Rate what you Read, or the fight against Necromancy

[Noserenda]

I get the impression that the FW writers have a bit more of a free reign as long as they dont go wildly off message and presumably follow Blighs outline to some degree because their bosses have never been primarily Heresy hobbyists. (Hoare has always been a lot more interested in Retro and Specialist games and im honestly not sure if Cotrell really hobbys anymore) The BL writers have someone invested and involved in the setting for a boss, (Kyme and Goulding both being up to their necks in the heresy) and thats generally always been the case to some degree or another so the reigns are a bit tighter? Abnett i suspect being the exception :D 

[Petitioner's City]

I get the impression that the FW writers have a bit more of a free reign as long as they dont go wildly off message and presumably follow Blighs outline to some degree because their bosses have never been primarily Heresy hobbyists. (Hoare has always been a lot more interested in Retro and Specialist games

But Hoare has a massive emperor's children collection, and wrote parts of Extermination, Massacre and Conquest .... and of course runs AT.

 

For his heresy armies:

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/03/31/our-collections-andy-hoare/

 

http://games-workshop.eu/andy-hoares-white-scars/

 

https://m.facebook.com/GWWarhammerWorld/photos/a.2856934287659366/2856934437659351/?type=3

 

For an interview:

 

https://www.beastsofwar.com/warhammer-40k/adeptus-titanicus-interview-andy-hoare/

 

Honestly don't make these kind of suggestions without at least doing a cursory Google! It leads to such misinformation

Edited September 13, 2020 by Petitioner's City

[Noserenda]

 

I get the impression that the FW writers have a bit more of a free reign as long as they dont go wildly off message and presumably follow Blighs outline to some degree because their bosses have never been primarily Heresy hobbyists. (Hoare has always been a lot more interested in Retro and Specialist games

But Hoare has a massive emperor's children collection, and wrote parts of Extermination, Massacre and Conquest .... and of course runs AT.

 

Im aware of that, but having spoken to him directly a couple of times he was interested in Heresy stuff but he was ENTHUSED about necromunda and oldhammer stuff, it was a significant difference, there was even a time when a small group of us was going on a froth with Alan Bligh about Skitarii in the Mechanicum and Andy just sat there doing his shopping list in his head. Now its entirely possible i caught him on a bad day and thats not to say hes disinterested in the heresy generally (ok maybe Skitarii :D ) because like you said hes written for it and has an army hes proud of, but its not his baby like specialist games are, which now hes the boss of both almost certainly get his focus more.

 

So yeah, maybe i dont need to google things because ive seen them in person? 

[Petitioner's City]

 

 

 

I get the impression that the FW writers have a bit more of a free reign as long as they dont go wildly off message and presumably follow Blighs outline to some degree because their bosses have never been primarily Heresy hobbyists. (Hoare has always been a lot more interested in Retro and Specialist games

But Hoare has a massive emperor's children collection, and wrote parts of Extermination, Massacre and Conquest .... and of course runs AT.

Im aware of that, but having spoken to him directly a couple of times he was interested in Heresy stuff but he was ENTHUSED about necromunda and oldhammer stuff, it was a significant difference, there was even a time when a small group of us was going on a froth with Alan Bligh about Skitarii in the Mechanicum and Andy just sat there doing his shopping list in his head. Now its entirely possible i caught him on a bad day and thats not to say hes disinterested in the heresy generally (ok maybe Skitarii :D ) because like you said hes written for it and has an army hes proud of, but its not his baby like specialist games are, which now hes the boss of both almost certainly get his focus more.

 

So yeah, maybe i dont need to google things because ive seen them in person?

foremost it would be good to say that when making a statement in the first place - quote your sources otherwise it becomes just baseless speculation and one should be called out on it. This is much better!

 

But id still check, since (a) an interpretion of someone is subjective and (b ) I think there is a lot of evidence about his work with and love for the heresy too - heck even his hang out and hobby inclusions on twitch are with his 30k armies.

