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Lovable Luciferian posted:Will I miss a lot of important stuff if I skip Descent of Angels in the Horus Heresy series? I can barely give it a couple of pages a day, and those couple of pages make me want to Luthor feels marginalized by Johnson, almost let's some Xenos blow up a ship Johnson and some angels were on because his ego kept him from doing what was right, but he did it anyways. Johnson doesn't trust him now so he sends him back to Caliban. While there Luthor overhauls how marines are made, gets production way up, pushing up DA numbers, but he has a cult of personality with the new marines because he and the other originals sent back have a personal bond with them and Johnson is far away and emotionally closed off. Part of the way Luthor was able to do this was draw on the old way of training knights (who prior to Johnson's arrival as a child defended men from warp spawned beasts) leading to him dabbling in old warp lore. Between Istavaans Johnson stops some Horus loyalists from stealing some of those gigantic not seen since crazy rear end 3rd edition games land battleship siege engines. He turns them over to perturbo, good call. Night Lords start their crusade and the DA get sent to stop them. After a showdown with Cruze to talk that ends with them beating the hell out of each other, Johnson splits his forces to give chase against Cruze's split forces. Johnson and his personal fleet get blown off course and stuck in a system with Cruze and his personal fleet by a warp storm, Johnson and the DA capture the Night Lords and use their Xenos tech engines to leave the system. They eventually arrive at Ultramar and link up with the Imperium Secundus. So we have Luthor, nursing a grudge and dabbling with old warp lore and techniques on the Terra side of the galaxy commanding Dark Angels to hunt down Night Lords and defend Terra, and Johnson on the far side of the galaxy, drawing up plans to attack his brothers and joining with a replacement Empire. Luthor is politically loyal but appears to be warp corrupted, Johnson could be viewed as politically turned but is free of the touch of the warp. There is a personal grudge between them and a lot if hurt feelings and distrust, setting the stage for the eventual showdown. There, I saved you 2 bad books, 1 narratively necessary but a bore to read book, and 2 kickass short stories
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Jun 16, 2014 21:37
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Sulecrist posted:Mine came in the mail last week but I was still working on The First Heretic. Finished that last night, so I'm starting the omnibus tonight. Very excited. He is briefly in a short story in Mark of Calth, but that's it
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Jun 16, 2014 21:38
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Sulecrist posted:Mine came in the mail last week but I was still working on The First Heretic. Finished that last night, so I'm starting the omnibus tonight. Very excited. i like betrayer alot more then i thought i would. Angron is an interesting, if hosed up character and i almost started feeling bad for him because of how broken he was. I need to pick up first heretic because i always liked logar and now i need to get the night lords omnibus.
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Jun 17, 2014 04:52
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pengun101 posted:i like betrayer alot more then i thought i would. Angron is an interesting, if hosed up character and i almost started feeling bad for him because of how broken he was. I need to pick up first heretic because i always liked logar and now i need to get the night lords omnibus. ADB has a way to make you feel for the 'bad' guys. When those Night Lords were literally skinning children and beating down stone walls with their frail skinless bodies all I could think of was 'gosh, I really hope Talos gets some gratification out of this'. He also made Angron look like a sad, broken persona, completely misunderstood and abused by both his father and brothers.
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Jun 17, 2014 08:40
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I always kinda felt bad for Angron considering how he was "rescued" but man reading that and the short story contained in the anthology really made me feel bad for him. Always made me wonder what the hell the Emperor was thinking
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Jun 17, 2014 10:37
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Mikojan posted:ADB has a way to make you feel for the 'bad' guys. Night Lords trilogy spoiler ho! My sympathies only stretched so far. I was sad about Urzas, but I also really wanted the Eldar to win. Cos they'd just about reached the end of my "giving a poo poo" line.
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Jun 17, 2014 10:46
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UberJumper posted:Aren't new Chaos Space Marines created from a horrific process? That involves pregnant demons or something insane? I thought space marines were vat grown, especially now a days. Chaos space marines are just mortal chaos cultists that are converted to space marines by conventional means, then chaosified.
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Jun 17, 2014 11:01
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vigorous sodomy posted:I thought space marines were vat grown, especially now a days. Nope. Space Marines are recruited as young boys then indoctrinated and genetically modified. The process to become a Marine has to start at childhood, due to the stresses the procedure places on the body. CSMs are usually veterans of the original legions (remember, each legion numbered in the tens of thousands.) Some of the stories mention that new CSMs are created in vats or some weird daemon hybrid womb thing, usually using stolen geneseed. Cultists are just cultists - cannon fodder at best.
