Deathwatch Shadowbreaker

[KJB]

My only gripe about the novel was the sheer invincibility of the Deathwatch, the fact they all wear Solid Snake "Infinite Ammo" headbands, kill hundreds of Tau each with maybe 1 human trooper falling every 10 chapters....

[Red_Shift]

Well I'm a third of the way through and as predicted I can't put it down. Looks like the Tau are pretty nasty as well. Not quite the good guy faction they used to be.

[Oxydo]

My only gripe about the novel was the sheer invincibility of the Deathwatch, the fact they all wear Solid Snake "Infinite Ammo" headbands, kill hundreds of Tau each with maybe 1 human trooper falling every 10 chapters....

 

Yeah, I got annoyed at around 40% and  forced myself to about 3/4ths before I couldn't handle the stupid anymore.

 

Tau with heavy weapon teams, pulse weapons considered small arm and therefore facetanked constantly, bolters ripping through everything, lasgun tooting guardsmen charging fixed positions with zero to few causulties. I didn't feel any sort of tension after while because it was too easy and I never worried about anyone.

 

My biggest issue is the "lets torture the wife and child of this man to death infront of him" because that seemed very out of character. I can easily see the so nicely put 'enhanced interrogation techniques' being applied along with mindprobes, mind altering drugs etc, but that section just seemed to be the classic "lets show that X is bad because horrible torture".

They could even have let the genestealer infect him for the same reason they used the other humans. Just never mentioning him again after he got captured would have a been a nice sinister touch and letting the readers wonder what would happen to him.

Also, cutting off his arm with a sword, really?

 

The only redeeming factors were the Elysians and their Captain, and the infiltration parts. Those were good.

 

And I really liked the first two short stories and the previous novel.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Pulse weapons are small arms ... Shadowbreaker isn't unique in noting that man-portable Tau weaponry has difficulty doing anything to Astartes (Blades of Damocles notes this as well):

 

 

 

‘The gue’ron’sha wear armour that cannot be pierced by the shot of the pulse rifle, nor shattered by the salvos of the burst cannon. Yet their weakness is as clear as a mountain stream. They are too few in number to effect more than shock assaults. Once deployed, these strike forces are committed to a single war zone, unless their air cover pulls them out.’

.

 

Conversely, bolters do rip through pretty much all infantry.

 

While also not doing much to the larger suits, noted as only Solarion being able to do anything against the Crisis and Riptide suits...and there were only two Stormtroopers remaining at the end of the novel...how did they take no casualties? The majority of their action early was stealth and when they got caught out in the open during the airfield assault, they went down.

[Panzer]

Having finished it now I've to say the second half wasn't nearly as good as the first.

I concur with the others noting how much the Marines survive is silly. Pulse weapons are small arms, but there were a ton of them and Power armour does not completely negate all the damage. Plus it's not like they were using only small arms.

There were also lots of other units involved which gave us stuff like three Stormraves taking out most of the T'au flyers on their own and surviving tons of missiles with flares while killing Hammerheads in return with single missiles, or seriously damaging a Riptide with a Lightning Claw after dodging literally all the smart missiles the Riptide had (you know, the kind of missiles that can fly around buildings and through narrow pathways on their own to hit their target), or a Dreadnought and a single Marine together with some lasgun wielding humans taking out a whole hangar of Hammerheads while under fire, etc etc is just really silly.

 

The power levels between those two sides seemed really off. A classic case of move Marines I fear.

 

 

Also some mistakes due a lack of research like saying the Commander was a Fireblade before, Crisis suits with Rail weaponry and calling the Skyray a Skyshark.

 

I think I'll have to change my earlier statement from a definite recommendation to a "Well the first half is really good and it's at least overall better than what we get from Kelly for T'au stuff. Don't read it if you don't like movie Marines though".

[Red_Shift]

I quite like the movie marines stuff. It's a deathwatch book, I view it in the same way I do the expendables movies. Enjoy the ride and dont think about it too much. It's not canon in the same way that the horus heresy books are (imo). I do agree the last third descended into a very cinematic experience and I found it increasingly hard to take it seriously.

 

I enjoy the banter though and its an easy read.

[librisrouge]

I’m about 100 pgs into this. Does it pick up? I feel like the introduction is drawn out and I keep waiting for some kinda payoff. So far, the only interesting part was the inquisition teams fighting each other.

[Preliminary Bombardment]

I quite like the movie marines stuff. It's a deathwatch book, I view it in the same way I do the expendables movies. Enjoy the ride and dont think about it too much. It's not canon in the same way that the horus heresy books are (imo). I do agree the last third descended into a very cinematic experience and I found it increasingly hard to take it seriously.

 

I enjoy the banter though and its an easy read.

I wonder how Steve Parker is going to top this, maybe have zeed kill 100 orks using nothing but a toothpick.

[Ascanius]

I don't know enough about the Tau to spot any errors, but I thought it was a very enjoyable story. Andrew Wincott's performance was fantastic, and I really liked the way Steve Parker was able to draw the personalities of the various other Deathwatch Space Marines pretty quickly. I hope some of the members of the other squads show up in future stories.

[Indefragable]

My only gripe about the novel was the sheer invincibility of the Deathwatch, the fact they all wear Solid Snake "Infinite Ammo" headbands, kill hundreds of Tau each with maybe 1 human trooper falling every 10 chapters....

 

...well....that is what the fluff says Space Marines are supposed to be like. A single Company (~100 men) can subdue your average planet.

[Preliminary Bombardment]

Yep, doesn't translate to table top, as each marine is supposed to be as dangerous as 10 men so basically a custodian on tabletop. Army's would be tiny, and units like custodians would punch like dreadnoughts etc.