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Siege of Terra - Saturnine by Dan Abnett


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Since when is Khârn first captain? He's always been the 8th assault captain.

 

Krole is an unaugmented human. Who survived the war in the webway, where even custodians were experiencing crippling fatigue from over-exertion. Who was able to perfectly keep up and support and custodian tribune.

 

Khârn should be a beast and be able to kill her. He should also notice it and have some sort of time dedicated to it. It literally happened off-screen, despite having the victim and killer have points of view. Using any content of him in the first wall for justification of his prowess isn't even credible, as it was bad fanfiction quality in the extreme. He might as well have punched her with his beefy arm and have her over-dramatically explode like a mortal combat fatality.

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Since when is Khârn first captain? He's always been the 8th assault captain.

 

Krole is an unaugmented human. Who survived the war in the webway, where even custodians were experiencing crippling fatigue from over-exertion. Who was able to perfectly keep up and support and custodian tribune.

 

Khârn should be a beast and be able to kill her. He should also notice it and have some sort of time dedicated to it. It literally happened off-screen, despite having the victim and killer have points of view. Using any content of him in the first wall for justification of his prowess isn't even credible, as it was bad fanfiction quality in the extreme. He might as well have punched her with his beefy arm and have her over-dramatically explode like a mortal combat fatality.

Eh... The Black Books and the Throne books establish that they are well-passed trained to kill Astartes easily. In fact, they are explicitly deadlier the more blessed you are (see Plague War) they are also augmented to some degree. Khârn should have been shockingly easy to dispatch, especially since Blanks work as cumulatives, so he should have been reeling from having all of those blessing yanked straight out of him.

 

And as for Krole... well 

The book has her be somewhat inhuman actually, it dates her as being from far before the Unity actually. She is powerful enough to completely strip Malcador when they meet and several hundred Sisters werent able to do that in Buried Dagger.

 

And Khârn lives in a bouncy castle girded in plot armor anyway, the setting rules dont really apply to him.

 

Also, we have kinda given up the pretense of using spoilers huh?

Edited by StrangerOrders
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SoS were mainly fighting Daemons in the Webway. Their null fields are the bane of Daemons and psykers. SoS have recently been portrayed as able to slice and dice a few SM, but nowhere on the level of someone like Ra. As you say, they support Custodes, who are the real combat monsters

 

Obviously, SoS null fields are not nearly as effective against the likes of Khârn. Krole's makes another WE recoil but has no effect on Khan. At the end of the day, she is primarily anti-Daemon/psyker specialist.

 

Still, she rather efficiently disposes of several WE before biting the dust. That is impressive within reason IMO.

Edited by b1soul
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SoS were mainly fighting Daemons in the Webway. Their null fields are the bane of Daemons and psykers. SoS have recently been portrayed as able to slice and dice a few SM, but nowhere on the level of someone like Ra. As you say, they support

 

...and their null fields are not nearly as effective against the likes of Khârn. They are primarily anti-Daemon/psyker specialists.

 

Still, Krole disposes of several WE before biting the dust. That is impressive within reason IMO.

Actually enough of them in Plague War that Plague Marines literally start feeling death cancer in their proximity (not as bad as the Null nuke that the Emp never got somehow, but still). The WEs should be pretty damned screwed without what is presumably stopping their injuries and nails from killing them (chaos blessings are still psykana per literally every source).

 

And she is powerful enough to cripple 

Malc
so are we going to now say that Malc isnt a high barrier now?

 

The result is the result and there is no changing it, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth and makes me dislike more what was already among my least liked characters.

 

Ra was a monster on a completely different level but he was fighting a foe that severely outclassed him and that book you are citing actively has Daemons fleeing from Sisters and having to rely on ambush tactics to stand a chance.

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Thats actually a great point illustrating why mortal chaos legionaries are so deadly. Demons are good Shock troops, but can be countered by in-universe characteristics like blanks. Blanks can’t really do much against legionaries. Here we see a gifted warrior cutting her way through the world eaters when the freight train that is Khârn hits her.
Edited by Marshal Rohr
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Thats actually a great point illustrating why mortal chaos legionaries are so deadly. Demons are good Shock troops, but can be countered by in-universe characteristics like blanks. Blanks can’t really do much against legionaries. Here we see a gifted warrior cutting her way through the world eaters when the freight train that is Khârn hits her.

Except, again, that chaos blessings are actively nullified.

 

Khârn on his own might be enough if he is lucky, but he sure as hell shouldn't have Khorne's help in that fight (his arm didn't get that way through serial... um... self-pleasure).

 

But Khârn will Khârn. 

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b1soul, the rear guard action was phrased as so physically ridiculous that ra was completely drained from it in MoM. It doesn't matter if it was against daemons or not, it was that physically brutal for a custodian. Also there was whack loads of world eaters in the webway. And krole came through it. She's the apex of the SoS; the equivalent of Valdor. In game terms, she would chew Khârn right up in a single round of combat. At the very least should be killed on-screen.

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Wasn’t Krole on the ship with Sister collecting all the psychic snacks for the throne?

No, they have a ruling triumvirate. 

 

Also, the Webway war was five years before MoM starts... so unless she showed up for a hot minute she was there for a while. We also dont know if the fighting in MoM was the worst, Ra was the last of the ten man Tribunate as you might recall and he was not the strongest of them.

 

She issued the command for the Fleet Mistress to do it. She was the one with badass claws for hands.

 

Can't recall what the third job was but I think it was head trainer.

 

And Spoilers.

