Dark Imperium 3: Godblight discussion

[DarkChaplain]

Godblight ends on "[Guilliman] returned to his wars. Imperium Nihilus awaited.", so I don't see a contradiction. He's about to head to Nihilus and Baal.

 

As for Devastation of Baal, I just flipped through the Guilliman/Dante sections and couldn't find a mention of Mortarion, or even Guilliman planning to return to Ultramar - merely back to Imperium Sanctus in general. I'm not sure the Plague Wars are even mentioned in it at all.

All that's really clear is that Guilliman is satisfied with his campaign into Imperium Nihilus after meeting with Dante, the reinforcement of the Blood Angels being the final big task he had yet to accomplish. There's even room for other story beats before he reaches Baal, after entering Nihilus.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

 

Godblight ends on "[Guilliman] returned to his wars. Imperium Nihilus awaited.", so I don't see a contradiction. He's about to head to Nihilus and Baal.

 

As for Devastation of Baal, I just flipped through the Guilliman/Dante sections and couldn't find a mention of Mortarion, or even Guilliman planning to return to Ultramar - merely back to Imperium Sanctus in general. I'm not sure the Plague Wars are even mentioned in it at all.

All that's really clear is that Guilliman is satisfied with his campaign into Imperium Nihilus after meeting with Dante, the reinforcement of the Blood Angels being the final big task he had yet to accomplish. There's even room for other story beats before he reaches Baal, after entering Nihilus.

 

 

He's about to head to Nihilus... AND STAY for a while. As he makes clear at the (new) Triumph of Raukos speech, he considers Imperium Sanctus to be reasonably stable and phase two of the Indomitus Crusade will be the pacification of Imperium Nihilius.

 

If you actually think that all happens prior to him visiting Baal, then you're making Dante take an even longer nap. There's already not time between Gilly sending a message to Dante that he actually expects to be received and Gilly showing up with his fleet at Baal to squeeze in the events of Plague War and Godblight. There's certaInly not time for Gilly to go on a mini-Crusade after Godblight and THEN visit Baal. I mean, Dante was definitely in bad shape after that final battle with the Tyranids, but he wasn't comatose for a year. The time he spent unconscious was a matter of hours at most.

 

DoB has Gilly heading home right after he visits Dante and drops off the Primaris reinforcements. Darkness in the Blood has Dante scrambling to assemble a proper Battlefleet Nihilus. Which he wouldn't be worried about if Guilliman were hanging around. There's also no mention of any pacification efforts by Guilliman having been made, It still appears to be a Wild West that hasn't benefited from heavy Imperium presence.

 

Thus DoB > DitB > DI trilogy still makes the most sense.

 

Also, the reason you don't find any references to Mortarion or Ultramar in DoB is because it was originally written to take place seventy years post-Rift. So over forty years before Guilliman ended the Crusade and had to head to Ultramar to confront Morty. Darkness in the Blood was written with the new timeline in mind. Devastation of Baal was not.

Edited June 1, 2021 by Lord Nord

[DarkChaplain]

Why do you base it on the premise that Dante was comatose? Dante dropped after Guilliman arrived at the climax of the defense against the Tyranids, and woke up with Guilliman still at Baal, not long after.

 

The entire premise of Devastation of Baal was that the system was engulfed in a warp storm which screwed with the timeline. That was true then and is true now. For the Blood Angels, the siege of Baal lasted what, weeks, maybe months? For the Imperium at large, years had passed. They'd been cut off from the rest of the galaxy and pretty much missed watching the Great Rift opening up in real time. By the time they were fortifying, the last word was still "things going down at Cadia, it be real bad, don't expect reinforcements coming home". By the time Guilliman reaches them, Cadia went the way of Alderaan and the galaxy is changed - in both versions of the timeline.

 

If anything, the warp shenanigans cutting Baal off don't even last as long anymore as they used to. They lost maybe 15 years at most, not decades.