 

I just think it's too easy to erase Bligh's colleagues (including French and even Neil Wylie) and their contributions to the setting and enthusiasm for the work - which is a real shame! Even on skitarii, he was the main author of Fires of Cyraxus before 8th edition stymied it, according to https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1673530812764355&id=845813082202803, https://twitter.com/HeresyJunkie/status/1009316513143193600?s=19, etc)

 

Of course Andy was promoted, and that meant a shift of focus, perhaps to something he liked far more, but I don't think he hasn't got his eye in the heresy - check out his Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/theandyhoare/ :) two absolutely gorgeous heresy armies he plays with, and enthusiastic adoptions of every consul for his E's Children. He also calls out Wraight's Scars for why he collects them (even though he had written two novels with them).

Edited September 13, 2020 by Petitioner's City

[Lord_Caerolion]

In regards to Ferrus Manus:

 

I liked it. I can absolutely understand why somebody wouldn't, though. For me, it was only about 2/3 of the way through that things sorta clicked into place.

 

The thing about Ferrus is, it's not really about Ferrus, in the same way that Prospero Burns wasn't really *about* Prospero burning. And I totally get why somebody would be disgruntled about that, especially since Ferrus Manus hasn't had much opportunity to shine as his own character, being limited to his appearances in Fulgrim and some other shorts here and there. From a meta "publishing house expanding the setting" perspective, I think there's a strong argument that his Primarch novella was the wrong one to do this with.

 

And what exactly is "this"? Well, I'd argue that Ferrus is a Fault Investigation Trench.

 

Let me explain with a bit of a tangent: I work at a geotechnical engineering firm in the California Bay Area. We do soil studies for public transportation infrastructure. There are several types of field investigation involved, and two I think are pertinent to the discussion surrounding Ferrus. One type of investigation is the Field Boring - drilling down into the soil at a project site to explore subsurface conditions. This is a small-diameter hole, going down deep, with samples taken from regular intervals for further lab tests.

 

Another type of field investigation is the Fault Trenching (this being the Bay Area, seismic faults are a major concern for civil engineering). This is where you'll dig a long, shallow trench across where you suspect a fault line may be, and then examine the soils just below the surface to try to more accurately locate it.

 

They are two different excavations; one is narrow and deep, focused on examining one particular location - the other is shallow but broad, trying to cover a wider area to find the breaks within.

 

Ferrus is the latter - and not in the way I expected. See, I went in anticipating a deep dive into the character of Ferrus Manus - a Field Boring, as it were. Like Reynold's excellent Fulgrim, using a particular event to showcase the strengths and weaknesses of the titular Primarch. This is not that book. Ferrus is a Fault Investigation - not of him, but of the broader Horus Heresy.

 

This book is like a snapshot of the Great Crusade during its height, but it just scrapes beneath the surface and reveals some of the fault lines that will be at the heart of the Heresy and its themes. It's got nominal brothers-in-arms who are driven to outdo each other in competition - but that competition holds this unspoken edge to it, like it might go beyond comradely with just the right impetus. It's got a superhuman general who is master of all he sees - except for himself, driven and consumed by his own passions to a destructive degree. Transhuman super-soldiers who follow their gene-fathers to the brink - and maybe beyond. Regular humans, whose beliefs in the Great Crusade and the Imperium run headlong into the reality that their lives are just currency to be spent in a war that drives on beyond reason to pathology. In Akurduana, the best and brightest of Terra that ultimately gets consumed by the emotional typhoons of demigods.

 

It's like that saying, "It's not the end of the world, but you can see it from here." This book isn't set in the Age of Darkness, but it scratches below the surface to reveal the fault lines that will rupture in it.

 

So in that regard, I enjoyed Ferrus and enjoyed what it did. But like I said, I can totally get why somebody wouldn't. It doesn't dive into Ferrus' motivations and characters the way some other Primarch series works do, nor does it showcase the Iron Hands in a particularly complimentary light. And Akurduana is eye-rollingly super-competent at one-upping everybody. If you read this and said "It's called Ferrus Manus! Why isn't it about Ferrus?", I get you. I think it's fair for Iron Hands fans to be disappointed that their Primarch book is the one that isn't focused on their Primarch. 

