The Arks of Omen - the Lore

[Kelborn]

Greetings fellow damned souls of 40k lore,

 

As mentioned in the Lion thread, we can happily and peacefully (ha...As if ;P) discuss the entire lore of the now concluded Arks of Omen series.

 

Please use spoiler tags for the fifth iteration, i.e. the Lion book.

Especially as only 5% of the community had the chance to get them without paying the scalpers.

 

What's  good? What's not? Do you think GW will continue to build upon It?

 

What might be next? 

 

And please, no power Primarch duel discussions. Both Pirmarchs had their own books to shine and they're not fun to talk about anymore after the 1xxxx th time.

 

Cheers,

Kel

[b1soul]

 

 

For those who don't have the book yet but are interested in the broadstrokes lore.

[44er Tabletop]

Though we know that one of next editions "main" stories, will be about a Tyranid war, i would personally really like to have more story around Vashtorr.

The overall appearance in this books could be a hint that we see a storyline develop around him.

IMO Vashtorr is a cool character and has a awesome model. 

 

Also i have read rumors, referring to a "Dark Admech Codex".

It would be so cool, if Vashtorr would be connected to this and have a codex for "Dark Admech/Daemon Engines" (although we dont know yet, how the codex thing will work in the future).  

[ZeroWolf]

That's what I'm betting on personally, that Vashtorr will become connected to the dark mechanicum and will assist him in his grand endeavour.

 

Regarding the Arks stuff, I felt like only the odd numbered books actually mattered (with the murder curse probably being the only exception but I'm iffy on that)

 

Spoiler

I'm hoping that the old one weapon that Vashtorr is wanting to find, is actually a trap of some kind  rather than an instant win button for Abaddon...not that GW will do anything with it till the end of 10th probably.

 

Also if Belial doesn't cross the rubicon, I'll be surprised. Same with the redeemed really (to borrow Valrak's term), that will probably be a new DA unit.

 

There will be new story potential there.

 

Ultimately, I didn't go in expecting the nid invasion storyline set up so I'm content with what we did get.

[Moonreaper666]

5 hours ago, ZeroWolf said:

That's what I'm betting on personally, that Vashtorr will become connected to the dark mechanicum and will assist him in his grand endeavour.

 

Regarding the Arks stuff, I felt like only the odd numbered books actually mattered (with the murder curse probably being the only exception but I'm iffy on that)

 

  Hide contents

I'm hoping that the old one weapon that Vashtorr is wanting to find, is actually a trap of some kind  rather than an instant win button for Abaddon...not that GW will do anything with it till the end of 10th probably.

 

Also if Belial doesn't cross the rubicon, I'll be surprised. Same with the redeemed really (to borrow Valrak's term), that will probably be a new DA unit.

 

There will be new story potential there.

 

Ultimately, I didn't go in expecting the nid invasion storyline set up so I'm content with what we did get.

 

My guess is that due to how overstretched Guilliman and everyone else is the Lion will be tasked with fighting the Nids in Segmentum West/Pacificus with more Primaris cannon fodder and other support by Cawl

 

Then another Daemon Primarch shows up to fight both Lion and the Tyranids. Then the Orks, Eldar, Tau and Necrons get involved

 

Maybe Fulgrim vs Lion. He would enjoy 'playing' and curbstomping/humiliating another Primarch

[ZeroWolf]

I'm sure we'll probably get another roboute v fullgrim fight first but that will be when the EC codex launches at the end of 10th.

[Marshal Valkenhayn]

I can imagine it now:

 

Fullgrim: "I am perfection!"

Roboute: "You're a dumb stupid head."

Fullgrim: "No!"

Roboute: "Dumb dumb dummy stupid!"

Fullgrim: "NOOOO!"

Roboute: "Also you're ugly!"

Fullgrim: "BLEGH." *dies*

 

GW should hire me to write for them. My version will probably be better than what we actually get.

[SkimaskMohawk]

Alright, so I finished son of the forest, and I'll do a proper review of that book in that thread when it's reopened; I definitely contributed to it's locking with debating the whole "lion fights daemon angron and wins way more easily than most primarchs, despite being old" bit. Sorry about that, I'll keep it here.