 

When Dante passed out is quite simply not something that matters to the timeline. It wasn't a big deal. The warp storm and Ka'Bandha doing his thing account for the time it takes Guilliman to reach Baal, as it ever did. There's nothing in there preventing Guilliman from crossing over into Nihilus and having a grand odyssey on his way to Dante. All that matters is that he arrives by the time the storm lifts around the system.

 

If anything, in Devastation of Baal, Guilliman clearly tells Dante that the situation of Nihilus isn't as bad as he feared and could be salvaged by Dante, which he burdens him with.

 

Guilliman was never gonna build a vacation home in Nihilus and stick around. He had reasons to go there, and he's fulfilled them by the end of The Devastation of Baal. He's dispatched Primaris on the way there - maybe even the delegation for the Spears of the Emperor, who knows - and secured a route through the rift. That's it.

 

So what precisely in Devastation of Baal would require a rewrite in your opinion? Guilliman chatting more about what he had been up to in Nihilus until meeting Dante? Guilliman not returning home? The shoe fits as is.

Edited June 2, 2021 by DarkChaplain

[Bobss]

The strength of this series was always the unique situation Guilliman, a titan of the 31st millennium, now finds himself in, in the 41st millennium. Like if Julius Caesar, the first Qin Emperor or Mansa Musa were transported to today's times. Guilliman is the only (loyal) primarch I want to return due to all of the ''oh, how will Guilliman react to [X aspect of 40k]?'' which wouldn't be as complex for Russ, the Lion or the Khan. I think Wraight nailed this Bill & Ted-esque situation the best with the early chapters of Watchers 2, but to be completely fair Haley has been putting in the bulk of the legwork with his first two Dark Imperium entries, his Blood Angel work, Cawl project etc. These spoilers for Godblight meanwhile sound like wish-fulfilment for the types of fan who like to debate ''who would win in a fight - Khorne or Tzeentch?'' or ''here's why the tyranids will win the galaxybowl.'' I know there's glimmers of this narrative-shattering stuff in Plague War but I had hoped that would be the limit of it. This sort of thing would've been laughed out of the fandom ten years ago - now it's lauded. Maybe I'm just a 27-year old boomer who can't accept that it isn't 2004, but I feel weirdly disconnected to a lot of this

[Roomsky]

Godblight – Guy Haley

 

It surprised me how disappointed I was by this. I mentioned before I found the previous Dark Imperium books an interesting soap opera – I don’t know if I’d call them good, but I enjoyed their characters and some of the ideas found within. But if this is the pay off it all sort of seems like a waste of time.

 

 

This book is annoyingly straightforward, I thought the previous entries gave a good idea of the scale of things Guilliman is operating in, and that was done even better in Avenging Son. This by contrast reads like the last seasons of Game of Thrones, where the creators got tired of the vastness of their product and just smashed the plots and characters together in an uncharacteristically simplistic way.

 

Guilliman doesn’t have many interesting reflections on the Imperium or his father, and what is there is pretty uninspired. Mathieu has become an unambiguous hero and stops being even slightly compelling because of it. Felix remains boring, but it’s worse because there’s not really any payoff to his presence throughout this series. Mortarion barely features. It’s all just “we’re going to Iax and having a fight.”

 

Guy Haley is, I dare say, bad at writing Chaos. And I don’t really mind conceptually that the Nurgle cast are simplistic, or comedic, or mildly incompetent, or that the Emperor literally brings Guilliman back to life in the heart of Nurgle’s realm. I don’t think any of that is done well at all, the latter is barely explored despite how momentous an event it is, but I don’t hate it. What I do hate is that Ku’Gath, who despite Mortarion’s billing has been the actual main antagonist of this trilogy, who despite being first in Nurgle’s favour and who is currently manifested on a planet Nurgle has almost completely corrupted, is banished by some space marines and a guardsman shoving a sword in his eye. Seriously? A dying Cadian officer banished Nurgle’s #1 daemon with a sword in the eye? This guy should have turned into mulch for just looking at Ku’Gath in this scenario, it’s ridiculous.