She is at least 3 centuries old and has been campaigning for at least that long. The book notes that met the Emp before Albia was conquered.

 

She is also British, why is she British? 

Edited by StrangerOrders
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b1soul, the rear guard action was phrased as so physically ridiculous that ra was completely drained from it in MoM. It doesn't matter if it was against daemons or not, it was that physically brutal for a custodian. Also there was whack loads of world eaters in the webway. And krole came through it. She's the apex of the SoS; the equivalent of Valdor. In game terms, she would chew Khârn right up in a single round of combat. At the very least should be killed on-screen.

 

totally opposite reaction from me.

 

this isn't a footnote or handwave (which is usually what off-screen amounts to), it's the cinematic equivalent of cut to black for an intended purpose. or as tv tropes would call it BlackScreenOfDeath

 

it's to enhance dramatic effect, not water it down. the cut-to-black is the climax, not the anti-climax.

 

keep in mind, i'm the kinda reader that rolls his eyes at "special character fought special character for 8 hours straight, only beginning to tire at 07:59:05. truly this was a battle of....snorrrrreee". i'm a big fan of the roboute vs alpharius showdown from the old IA for that very reason.

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To turn this back to the positive.

 

I didnt get a chance to post this earlier but there is a badass scene where Sanguinius kills two titans,

Seriously, a Warhound and a Warlord and it isnt even shown as being that much of an effort.

I havent read Titandeath (its shamefully one of my missing books) but man was this scene awesome.

It really highlighted why Sangi is a nightmare for Titians. He is too fast and maneuverable to shoot down and once he gets to you he can zoom around you without a defense.

He stabbed the Warhound in the face with the Spear and fired its Melta into the cockpit and tackled the Warlord like a fight from Attack on Titan, zooming around its body and cutting into it before plunging his spear into the nape of its neck and firing into the head.

He then basically says 'come at me bro' to the two remaining Warhounds and they run away.

It was so badass that the PoV (Rann) more or less admits that no one is going to believe him when he retells the story.

 

Its a really badass scene.

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She is also British, why is she British? 

 

 

Because and I say this as a Canadian, this is a British game. :p

 

As to Khârn, I get what your saying. I personally love Khârn, have always been Khorne first and foremost, but your spot on that it should not have been as easy, and should certain traits should have mattered. He should have lost his 'blessings' and noted that fact, but this is Abnett.
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Tyrannicide just pointed out to me why Khârn was capable of this. She was stunned by Armothy, his Khorne enhanced arm.

Alright, that got a chuckle.

 

Another badass scene (there are so many that I am never going to finish this).

 

The Deathguard are going to do another assault on the walls and the Khan flies in leading a charge, kinda like LatD.

 

Except instead of a derpfest, this time they just utterly destroy the Traitor lines and cripple their assault for the day.

 

The great thing here is the worldbuilding and thought into it. It paints how each step of the charge both is and isnt an ancient cavalry attack, beautifully detailing how perfectly planned out and adapted each step is to make the White Scars almost artistic in how they wage war. In the end what the humans thought was a suicide charge barely inflicted any casualties (no more than one would expect from a hard fight but nothing more) and utterly routed the Traitor lines.

 

Raldoran basically squees at how well done it was while the general watching is left with his jaw on the floor.

 

The entire scene reads like an apology for the Scar's iffy showing in LatD.

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@ Stranger Orders

 

Yes, I wasn't too fond of the Khan's decision to plunge face-first into hundreds of Death Guard equipped with plague blades in LatD, but I suppose he had no idea how powerful the warp poison would be (one stab to his knee joint and he's semi-crippled)

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i'm still ok with this on reading

 

one, it makes sense that the primarch project was the latest iteration of a plan thousands of years in the making, one that had fits and starts and failures and abandonments along the way.  i find it much easier to swallow than Him one day sitting under a tree and thinking "if only i had 20 super sons" from the get go.

 

also, the description of erda as a "surrogate mother" is more palatable. it makes a certain amount of sense; of course the emp used other human contributions. what better than another powerful perpetual? and any of those contributions being female could claim "mother" as a title. otherwise, we're leaving it completely up to His "genius" to pull it off...which is kinda hand wavey in its own way.

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dont read this if you dont want to read b1souls links!

 

Page 1: NP

Page 2: Leaning into the God stuff for Ol' is big zzz from me. I agree with John though, "that's crap, and a huge disappointment..."

Page 3: Ties into Valdor. still fine.

Page 4: Meh. She takes ownership, it wasnt Chaos. EDIT: Actually, it was, Valdor all but confirms this, so reeeeeeeeeeeally. She used the Warp, powerful enough to be a 'Sorceress' or some such.

 

I insist that the Perpetual stuff is unnecessary.

 

Edited by Scribe
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Page 2: Leaning into the God stuff for Ol' is big zzz from me. I agree with John though, "that's crap, and a huge disappointment..."

 

i do feel it should have been something more appropriate like "the fully sik one" but what can you do?

 

also i learnt the word "coeval" today, so all is not lost.

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Also is anyone else feeling this arc and Valdor are just...really too close? Astartes is even mentioned, but its the same kinda thing.

 

Man finds Woman to make Super Kids.

Woman doesnt like the plan for the Super Kids, and seeks to deny them from Man.

 

Man had a plan for it all along.

 

Am I wrong?

 

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i can see that

 

or

 

emperor has a team to help with the primarch project; some members of that team have misgivings and turn against it. their genders are unimportant

 

Of course he had a team, thats been part of this the entire time. You don't see the parallels here?

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