In the garden of Ghosts

[Blindhamster]

So, I just watched this, I have to say I absolutely loved it, it was surprisingly hard hitting for a 17 minute episode. Animation is so-so as is the norm for hammer & bolter, but it was an excellent little watch.

 

For those interested, my run-through of the episode:

 

basic narrative is an eldar warlock returning to his decimated craftworld with a ranger and an "old warrior" (striking scorpion exarch).

 

He touches things and sees visions of the past, as he does so you get some interesting sights of what an eldar craftworld would be like, then he meets up with the old warrior and they find the "corpse" of an avatar of khaine, he touches that and relives its final moments essentially buying time for the few eldar survivors of a space marine invasion to flee.

 

Warlocks ranger companion is concerned as he seems lost in visions and runs off, the exarch says the visions were his purpose for coming. You then see more of what the warlock is seeing. A female eldar running with a child in her arms, a group of guardians (eldar who aren't warriors but drafted in to protect craftworlds when needed) covering the retreat of other civilians, the leader of the guardians says about buying the others time and the woman puts the child down - you realise the child is the warlock and she kisses him on the head and tells him to run.

 

she then turns and faces the space marines beside what is implied to probably be her husband, who gets blown apart by a bolt round, she is then strangled and cast aside.

 

switches back to the ranger catching up to the warlock, him frantically searching the place his mother had been thrown, and retrieving her spirit stone (eldar use these to stop slaanesh eating their souls, by trapping their souls in the gems instead - similar to what happens to owners of moonblades in D&D actually).

 

He finds it and it switches to the scene the episode started with, him staring at a spirit gem, which he puts into a wraith lord (war construct), it speaks with is mothers voice, saying its so cold, sounds panicked as it cannot see and then realises she died and pleads to know the fate of her son, asking if he survived. He kisses his fingers and places them to the now kneeling wraith lords head in the same way she did before making him run on alone, and confirms he did.

 

the music throughout is exceptionally well chosen, very melancholy.

 

The portrayal of space marines is good as they aren't portrayed heroically but instead are blunt instruments of destruction that just murder everything in sight - accurate for how they fight, but easy to forget. There's also a good fight between a space marine leader and the old warrior earlier in the episode but really the episode was great due to the quite grown up narrative it follows. Impressive for a 17ish minute episode.

[Halandaar]

This was my favourite animated content they've put out so far.

 

Although I only found out after watching it, you can tell an actual decent writer ( AD-B ) worked on it.

Edited January 20, 2022 by Halandaar

[Blindhamster]

Yeah short and concise storytelling that managed to get a lot of weight into it still, really excellent and made up for the lower quality animation style of hammer & bolter

[General Strike]

It is actually what made me decide to start an Eldar army, that and a bunch of new models. It made me see them differently than most stuff Ive seen.

[Slave to Darkness]

 

 

Although I only found out after watching it, you can tell an actual decent writer ( AD-B ) worked on it.

Maybe thats why I liked it even though Hammer and Bolter didnt do it for me, the actual plot was good. The dying Avatar scene actually made me stop what I was doing to pay full attention, something so powerful and mighty being ended so swiftly, just like the glorious Eldar race itself. Wholesome moment with the Spirit/Mother at the end, good episode. Dare I say I actually enjoyed it. Cant wait to see what else AD-B can bring to the table. 

[Magos Takatus]

I have to agree there's been some good episodes recently and they are improving. This was the one out of all of them I was looking forward to, even more so than Kill Protocol. The "cheap" animation in places was the only thing I was critical of, some of the battle scenes were pretty good. I thought the story/voices were excellent and pretty moving.