 

 

To clarify, I don’t care if Nurgle loses, I don’t even care that he and his garden earned a scar by the end of it. If anyone’s ever read Plague Garden by Reynolds, a similar thing happens and it’s generally pretty awesome. But this is just Nurgle getting dunked on at every turn; (because apparently Heresy-era Emps could melt daemons that landed on Terra but Nurgle can’t do anything approaching the equal opposite,) and Haley refuses to even do anything interesting with it. What's worse is that I thought the strength of the first two was their ability to make Guilliman the hero gel with 40k's themes and atmosphere, but this just devolves into the Imperium unironically saving the day, with the gritty scenes coming across as empty lip service. I dare say the codex's version of events was much better.

 

There is stuff I liked. The pacing was good and it generally avoided filler combat – but it’s hard not to sour on effective setup when it bungles the ending so thoroughly. The whole Macragge plotline was generally great, and in the end it was all I found especially satisfying in this book. That said, it’s probably not great when Fabian and Rotigus, two non-entities for the first 2 books in your trilogy, are the highlight of the last one.

 

 

This is just a whole lot of squandered potential.

 

Diehards Only

4/10

[StrangerOrders]

Godblight – Guy Haley

 

It surprised me how disappointed I was by this. I mentioned before I found the previous Dark Imperium books an interesting soap opera – I don’t know if I’d call them good, but I enjoyed their characters and some of the ideas found within. But if this is the pay off it all sort of seems like a waste of time.

 

 

This book is annoyingly straightforward, I thought the previous entries gave a good idea of the scale of things Guilliman is operating in, and that was done even better in Avenging Son. This by contrast reads like the last seasons of Game of Thrones, where the creators got tired of the vastness of their product and just smashed the plots and characters together in an uncharacteristically simplistic way.

 

Guilliman doesn’t have many interesting reflections on the Imperium or his father, and what is there is pretty uninspired. Mathieu has become an unambiguous hero and stops being even slightly compelling because of it. Felix remains boring, but it’s worse because there’s not really any payoff to his presence throughout this series. Mortarion barely features. It’s all just “we’re going to Iax and having a fight.”

 

Guy Haley is, I dare say, bad at writing Chaos. And I don’t really mind conceptually that the Nurgle cast are simplistic, or comedic, or mildly incompetent, or that the Emperor literally brings Guilliman back to life in the heart of Nurgle’s realm. I don’t think any of that is done well at all, the latter is barely explored despite how momentous an event it is, but I don’t hate it. What I do hate is that Ku’Gath, who despite Mortarion’s billing has been the actual main antagonist of this trilogy, who despite being first in Nurgle’s favour and who is currently manifested on a planet Nurgle has almost completely corrupted, is banished by some space marines and a guardsman shoving a sword in his eye. Seriously? A dying Cadian officer banished Nurgle’s #1 daemon with a sword in the eye? This guy should have turned into mulch for just looking at Ku’Gath in this scenario, it’s ridiculous.

 

 

To clarify, I don’t care if Nurgle loses, I don’t even care that he and his garden earned a scar by the end of it. If anyone’s ever read Plague Garden by Reynolds, a similar thing happens and it’s generally pretty awesome. But this is just Nurgle getting dunked on at every turn; (because apparently Heresy-era Emps could melt daemons that landed on Terra but Nurgle can’t do anything approaching the equal opposite,) and Haley refuses to even do anything interesting with it. What's worse is that I thought the strength of the first two was their ability to make Guilliman the hero gel with 40k's themes and atmosphere, but this just devolves into the Imperium unironically saving the day, with the gritty scenes coming across as empty lip service. I dare say the codex's version of events was much better.