 

Spoiler

One of the arguments raised was the complainers were saying the lion should have been degraded by age, but that he's in reality he's still a primarch and the complainers were over selling the age bit.

 

But in SotF, the lion thinks about the difference in his abilities and initially thinks it's sorcery:

 

Quote

 

He finds himself wanting.

 

   They are minor differences, in truth. He is slightly slower, his blows carry a little less force, and his stamina does not seem to be quite what it once was. He is ready to fight again, he could still fight for hours against such opponents, but he can feel the difference.

 

   ‘There is some malady at work here,’ he says. ‘I am slower than I should be. Curze would have my flesh off my bones,’ 

 

 

 

And

 

Quote

‘Your sorcerer is dead. What must I do to rid myself of this malady that impedes me?’

 

‘There is no malady at work here, my lord. You simply got old.’

 

Kinda telling that he thinks the difference is enough for curze to have killed him back in the day.

 

Another take was that the lion was specially positioned to be good at fighting angron (over, say, sang) because he dealt with the great beasts, and the great beasts were more impressive than...anything else primarchs faced down on their homeworlds or during the crusade.

 

And yet, the lion thinks the following:

 

Quote

Great Beasts were fearsome, but they were fearsome to the knights of Caliban who, for all their bravery and martial skill, were not power-armoured Space Marines with genuine bolt weaponry.

 

So, the great beasts arent fearsome for the average space marine. Theyre maliciously intelligent, but so is basically everything fought in the crusade or heresy. 

 

2 cents on the whole thing; the build up of the modern lion shouldn't really result in that result of man-fighting angron. Ya ya, the studio sucks at writing and gathering storm was worse. 

 

[Arkangilos]

My solution is still just to say it was that shield did it, and it was accidental that he won.

 

Like not to take away from his skill, but it was more an unexpected fluke.

[wecanhaveallthree]

I'd definitely argue Gathering Storm (and the whole Dark Imperium arc, but y'know) was far superior.

 

Guilliman wakes up and beats up some CSM. He has to deal with some daemonic shenanigans from Fulgrim, but this is all pretty wheelhouse stuff, nothing crazier than the Heresy or the Scouring. He's feeling pretty confident in getting back to Terra, chatting with dad and getting the Imperium back up. Thence follows a whole conga line of Guilliman getting his ass kicked. Kairos captures him. He loses his flagship. Skarbrand turns up to kill him (and everybody else). Magnus tricks him. They end up on the moon and he's pulled out of the fire by the scrambled deployment of basically everything in Sol. Terra is besieged (again). Guilliman barely scrapes through by the absolute skin of his teeth, and his whole worldview is totally shaken by the time he comes out of the throne room. He then proceeds to just get completely outplayed by Mortarion over three books because he simply hasn't adapted to the 'new reality' of things. 

 

Guilliman came back totally reliant on alien tech, with provably outdated views that got him slapped down time and time again until he learned from them.

 

Guilliman loses to two Primarchs and nearly gets outfoxed by a not-even-present Fulgrim, while being paranoid about Lorgar the whole time. The Lion just wakes up and starts kicking ass, because he's not actually debilitated or changed, he's just had a makeover.

[SkimaskMohawk]

The events of gathering storm might be more exciting, but the writing was absolutely abysmal.

 

The dark imperium trilogy shares a lot of Mike brooks issues of enjoyable moments masked by bad ones, except there's way more bolter porn. And way worse writing, especially in godblight, where it's mostly all terrible and the good moments are the exceptions.

 

"Stuff" happening doesn't trump good character moments, and especially not good writing. 

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk

[Ubiquitous1984]

I’ve been looking all week to buy AOO: Lion.  I even rocked up to Warhammer Fest yesterday hoping to buy a copy (apparently they only had two, and sold them pretty much immediately).

 

It’s even more frustrating because I was there at 9:55 on the day of release to buy a copy (and the novel) but the website foiled me.