 

But if you enjoy the broader themes and ideas of the Horus Heresy as a whole, I'd say adjust your expectations and give this a go.

 

Oh, I get the themes. It's a very good book at showing those off, when it comes to the Imperial Army, etc. I just wish they didn't give Ferrus a lobotomy to make his character fit the themes the author wanted to convey. What it does, it's very good at. The problem is that "what it does" doesn't match "what some of those things are".

 

Again, the quality of the writing drops substantially when talking about Ferrus himself. Is Ferrus a misunderstood artist hiding under a veneer of simplicity, or a plainly-recognisable brute with no depth? The book claims he's both, within 10 pages of itself. If you make excellent metaphorical points, and have incredibly deep character analysis, but fundamentally change the character in every way in order to have those points fit, the book has failed.

If the Horus Primarchs book was written that Horus absolutely hated the limelight, and completely sucked at leading others, but was written in a way that the book itself had the most sublime of complexity and depth, it's a failed Horus book. "Oh, but the book is about how great leaders can often be shy in person, the conflicting nature of public versus private personas, and how radically different those two facets of a person can be." Yeah, but Horus absolutely isn't that.

[Fedor]

The book also tells us from Ferrus point of view that every element of his personality he let others see was meticulously constructed, while also hinting a few times at a self-loathing, masochistic aspect. He decides to fully embrace the Gorgon persona and accept much of it as not merely a facade after his attempt to one up a textbook Guilliman/Horus (which remember was going perfectly well from a strategic perspective, it doesn't show him as not being able to do that stuff at all) compliance ends in the peace negotiations he accepts really being an assassination. That was the final straw of realising that approach was not who he really was or could be bothered to emulate anymore(which was probably a lot more neccessary in the early great crusade years with fewer primarch leaders around).

 

That "my father doesn't me" line wasn't the best at all, but i took it as being related to him having grown disgruntled at the lack of personal challenges the crusade had thrown up, his longing to be defeated again and just constantly tested and pushed in general. The fact it was delivered as he casually overwhelmed the big mech-lord dude after it might have seemed initially going to be a tough fight was key imo. akurduana was mostly there to be the mirror of that side of him. Rather than being merely a contented loyal general and all-round big picture guy like Dorn, he's really at heart a frontline warrior/leader through and through. Closer to Mortarion or the Khan in having a favoured way of waging war, but unlike them he's been in the role of multi-legion leader/big picture strategist a lot more in the past. we only really get that from piecing together other lore though, it's not really mentioned in the book.

 

In general a lot of the actual primarch charracterisation in the book was hinted at, or left to be piece together with other sources, rather than explicit and had the feel to me as if it was chopped out of a larger manuscript and what we got was only say...part 4 of 6 in the Ferrus Great Crusade Saga. Some of it worked, some not so much.

[Roomsky]

The Unburdened – David Annandale

 

Sort of using this as a vehicle for another discussion because, like most Annandale stuff, I’ll need to read it more than once to rate if fairly. My initial reactions lean positive, nothing ground-breaking (or probably “necessary”) but solid. Annandale’s a good fit for faith-based stories and this is no exceptions, even if it gets a bit excessive after a while. The first chapter made me hope we’d get a WB’s descent from Monarchia to Calth, but we skipped forwards immediately afterwards which was disappointing for me. Still, I won’t hold it against the work itself.

 

I also have no idea why this is about Kurtha Sedd. Why not make it about someone who isn’t a one-and-done villain in an audiodrama? The meat of the character is here to pay off in something a fraction of its length, why not make it someone original?

 

 No rating at this time.

 

The first thing I discovered while listening to this is that I don’t actually like Word Bearers. I thought I did, that ADB’s work was how they should be and that other people just squandered them. But after reading this, which I still felt did justice to the faction, I think they’re just kind of one-note. As certain works have proved, I quite dislike books who’s whole schtick is legion culture and ritual, but I could use a lot more of it in stories like this, where the legion’s identity is purely internal. A Forgeworld BL team-up existing from the beginning would have been a godsend, for sure.