 

There is stuff I liked. The pacing was good and it generally avoided filler combat – but it’s hard not to sour on effective setup when it bungles the ending so thoroughly. The whole Macragge plotline was generally great, and in the end it was all I found especially satisfying in this book. That said, it’s probably not great when Fabian and Rotigus, two non-entities for the first 2 books in your trilogy, are the highlight of the last one.

 

 

This is just a whole lot of squandered potential.

 

Diehards Only

4/10

Frankly? And this is strongly at odds with all of the positives I was saying earlier. I agree.

 

If for some different reasons.

 

I went into this book very positive and I liked a great deal at the start.

 

I am generally a Haley fan, he is not top tier but I always saw him as good-to-excellent. I like his Nurgle writing, if only because I violently dislike how Daemons often come up (a really gross sounding troll face with immortality and no emotion beyond 'better than you' is not deep or scary. Its just annoying. And no, I do not care how many burned babies it is composed of or whatever. That being said Rotigus was annoying as hell and Ku'Gath got done the wrong sort of dirty.

 

But what I liked about the first two DI novels was Guilliman's PoV. I liked knowing what was in his head and frankly the vignettes with his opinions generally caught my attention more than whatever the heck the actual plot was about.

 

This book, I noticed, teetered close to the (damned stupid) idea that BL has been pushing towards of 'Emperor-fying' Guilliman by denying us his PoV wherever possible. It is baffling to me why they think this is a good idea, the Emp's situation as a meta character is not deep. Its a bandage over the fact that the authors couldnt get their :cuss together about what exactly the character was until ADB finally had to bite the bullet and say 'all of the above'.

 

This book is basically Dark Imperium without Dark Imperium. Which is very egregious to say the least for the last book of the series.

 

Mathieu and his lot were another part of this book that similarly had me deeply annoyed but I will save that for my own review. For now, I will just say that making 40k!Peter the Hermit right is as frustrating as it is disappointing.

 

That was unusually ranty for me but man, this book got me there.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

Why do you base it on the premise that Dante was comatose? Dante dropped after Guilliman arrived at the climax of the defense against the Tyranids, and woke up with Guilliman still at Baal, not long after.

 

The entire premise of Devastation of Baal was that the system was engulfed in a warp storm which screwed with the timeline. That was true then and is true now. For the Blood Angels, the siege of Baal lasted what, weeks, maybe months? For the Imperium at large, years had passed. They'd been cut off from the rest of the galaxy and pretty much missed watching the Great Rift opening up in real time. By the time they were fortifying, the last word was still "things going down at Cadia, it be real bad, don't expect reinforcements coming home". By the time Guilliman reaches them, Cadia went the way of Alderaan and the galaxy is changed - in both versions of the timeline.

 

If anything, the warp shenanigans cutting Baal off don't even last as long anymore as they used to. They lost maybe 15 years at most, not decades.

 

When Dante passed out is quite simply not something that matters to the timeline. It wasn't a big deal. The warp storm and Ka'Bandha doing his thing account for the time it takes Guilliman to reach Baal, as it ever did. There's nothing in there preventing Guilliman from crossing over into Nihilus and having a grand odyssey on his way to Dante. All that matters is that he arrives by the time the storm lifts around the system.

 

If anything, in Devastation of Baal, Guilliman clearly tells Dante that the situation of Nihilus isn't as bad as he feared and could be salvaged by Dante, which he burdens him with.

 

Guilliman was never gonna build a vacation home in Nihilus and stick around. He had reasons to go there, and he's fulfilled them by the end of The Devastation of Baal. He's dispatched Primaris on the way there - maybe even the delegation for the Spears of the Emperor, who knows - and secured a route through the rift. That's it.

 

So what precisely in Devastation of Baal would require a rewrite in your opinion? Guilliman chatting more about what he had been up to in Nihilus until meeting Dante? Guilliman not returning home? The shoe fits as is.

 

"If anything, the warp shenanigans cutting Baal off don't even last as long anymore as they used to. They lost maybe 15 years at most, not decades."