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Jun 17, 2014 13:29
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Now I really want to see a CSM warband that gets new members by showing up to recruitment planets and pretending to be whatever Chapter normally recruits from there. "Alright everyone time for junior varsity Ultramarines tryouts, step right this way..." Who am I kidding, this already exists. 
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Jun 17, 2014 14:07
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berzerkmonkey posted:Nope. Space Marines are recruited as young boys then indoctrinated and genetically modified. The process to become a Marine has to start at childhood, due to the stresses the procedure places on the body. CSMs are usually veterans of the original legions (remember, each legion numbered in the tens of thousands.) Some of the stories mention that new CSMs are created in vats or some weird daemon hybrid womb thing, usually using stolen geneseed. Cultists are just cultists - cannon fodder at best. Night Lords has a bit about the process of making new CSM's being particularly troublesome and their apothecary spends much time (and many lives) trying to make it work. The training of new loyalist Astartes is detailed in the Brothers of the Snake book. Toughest of the tough beat other toughest of the tough to earn the right to get a gene seed etc.
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Jun 17, 2014 15:04
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Angry Lobster posted:Actually it depends on the Legion/Warband. There's people who uses cloning technology, like Fabius Bilis. Others do it old school, like in ADB's Night Lords trilogy, where they do the traditional implantation system. Inevitably, some use chaos shenanigans and other warp-fuelled nightmares worthy of appearing in a porn japanese animu/manga, That was so weirdly sexist and gross and utterly uncomfortable to read. Not uncomfortable in a challenging way, just in a "Graham McNeil definitely has some issues" sort of way. I'm glad Graham got better by the time the Heresy series rolled around.
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Jun 17, 2014 15:18
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Plavski posted:Night Lords has a bit about the process of making new CSM's being particularly troublesome and their apothecary spends much time (and many lives) trying to make it work. The whole Space Marine creation thing is not too bad from a technobabble standpoint and the whole setup is kind of cute and intentionally at once appeals to and parodies their userbase - they select only the toughest 12 year olds in the galaxy and make them into sexless ultrabuff super-soldier manchildren forever, an eternity of guns and war with no icky girls allowed. It appeals to the target audience of 10-15 year olds, who are free to imagine that they too might have been able to be selected if they were in the far future fighting real battles instead of little model ones, while also serving as a bit of a joke to older people.
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Jun 17, 2014 15:38
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Plavski posted:I'm interested in another viewpoint now - no more Space Marines or IG for a while if possible. Are Gav Thorpe's Eldar books any good? Are there any other decent xenos-based books kicking around? Thorpe' Eldar books are terrible, but Andy Chambers' Dark Eldar series is pretty good.
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Jun 17, 2014 15:41
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vigorous sodomy posted:I thought space marines were vat grown, especially now a days. It really depends look at this lovely fluff: http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Daemonculaba#.U6BeZ_ldXZE  quote:The system began with the fattening of human female slaves, who were shackled in cages and force-fed nutrients, widening their bodies to grotesque proportions; these women became part of the Daemonculaba's birthing wombs. Their insides were altered and chemistry wired by the Savage Morticians (possibly members of the Dark Mechanicus), utilising the captured gene-seed. The exact science is vague, but by taking an adolescent child and sealing him within the stomach of one of the enslaved women, the process would either transform the child into an Astartes, or mutate horribly and create an abomination. Either way, the candidate is reborn later without flesh. If the freshly born creature passes inspection, the new recruit is clothed in flesh carved from human male slaves, whose skin had been stretched considerably to vast expanses. If it fails, the reject is cast out through the fortress' sewer system. Some of these rejects survive, however, and become scavenger-hunter creatures known as the Unfleshed.
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Jun 17, 2014 16:29
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UberJumper posted:It really depends look at this lovely fluff: So, Axlotl tanks? Doesn't surprise me that 40k writers decided to make a ridiculously hamfisted reference, without any of the damning social commentary contained in the original work.
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Jun 17, 2014 16:36
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UberJumper posted:It really depends look at this lovely fluff: Yep, that's from Dead Sky, Black Sun. God that book's horrendous. Graham McNeil has some unresolved issues with his mother.
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Jun 17, 2014 16:41
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SRM posted:Yep, that's from Dead Sky, Black Sun. God that book's horrendous. Graham McNeil has some unresolved issues with his mother. I did really enjoy the Iron warrior novels by Graham McNeil, so It looks like I will have to suffer through that book just to get some more backstory on Honsou. Storm of Iron really shows the contempt the Iron Warriors have for regular mortals, yet it somehow makes you root for the evil guys anyway.