 

Like the Wolves, I only find them compelling in the hands of my favourite authors, meaning it’s more their writing than faction itself I’m drawn to.

 

The second thing I realized was that, while this came out at the height of the cash-grab era of BL, I sort of wish something similar had been done for the Heresy’s other major conflicts. Calth got a novel, an anthology, two novellas and few floating shorts. Where was this for Isstvan III? Where was this for bloody Isstvan V? The biggest conflict in the Heresy before Terra was reduced to the climax of two tangentially related stories.

 

Phall is a novella, Tallarn is an anthology, and Beta-Garmon was the backdrop of a titan story. While yes, Calth was a tad overexposed, I think the bigger issue is that the other major engagements of the Heresy were barely covered relative to their importance.

 

I know it would just be called another cash grab at this point but I wouldn’t mind some novellas like these dropping for the Heresy’s other big conflicts down the line. Isstvan III especially could use some supplementary material beyond the very limited (and crappy) coverage we have now.

[DarkChaplain]

Re: Why Kurtha Sedd: Because he, and the Ultramarine Captain Steloc Aethon, was the canon character in the Betrayal at Calth boxed game, and The Honoured & The Unburdened were commissioned as companion novels to that release, back when GW reared its ugly head into Black Library's domain.

 

I definitely agree though, Isstvan (both battles), Beta-Garmon and co all deserve more stories, be they novels (I'll maintain that Beta-Garmon could use a second novel, focusing not on the Blood Angels and Sanguinius, but Jaghatai and the Scars after they take off, and highlight other theaters of war away from the Titan Legions we got in Titandeath - it's not that Titandeath wasn't a fun read, but it simply couldn't encompass the sheer scope of what Beta-Garmon was: A system-spanning war featuring a slew of different factions, from big Legions to small cells of Dropsite survivors (as hinted in Weregeld, for example), taking months if not years to be resolved.

 

As for Tallarn, I still despise Ironclad and think it was easily the worst part of the anthology, especially when contrasted with the sheer excellence of Executioner, but I was most disappointed by how it simply ended in a whimper. There's so much in Ironclad's interludes especially that could have been better off actually being told as a story, not cliffnotes of events in the wider conflict. That one section about the rogue trader fleet coming into the war? That would've been cool and different to read about with actual characters.

 

I think scale-wise, Calth is somewhat the baseline of what I'd like to see from major conflicts. A main novel, an anthology with novella and short stories, and potentially a follow-up novel (which I'd count the two Calth short novels as, since they're linked and the only reason I'd suggest reading The Honoured is that it establishes some things that The Unburdened uses afterwards). Isstvan V, meanwhile, is probably the worst-covered event in the series. Everything is presented piecemeal in novels here and there, or scattered short stories. Scorched Earth was an Isstvan V story, but not one about the Dropsite Massacre, but the aftermath. The Raven's Flight was slightly about it, but mostly about what came after for Corax.

 

There are so many story hints spread out in the novels, that it should be easy to whip up a "Tales of Isstvan V" anthology with both familiar and new faces to properly establish who did what when during the big betrayal. That they've never done that bugs the hell out of me.

[Sandlemad]

I agree with the overall evaluation of The Unburdened but thought that the portrait of Kurtha Sedd was the main redeeming feature. Wasn't amazing but I liked the portrayal of a WB 'true believer' who nevertheless was clearly out of his depth warp-wise compared to the Erebuses and Kor Phaerons of the world. His growing uncertainty and need to stay a few steps ahead of his troops came off as fresh to me.

[byrd9999]

Kurtha Sedd also appears in Nick Kyme's Calth-based audio drama Censure.

 

The voice actor sounds like a wimpy Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars though...

[Brother Lunkhead]

 

The voice actor sounds like a wimpy Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars though...