 

I KNOW this. I've never NOT known this. YOU were the one who was looking for references in DoB for Gilly being in a hurry to return to Ultramar to deal with Morty. I was the one who had to explain to you that DoB was written BEFORE the timeline was changed and thus there was no need for Haley to stack those events close to each other when he had over a hundred years of Crusade time to play with and could therefore set them decades apart. It would be pretty hard for me to do that if I was unaware of the timeline change, wouldn't it? I literally used the phrase "new timeline" in my explanation to you.

 

Oof.

 

For about the third time, I will make the point that when Guilliman sent the message in Plague War, he clearly expected it to be able to be received by Dante. UNLIKE all of the messages that were sent when Baal was enveloped by warp storms.

 

Thus, Baal was ALREADY free of the warp shenanigans. Otherwise he has zero reason to expect the message to get through. And it is a message, with a courier. NOT an astropathic signal. So it's not the "He is coming" message that was received by Jerrod Leeter. And that was the ONLY message received in DoB prior to Gilly showing up in person.

 

If Baal is reachable as of Plague War, then the ending of Devastation of Baal MUST have already happened.

 

And (again) if Guilliman is just going to cross back to Imperium Sanctus at the end of his visit with Dante, then his pledge to secure Imperium Nihilius with Imperium Sanctus now having been stabilized would mean that he did that BEFORE going to Baal. Which REALLY puts the lie to that "He is coming" message if he not only dawdled around in Ultramar for "several months" after sending the message, but now spends even more time in Imperium Nihilus before going to Baal.

 

Plus (again) even if you want to plead that the warp storm was still going and the message he sent with the Rogue Trader WAS the same astropathic signal received in DoB, it would mean that Guilliman farted around fully knowing exactly when he would need to show up in order to be there just as the warp storms cleared - even with Gilly's warp-calming power that's a little too "just as planned" even for GW... plus it still doesn't explain why he wouldn't make Baal his first stop after crossing the Rift. 

 

And we KNOW Guilliman didn't engage in any significant pacification of Nihilus because as of Darkness in the Blood Dante is basically building Battlefleet Nihilus from the ground up and there's no mention of any such efforts to secure the region outside Baal by Guilliman.

 

I don't know why you're refusing to get this, but I can't make it much clearer.

Edited June 2, 2021 by Lord Nord

[DukeLeto69]

Oh wow I am sooooo glad I decided to wait for paperbacks. Disappointing to read these reviews/spoilers because after the double whammy of The Avenging Son and Flesh & Steel I had high hopes.

[Ishagu]

Why are you reading spoilers if you intend to get the book?

[DukeLeto69]

Why are you reading spoilers if you intend to get the book?

Because Brother I am weak willed

[Ishagu]

You do realise that any plot details summarised and coloured by someone else are not going convey the true quality of the material.

 

I can summarise Lord of the Rings and make it sound underwhelming.

[SkimaskMohawk]

You do realise that any plot details summarised and coloured by someone else are not going convey the true quality of the material.

 

I can summarise Lord of the Rings and make it sound underwhelming.

Never stops you from unequivocally loving every release eh?

 

Also kind of ignoring the fact that everyone who's more than halfway through and finished it are kind of agreeing.

[Ishagu]

I've actually not finished the book yet, and have avoided all spoilers.

 

Yes, it's risky even being in this topic lol

[Noserenda]

I mean some of us can compartmentalise and deal with spoilers. A good review helps to avoid wasting a tight budget, cant buy most of what i want, dont want to spend time and money on something not good, especially when itll be in a humble bundle or something for pennies a little down the line.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

I loved it. A great end to the DI trilogy, especially after it unfortunately got shifted in the timelines, some really great lore stuff in it.

Loved how the Emperor shows up in Guilliman's flashback and when he goes ham on Nurgle's garden, that was great stuff.