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Jun 17, 2014 17:23
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iminay posted:I did really enjoy the Iron warrior novels by Graham McNeil, so It looks like I will have to suffer through that book just to get some more backstory on Honsou. Storm of Iron really shows the contempt the Iron Warriors have for regular mortals, yet it somehow makes you root for the evil guys anyway.
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Jun 17, 2014 17:39
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SRM posted:That was so weirdly sexist and gross and utterly uncomfortable to read. Not uncomfortable in a challenging way, just in a "Graham McNeil definitely has some issues" sort of way. I'm glad Graham got better by the time the Heresy series rolled around. That's debatable... i mean so long as he doesn't do another emperor's children book.
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Jun 17, 2014 17:44
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Kharn_The_Betrayer posted:That's debatable... i mean so long as he doesn't do another emperor's children book. Wasn't the horrible short story about Fulgrim and the "Pear of Anguish" McNeill's work too?
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Jun 17, 2014 18:00
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Yup that's his.
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Jun 17, 2014 18:23
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Angry Lobster posted:Wasn't the horrible short story about Fulgrim and the "Pear of Anguish" McNeill's work too? Don't forget the prequel to the Vengeful Spirit. Whose punchline is "Incest!".
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Jun 17, 2014 18:31
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Honestly, creation of CSM seems alot like orcs from LOTR to me. Once pure creatures turned into broken, corrupted and often ageless monsters who do nothing but kill and scheme.
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Jun 18, 2014 03:16
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UberJumper posted:Don't forget the prequel to the Vengeful Spirit. Whose punchline is "Incest!". Personally I think McNiell just got around to watching Game of Thrones.
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Jun 18, 2014 03:25
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SRM posted:I love Storm of Iron, but Dead Sky, Black Sun is pretty awful. Storm of Iron is the quintessential stupidly huge 40k novel. There's hundreds of dreadnoughts in one charge. There's titans having a swordfight. The officers of two opposing armies have a swordfight while a nuclear bomb goes off behind them. It's ridiculous and I love it. As much as I love all the small scale stuff, the huge epic battles are what makes 40k such an awesome reading experience. Also the main reason why I felt Necropolis was one of the best Gaunt's Ghost novels. 40k is supposed to feel/read as epic.
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Jun 18, 2014 19:33
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You know, for a trilogy centered around a pack of posthuman terrorist slavers who count among their ranks the daemon-touched, cannibals, and the insane, Night Lords managed to make me really forget just how horrible the protagonists are until the last book.
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Jun 18, 2014 21:00
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PantsOptional posted:You know, for a trilogy centered around a pack of posthuman terrorist slavers who count among their ranks the daemon-touched, cannibals, and the insane, Night Lords managed to make me really forget just how horrible the protagonists are until the last book. By the end of the third book I started questioning why I even liked these shits in the first place. But then Urzas 
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Jun 18, 2014 22:12
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Plavski posted:By the end of the third book I started questioning why I even liked these shits in the first place. But then Urzas Or basically, you liked them until the end because ADB is really good at his job.
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Jun 18, 2014 22:24
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Fried Chicken posted:You liked them because Talos is incredibly deluded and provides framing that overrides most of their terrible actions, which only peak through a bit when they exceeded his capacity for denial or he was called out on being deluded until, as he is steadily incapacitated and isn't providing the framing, their horrific natures leak through by the third book. For sure. The human characters in the book were waking up to the horrors of the Night Lords just as the human readers were. He builds the third book to a really nice narrative crescendo and makes your disgust fester. I was glad to be finished though - I'm reading Titanicus now as I realised I had to see the good guys beat on Chaos for a bit to even it out.
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Jun 18, 2014 22:40
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Night Lords are all closet slaneshi worshippers with their fondness of live skinning and horror spreading. Their probably the least likable of the traitor legions when you learn they're all just murderers as a result of being brought up on planet Nostramo: Planet Murder/Rape/Kill. ADB did a good job in making a few likable characters, but on the whole the NL are inexcusably evil. Most Likable: Word Bearers. Lorgar would have been content just traveling the universe telling all life how cool his dad is, but no. Big E wants an empire of slaves. . Thousand Sons . World Eaters . . . . . . Least Likable: Night Lords. A bunch of sociopathic murderers. lite_sleepr fucked around with this message at 07:17 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 07:10
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In hindsight, it really was an immensely bad idea to give command of a legion of Space Marines to a guy who was known for skinning and eating people for minor infractions of law on the planet of Murderworld V.