 

Exactly.....I thinks that voice enhanced the character of Kurtha Sedd, a minor leader that was ambitious, somewhat talented and way out of his depth.

[Roomsky]

Old Earth – Nick Kyme (2^nd read)

 

Oh boy, here I go again warming up to a book I wasn’t hot on to begin with. But there will be no apologies this time because 1: I gave it a passing 5/10 first time round, and 2: this tricked me into thinking something like Deathfire might be worth revisiting too (it’s not.)

 

Old Earth succeeds where its predecessors failed for a number of reasons. The prose is passable, and is a significant improvement on Kyme’s prior works. While it is often overwrought (sometimes “large” does it better than “colossal”) it can just as often be atmospheric. While he hasn’t mastered keeping detail-oriented writing interesting, the potential is there. The dialogue is average Heresy fare, but certainly not below average. Perhaps most importantly, the three plot threads generally keep Kyme from his usual plodding pace.

 

The Iron Hands stuff is by far the best, balancing intrigue, action, and character work to keep it interesting. Despite some logical inconsistencies, it’s a strong enough ending to Meduson’s arc especially for someone like me who enjoys their Iron Hands cruel and their endings brutal. I still don’t really buy Vulkan not murdering the Iron Fathers after the :cuss they pulled with Ferrus, though. That said, I sort of wish Kyme had written this part of the story as a novella and attached it to Shattered Legions instead of Seventh Serpent.

 

The Eldrad plot remained intriguing throughout, if at times only to see the Cabal get axed. I never had much an issue with their presence in the series, so I did think it was a little dismissive a way for them to go out, but on the other hand they did always operate in the shadows so something closer to an assassination makes sense. Narek is probably my favourite of Kyme’s contributions to the Heresy and I still liked him here, and the rapid pace of these scenes make them all the better.

 

The Vulkan stuff is unfortunately the weak link. It’s not as painful as in the book’s predecessors, to be sure, but the mythic angle Kyme was going for still doesn’t really work. Vulkan is suitably distant, but doesn’t have much of a personality besides mild altruism. The Draaksward are completely interchangeable. The mystical set pieces are some of the most boring parts of the book. His final scene is good, but I can’t say I found the stuff on Terra preceding that especially interesting either. I’m glad I enjoy a book featuring the Sallies, but they’re definitely being carried by more interesting plots.

 

Thematically, I really love how big a deal Horus and his forces are in this. While Horus has suffered a lack of focus throughout the series, it would not have been as big a deal if we always felt his presence like we do here. Everyone fears him, and his forces are a legion of dangerously competent hero killers. The other point I like is that the book is full of side plots and complexity without resorting to primarchs hitting each other. I love the Imperium Secundus idea, but I feel it was diminished by how much screentime the primarchs got. For that reason, I enjoy the Shattered Legion stories far more, it makes it clear the scale and depth of the war by focussing mostly on conflicts with a single primarch, or none at all.

 

Honestly, if this was the baseline quality of the Heresy series, I’d probably collect every book. Good on Kyme.

 

To Taste

6.5/10

[StrangerOrders]

Old Earth – Nick Kyme (2^nd read)

 

Oh boy, here I go again warming up to a book I wasn’t hot on to begin with. But there will be no apologies this time because 1: I gave it a passing 5/10 first time round, and 2: this tricked me into thinking something like Deathfire might be worth revisiting too (it’s not.)

 

Old Earth succeeds where its predecessors failed for a number of reasons. The prose is passable, and is a significant improvement on Kyme’s prior works. While it is often overwrought (sometimes “large” does it better than “colossal”) it can just as often be atmospheric. While he hasn’t mastered keeping detail-oriented writing interesting, the potential is there. The dialogue is average Heresy fare, but certainly not below average. Perhaps most importantly, the three plot threads generally keep Kyme from his usual plodding pace.