[DarkChaplain]

I mean some of us can compartmentalise and deal with spoilers. A good review helps to avoid wasting a tight budget, cant buy most of what i want, dont want to spend time and money on something not good, especially when itll be in a humble bundle or something for pennies a little down the line.

 

Pretty much this. Knowing the gist of the story can either lead to a bump-up in the priority list, or a bump down. The direction obviously depends both on the content itself and the way the spoilers are conveyed (in aggregate).

 

Often I'd rather have a few spoilers ahead of a read to better anticipate plot movements and character development - and if the spoilers are enough to make me scratch my head, chances are, I'd be better off dampening my excitement anyway, which means I don't need to run out and get the book/game and can take it easy on all the stuff I'm reading or mean to read at the moment.

 

Cliffnote spoilers aren't enough to adequately quantify the quality of a book or story, but they can help with personal decisions and planning.

 

There are books I'll avoid spoilers on, and those are generally the ones that deal in mystery to begin with, like Warhammer Horror, Crime or Fehervari's works - or more recently Penitent. Those are best experienced fresh - heck, I'll even go as far as to actively avoid reviews and in-depth interview content ahead of time - but for most 40k books, I find this to be unnecessary.

 

If anything, having a decent twist spoiled will make me more interested in putting up with the action setpieces most BL mainline books keep throwing at the reader. At least then I know there's some sort of payoff somewhere throughout, rather than just being another generic Bolter Porn action flick or new model showcase. If there's something affecting the scope of the setting, then at the very least it's worth reading for that aspect at some point.

[DukeLeto69]

You do realise that any plot details summarised and coloured by someone else are not going convey the true quality of the material.

 

I can summarise Lord of the Rings and make it sound underwhelming.

I suspect I am long enough in the tooth and been around the block enough times to deduce that yes.

 

However, while folks like Abnett, ADB, Farrer, Wraight and Fehervari would be “buy the hardback no hesitation and avoid spoilers at all costs” the rest of the BL authors are more on a case-by-case basis for me!

[mc warhammer]

You do realise that any plot details summarised and coloured by someone else are not going convey the true quality of the material.

 

I can summarise Lord of the Rings and make it sound underwhelming.

two besties take a long walk to throw a ring off a mountain. fail.

 

sounds great to me

[Fedor]

The strength of this series was always the unique situation Guilliman, a titan of the 31st millennium, now finds himself in, in the 41st millennium. Like if Julius Caesar, the first Qin Emperor or Mansa Musa were transported to today's times. Guilliman is the only (loyal) primarch I want to return due to all of the ''oh, how will Guilliman react to [X aspect of 40k]?'' which wouldn't be as complex for Russ, the Lion or the Khan. I think Wraight nailed this Bill & Ted-esque situation the best with the early chapters of Watchers 2, but to be completely fair Haley has been putting in the bulk of the legwork with his first two Dark Imperium entries, his Blood Angel work, Cawl project etc. These spoilers for Godblight meanwhile sound like wish-fulfilment for the types of fan who like to debate ''who would win in a fight - Khorne or Tzeentch?'' or ''here's why the tyranids will win the galaxybowl.'' I know there's glimmers of this narrative-shattering stuff in Plague War but I had hoped that would be the limit of it. This sort of thing would've been laughed out of the fandom ten years ago - now it's lauded. Maybe I'm just a 27-year old boomer who can't accept that it isn't 2004, but I feel weirdly disconnected to a lot of this

 

I've no particular liking for what the fanbase was like 10-15 years as compared to the current one, but i tend to agree about feeling disconnected. i just can't get into these big sweeping current event by the big players all moving the plot forward stories. Dawn of Fire, Dark Imperium, or just stuff in general that is heavily weighted to depicting big GW studio lore events...

 

The heresy series is enough of that vibe for me. I prefer my 40k stagnant and lower-scale. I've ended up with a big backlog of Horror and Crime imprint stories to get through, while being satisfied with just reading spoilers for the majority of post-rift books.

