Guilliman atitude... Sanguinius was the Emperor, so only him could censor the Lion. Guilliman just pulled rank and acted like he was the head honcho again, even breaking the Lion Sword.

 

 

[Kasper_Hawser]

LOL, i've come to the point where I only consider certain parts of the primarchs cannon only if they are written by a specific author. So if Gav Thorpe touches on Guilliman to the point of being stupid, I tend to ignore that part.

 

Guilliman was very well portrayed by Dan Abnett who put the awesome back in the Ultramarines in "Know No Fear" and fleshing out his character. ADB also did very well with him facing off Angron and Lorgar at the same time, portraying him as an hole but an awesome hole nevertheless.

 

Chris Wright has done the Jagatai and Russ equally and proportionately, making both awesome and interesting. Note, I don't mean making them super powerful, I mean making them interesting to read and empatize.

 

James Swallow....... did alright with Sanguinus I guess.

 

Nick Kyme ...... really weird writing with Vulkan. Not a fan, but not particularly turned off.

 

Sadly Lion has been under Gav Thorpe for too long and so far we have the mess of the Fallen and Loyal Dark Angels which have been made super murky, although it isn't all Gav's fault. he just has a tendency to use too much plot armour to protect his characters rather than in universe logic to make the characters belieavble in their survivability and awesomeness.

[Brother dean]

 

Sadly Lion has been under Gav Thorpe for too long and so far we have the mess of the Fallen and Loyal Dark Angels which have been made super murky, although it isn't all Gav's fault. he just has a tendency to use too much plot armour to protect his characters rather than in universe logic to make the characters belieavble in their survivability and awesomeness.

Gav also tends to make Dark Angels tactically inept and unable to handle changing tactical landscapes in a bid to make them more "relateable" to us common humans and he continues to cling to the "Fallen" as a crutch to hide that he makes us inept...

[Cpt_Reaper]

On Cypher...I think the ye olde Cypher from the Knights of Lupus is still alive. He "died" off screen and had the Watchers in the Dark helping. He was also described in Fallen Angels to match the 40k Cypher, pistols and all.

[FerociousBeast]

I don't know about that, but I don't think Today's Cypher is a psyker. He's never been presented that way in rules or fluff.

[Brother_Darius]

Was there also some pretty strong hints in another BL novel that Zeph was a founding member of the Grey Knights????

 

I think that Angels of Caliban, really puts that in doubt....

[Flint13]

^Nah.

 

If one of the XX twins can come back around to found that business, Zeph could still be in the running.

[Kasper_Hawser]

 

 

Sadly Lion has been under Gav Thorpe for too long and so far we have the mess of the Fallen and Loyal Dark Angels which have been made super murky, although it isn't all Gav's fault. he just has a tendency to use too much plot armour to protect his characters rather than in universe logic to make the characters belieavble in their survivability and awesomeness.

Gav also tends to make Dark Angels tactically inept and unable to handle changing tactical landscapes in a bid to make them more "relateable" to us common humans and he continues to cling to the "Fallen" as a crutch to hide that he makes us inept...

 

 

No argument here.

 

In this case, I just revert to old lore stating that the Dark Angels have always been exemplary marines who are able to adapt to new situations, either by themselves or through their different "wings" depending on the enemy. After all, they were the 1st Legion who most likely developed the various Rites of War first before the other Legions established their own MOs.

 

And I like the Lion being utterly loyal if only just a tad socially inept. Makes me wonder how the heresy would have carried through if only Luther was with him.

[Trevak Dal]

I actually lost respect for the Ultramarines Primarch.

I get it that Jonson did make use of excessive force, but Curze loose would do much, much more damage . And since both UM and BA were fumbling in the dark, trying to get Curze and failing, methods would have to be extreme.

So I don't understand Guilliman atitude... Sanguinius was the Emperor, so only him could censor the Lion. Guilliman just pulled rank and acted like he was the head honcho again, even breaking the Lion Sword.

 

 

Because RowBootie was using Sanguiness as a puppet.

[Brother Haim]

This book made me laugh, how Gav portrayed the Lion made me cry. Talk about going in a completely different direction. Lion seemed more like an inept bratty child then a Primarch. Worse off the fabled Lion sword is not broken in a matter fitting, like maybe a duel with an old friend possessed by Chaos but by a whining Girlyman.

[Guardian of the Order]

The Lion Sword being broken was sort of fitting.

 

 

...considering it followed the cheap detective realization of Curze's somantics. "He's killed by an assassin from the Emperor therefore the Emperor still LIVES!" stuff. Honor already cast away, so sword needed breaking. It should have been done with more gravitas,I agree.

 

 

I thought it would have happened at the Final Battle at Caliban.