 

The Iron Hands stuff is by far the best, balancing intrigue, action, and character work to keep it interesting. Despite some logical inconsistencies, it’s a strong enough ending to Meduson’s arc especially for someone like me who enjoys their Iron Hands cruel and their endings brutal. I still don’t really buy Vulkan not murdering the Iron Fathers after the they pulled with Ferrus, though. That said, I sort of wish Kyme had written this part of the story as a novella and attached it to Shattered Legions instead of Seventh Serpent.

 

The Eldrad plot remained intriguing throughout, if at times only to see the Cabal get axed. I never had much an issue with their presence in the series, so I did think it was a little dismissive a way for them to go out, but on the other hand they did always operate in the shadows so something closer to an assassination makes sense. Narek is probably my favourite of Kyme’s contributions to the Heresy and I still liked him here, and the rapid pace of these scenes make them all the better.

 

The Vulkan stuff is unfortunately the weak link. It’s not as painful as in the book’s predecessors, to be sure, but the mythic angle Kyme was going for still doesn’t really work. Vulkan is suitably distant, but doesn’t have much of a personality besides mild altruism. The Draaksward are completely interchangeable. The mystical set pieces are some of the most boring parts of the book. His final scene is good, but I can’t say I found the stuff on Terra preceding that especially interesting either. I’m glad I enjoy a book featuring the Sallies, but they’re definitely being carried by more interesting plots.

 

Thematically, I really love how big a deal Horus and his forces are in this. While Horus has suffered a lack of focus throughout the series, it would not have been as big a deal if we always felt his presence like we do here. Everyone fears him, and his forces are a legion of dangerously competent hero killers. The other point I like is that the book is full of side plots and complexity without resorting to primarchs hitting each other. I love the Imperium Secundus idea, but I feel it was diminished by how much screentime the primarchs got. For that reason, I enjoy the Shattered Legion stories far more, it makes it clear the scale and depth of the war by focussing mostly on conflicts with a single primarch, or none at all.

 

Honestly, if this was the baseline quality of the Heresy series, I’d probably collect every book. Good on Kyme.

 

To Taste

6.5/10

This has me thinking, since we know Kyme can actually write well on alot of stuff (I adore Dreams of Unity and Knights of Macragge is underrated to heck and back), I sometimes wonder if the problem is Vulkan and the Salamanders themselves?

 

I've said it before but I have never had the Salamanders pop in a book and been blown away, they tend to adhere more to a very single archetype with next to no deviation than almost every other Legion line and Vulkan himself seems to almost uniformly be the weakest component of any book he is in.

 

Its weird, especially since they don't really play to his supposed humanity or altruism that much.

 

Sort of like Sangi and the BAngels actually in alot of cases in that sense.

 

We hear alot about how empathetic and kind they are but... erm... when do we practically see that?

 

Like we do see them feeling bad about things sure, or taking offense at the excessive brutality of allies but thats less 'oh dear me, what kindness' and more like 'literally the most basic decency'. 

 

Its weird to me actually that Vulkan and Sanguinius have this reputation and being the kindest and most altruistic Primarchs but what we are shown is that the likes of Dorn, Guilliman and Fulgrim are considerably more humane (The last pre-Chaos obviously). Sure, less moments of dramatically weeping over corpses but considerably more effort in ensuring their allies arent put in those risky situations to begin with and actively capable of doing something other than being outraged or sad about something.

 

Like, would it kill them to show us Vulkan making a non-Nocturnian city more pleasant to live in? Or to put his creativity to something not war-related? Its a weird disconnect to me but I think its part of what makes him irksome to me as a character, I don't know what makes him so hard for writers to nail right.

Edited September 20, 2020 by StrangerOrders

[bluntblade]

I think Salamanders are very, very easy to do a surface-level take on, and they're prone to being very boring in that situation. Bit like the Iron Hands, who easily devolve into We Are Mechanical And Angry, the Night Lords who can tip into just twirling moustaches - and the White Scars, we just don't think that much these days because Wraight tunnels way down into their culture.