Edited June 3, 2021 by Fedor

[Red_Shift]

I loved it. I find Haley very easy to read and I think he writes daemons very well. Normally I wade through or skip stories with too much daemon shenanigans, particularly shorts in anthologies but somehow his portrayal doesn’t jar with me as much. Some satisfying conclusions to previous story arcs and hints of new ones to come at the end.

 

I was slightly disappointed that they shut down hints of other primarchs returning rather than dropped a tantalising hint but I wasn’t necessarily expecting a reveal there. It does make me wonder if we are being set up for the next story development with 40k, with the conclusions of this and pariah.

[Ishagu]

I just finished Godblight.

 

It was the best in the trilogy, and I'm not sure how anyone can be disappointed or upset?

I suppose if your only interest in the story is some revelation, and not the story or the journey itself then you might be let down.

 

But even so, this was an absolute ride. The trilogy of books left me exhausted and battered but in a good way. It feels like coming to the end of Lord of the Rings but with even higher stakes.

 

The implications and foundations for future stories laid down by this book are pretty Earth shattering for the universe itself. I just hope someone from BL is bold enough to pick the story threads up again in the near future!

Edited June 5, 2021 by Ishagu

[Roomsky]

I just finished Godblight.

 

It was the best in the trilogy, and I'm not sure how anyone can be disappointed or upset?

I suppose if your only interest in the story is some revelation, and not the story or the journey itself then you might be let down.

 

But even so, this was an absolute ride. The trilogy of books left me exhausted and battered but in a good way. It feels like coming to the end of Lord of the Rings but with even higher stakes.

 

The implications and foundations for future stories laid down by this book are pretty Earth shattering for the universe itself. I just hope someone from BL is bold enough to pick the story threads up again in the near future!

 

For all the interesting setup in the first two books I found the payoff pretty lackluster. I thought the characterization weaker for basically all involved, Nurgle's forces completely shafted, and the plot much thinner than in the last two. But to each their own of course - I agree with your sentiment above that people should probably read the book for themselves.

 

Looks like it's going to be a divisive one!

[Ishagu]

I felt different. The sheer damage and the difficulty faced by the Imperium in overcoming Nurgle was staggering.

 

The only way Nurgle would get a better showing was if they won. And keep in mind that Nurgle himself had his sights on the Ghoul Stars and not Ultramar.

 

There were so many interesting parts, players and discussions.

 

Some things didn't have a categorical resolution, but we can't get that without immediate change to the status quo.

[Lord Nord in Gravis Armour]

Remember Typhus is still out there (presumably he will eventually make his way to the Charadon War Zone) and Rotigus is on the rise.

 

I expected they'd go in the direction they did with Mortarion. Outright permakilling him was really out of the question, but given that he's one of the less memorable primarchs and Typhus is a capable figurehead, GW may well decide to let him flounder in the warp for a while. I'm sure things would have turned out differently if his model was only one or two years old. One might speculate that GW's Death Guard push in the model line is largely done and they'll be moving on to the World Eaters or Emperor's Children now. Might that be the reason we haven't had the 9th Edition of the CSM Codex, as one or both of those chapters is set to be spun off into their own expanded range and separate codex?

 

It will be interesting to see how the contention that the Emperor is awakening due to the Rift plays against Guilliman's desire to see Cawl stitch the Rift shut using Blackstone tech. We're told it will still be decades before he's even ready to try (of course, that was BEFORE Cawl's download of Necron info in The Great Work). Will we ever see a moment where Gilly has to choose between allowing his Father to return or closing the Rift? Right now, he's not convinced the former is even a possibility, but he may be by the time Cawl is ready to commence substantial reduction of the Rift.

[godking]

Just finished it loved it.

 

About as good an ending as one could get for this trilogy

 

Mortarion is still stone stupid after 10000 years

 

Though Matthieu is gone the implications of his actions will linger

 

Loved the discussion about the implications of godhood