Edited September 20, 2020 by bluntblade

[Roomsky]

As with the Word Bearers, I think the Sallies were pigeonholed into being defined by a personality trait rather than a culture or meaningful story beat (and with no ADB to save them.) I won't say the story premises didn't have potential: contrasting their views with the Night Lords, dealing with marine PTSD, keeping faith in the miraculous, etc. I can't say Kyme ever really challenged them meaningfully, though, even in situations where they lost / mostly died. There's no doubt Vulkan's philosophy is supposed to be unambiguously correct in Vulkan Lives, even if Curze manages to spare more lives in the right circumstances (I'm not saying flaying people is ever acceptable, but 30k people should be running under a different mindset, Vulkan is still a killer of millions+). Numeon's faith is rewarded (albeit posthumously) in Deathfire, but we don't really deal with all the resources he burns or the war he abandons in favour of what everyone around him considers an insane, pointless errand. Their conflicts exist and could be interesting, but never get appropriate follow-through.

 

I suppose that lines up with the point about a lack of actually seeing their traits. Blacksmithing? Set dressing, the BAngles have a few stories devoted to why they do their art, at least. Pragmatism? I don't think that word means what Kyme thinks it means. Hatred of eldar? Generally ignored. etc. etc. etc.

 

The failure of both Sallies and Vulkan to be interesting under Annandale or Thorpe's pen backs up your point. That said, I think Haley's Heresy shorts following the Sallies are pretty good and even incorporate their creative spirit into things. I fell they're a harder legion to tackle, but one keen mind could be all it takes to elevate them. I'm sure Forgeworld keeps them cool, at least.

 

EDIT: I'd love to see Harrison tackle the Sallies at some point, considering how affectively she uses various forms of love in her works.

Edited September 20, 2020 by Roomsky

[SkimaskMohawk]

The only vulkan story I thought did a good job of showing his care for people was Mercy of the Dragon, which Kyme wrote.

[Indefragable]

Space Marines = Ultramarines for better and worse, and so when they want to introduce a different angle they tend to focus solely on that difference to the point of excluding all others.

 

 

Aka the Xzibit effect.

“Yo dawg, I heard you like to be nice to people...”

[StrangerOrders]

The only vulkan story I thought did a good job of showing his care for people was Mercy of the Dragon, which Kyme wrote.

Need to get around to reading that one.

 

I will say that I really wish that the draconic and craftsmanship angles were bigger with the Sallies. Not in the obvious 'pictures and shiny weapons' sort of way, but in the sense of being woven into the way they act and solve problems.

 

I really feel like you never see Sallies stop to comment on or admire technologies or artisanal things, you know gaining knowledge through examination the way a craftsman would look at another's work. You rarely see them come up with a clever or mechanical solution to problems the way they are described in Massacre for example.  One of my favorite bits from their iconic battle when they are fighting MoI drones is them ripping them apart to make weapons from them as they go, like that is inventive as heck 'man, my weapons arent working here... hmm... looking at that broken robot is giving me ideas...'

 

You similarly dont really see them ever have that much of a draconic angle, we are told they are strong and threatening but you never see them successfully just go 'you know what, I have a solid foot and several tons of muscle on you, time to pull a Russ and snap you over my leg'.

 

And I also just dont see that much altruism in being indignant and all vengeful about the living conditions and suffering of others if that just translates to doing the same punching you were going to do anyway. Especially not from a tech-savvy legion. 

 

We see UM's set up good governments, we see pre-Chaos EC tackle systemic problems, we see Fists build really nice cities. For some reason we never see Sally altruism amount to actually changing their actions or exploiting their skillset, they just Marine Extra-Hard while being sad about it.

 

 

Space Marines = Ultramarines for better and worse, and so when they want to introduce a different angle they tend to focus solely on that difference to the point of excluding all others.

 

 

Aka the Xzibit effect.

“Yo dawg, I heard you like to be nice to people...”

Thats my disconnect actually, I hard disagree.

 

We are shown UMs being compassionate and working to help people off the battlefield but are constantly told they are cold, mechanical and heartless by the narrators and other Legions. 

 

But then they say 'look at the way the Sallies and BAngels heroically suffer to hold the line' while being covered in gold and seeming to have little to no motivation to actually go out of their way to help anyone in a way that doesnt involve shooting someone.

 

I love the Dante book, but my takeaway from seeing Angel's Fall and then their fortress was 'jeez, these pricks couldn't even be bothered to put a nice fountain or something in at least their capital city?'

[Sandlemad]

RE: developing the Salamanders' culture, I liked how the FW black books looked at it. Massacre zeroed in on the Promethean cult and looked at the XVIII as a legion with a more 'spiritual' bent. I want to say religious but that's not quite it. More about how the beliefs Vulkan established influenced everything about the legion to the point of having a kind of proto-priesthood/informal order of spiritual teachers before the chaplain edict. It's accentuated further by the messianic nature of the quest that Cassian Dracos and Xiaphas Jurr go on in Retribution, and probably is there in the visual language FW pushed for the legion with their forge marks and cult sigils.

 

It's not a revolution or even particularly emphasised compared to how FW wrote about other legions, mind, just that it's an angle they took. They do emphasise that Jurr and Dracos are almost a breakaway sect, belief-wise. I think the importance of the cult is there in what I've read of Kyme's Salamander work but I didn't find it greatly meaningful. It's talked about and we see the rituals but it's not a million miles from the usual astartes outside-of-battle stuff.

[mc warhammer]

sallies were used well in 'helsreach'

[Scribe]

sallies were used well in 'helsreach'

 

I'm enough of a fanboy, I'm glad someone said it. :p

[bluntblade]

RE: developing the Salamanders' culture, I liked how the FW black books looked at it. Massacre zeroed in on the Promethean cult and looked at the XVIII as a legion with a more 'spiritual' bent. I want to say religious but that's not quite it. More about how the beliefs Vulkan established influenced everything about the legion to the point of having a kind of proto-priesthood/informal order of spiritual teachers before the chaplain edict. It's accentuated further by the messianic nature of the quest that Cassian Dracos and Xiaphas Jurr go on in Retribution, and probably is there in the visual language FW pushed for the legion with their forge marks and cult sigils.

 

It's not a revolution or even particularly emphasised compared to how FW wrote about other legions, mind, just that it's an angle they took. They do emphasise that Jurr and Dracos are almost a breakaway sect, belief-wise. I think the importance of the cult is there in what I've read of Kyme's Salamander work but I didn't find it greatly meaningful. It's talked about and we see the rituals but it's not a million miles from the usual astartes outside-of-battle stuff.

I really hope that someone like Wraight or French take up that strand in the future, when authors begin to visit odd little corners of the Heresy.

[Fedor]

The Salamanders having a spiritual side to them was something i'd say Kyme definitely did succeed in conveying for the 30k stuff.

[Scribe]

So, I picked up Curzes Primarchs book, and honestly I doubt I finish it any time soon.

 

If FW stifled any desire in me collecting the Army by removing any real difference in the Legion pre and post reunion, then the first 60 pages have completely snuffed that desire by removing any and all ambiguity from there ever being any nobility in Curze at all.

 

What an unbelievable hatchet job FW and BL have done to this section of the lore.

 

Much like how Wrath of Iron is where my Iron Hands now starts and finishes, ADBs Night Lords will seemingly be all I ever accept as head canon.

 

What a monumental waste.

 

Edit: with luck I also picked up Praetorian of Dorn. Hopefully that delivers.

Edited September 22, 2020 by Scribe

[Lord_Caerolion]

I mean, ADB's Night Lord series very much had Curze like this too, it's just that Talos covered it up with his rose-tinted glasses, and routinely got called an absolute moron for not noticing it by pretty much every other character in the series. Curze was always said to have degraded over time, and even Talos noticed that Curze had massive mental issues towards the end, routinely forgetting that Sevatar was gone, etc.

The whole theme of the third book was the bandaids being ripped off, and Talos finally acknowledging that the history of his Legion may not quite have been as he was remembering it.