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Jun 19, 2014 07:24
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SRM posted:In hindsight, it really was an immensely bad idea to give command of a legion of Space Marines to a guy who was known for skinning and eating people for minor infractions of law on the planet of Murderworld V. Or the guy who was a giant red cyclops with a deep connection to the warp. Or the guy who has nails embedded into his brain that makes him all murder happy FTFY
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Jun 19, 2014 07:28
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vigorous sodomy posted:Night Lords are all closet slaneshi worshippers with their fondness of live skinning and horror spreading. Their probably the least likable of the traitor legions when you learn they're all just murderers as a result of being brought up on planet Nostramo: Planet Murder/Rape/Kill. ADB did a good job in making a few likable characters, but on the whole the NL are inexcusably evil. Of all the Chaos legions the World Eaters are the only likable ones. They just love to fight and destroy things. Even before the Heresy they just did what they were made for and didn't apologize. Thousand Sons barely count because its a few hundred sorcerers just directing robots to do their bidding.
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Jun 19, 2014 07:33
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vigorous sodomy posted:Most Likable: Word Bearers. Lorgar would have been content just traveling the universe telling all life how cool his dad is, but no. Big E wants an empire of slaves. What? The Legion that gave us a Marine so obviously, comically villainous in Erebus he might as well have been twirling a moustache and be titled 'Grand Vizier'? A character that was so entrenched in the Horus Heresy story by the first few books he's effectively the causative factor of the entire Heresy, and they needed to really retcon him back quite a bit in future stories just so Horus doesn't end up portrayed as a total loving idiot? Oh, and let's not get started on that fantastic Horus Heresy book GW like to pretend they never wrote with them in Battle for the Abyss, which features Bond-villain Word Bearers leaving the Ultramarines genuinely in the trope of 'a trap of my own design from which they could not possibly escape', and even leads to the even more comedic 'Death Star' moment in later books when Erebus reveals (Sweeps cloak, brandishes cane) he built more than one Word Bearers aren't the worst Legion. They're the worst faction in 40k, full stop. They make Eldrad Ulthuan fan fiction look good. Shockeh fucked around with this message at 09:08 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 09:03
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SRM posted:In hindsight, it really was an immensely bad idea to give command of a legion of Space Marines to a guy who was known for skinning and eating people for minor infractions of law on the planet of Murderworld V. But that was the only way to maintain order on the shitheap planet: absolute terror of being skinned alive and fed your own eyeballs for spitting on the sidewalk. Maybe Empy should have relocated Konrad to less insane planet.
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Jun 19, 2014 09:21
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One of the HH books makes mention of the Primarchs climbing some tower on Terra and talking to the Emperor at the top; in the same passage, they talk about 2 of the Primarchs being found wanting, or somesuch. How hosed up were these 2 Primarchs that people like Kurze were deemed acceptable leaders but they were not? Why would you trust one-hundred thousand of the greatest soldiers ever known to someone like Angron? How are you this loving dumb? I mean the novels always make reference to each Legion being essential in it's role but the only one I really see that for is the Space Wolves, who are basically the only one who the Emperor trusts enough to allow them to sanction other Legions. I think it's telling that it's not Imperial Fists that the Sigilite sends to every Primarch but Space Wolves. I just don't think 'we're really angry and like being violent!' is such a vital military role that I would allow a literal psychopath to command 100,000 men. A 50S RAYGUN fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 14:31
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The biggest thing I've learned from the HH books is that the big E is really dumb.
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Jun 19, 2014 14:44
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The writing lets it down, because in reality they're trying to make a show of it being like the grandeur of Imperial Rome; It's not that Big E 'Trusts' the Space Wolves - He has 18 Warlords at his command, each with their own agendas, preferences, propensities & skills, and he plays them off against one another. There's nothing 'forcing' them to do the Imperium's bidding, in theory any one of the 18 might have otherwise set off into space with or without their Legion, or decided to go against the Imperium instead, or even just refused to take part, and the skill the Emperor displayed was keeping them all in the same general course. He doesn't trust the Space Wolves, he plays to their strengths, and the personality of Russ. Russ likes thinking he's the final sanction, and the other Primarchs are wary of him anyway, so why not put him there, keep him happy and keep the others in line? The mistake is that the Emperor doesn't account for quite how unhinged some of them are.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:06
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Shockeh posted:He has 18 Warlords at his command, each with their own agendas, preferences, propensities & skills, and he plays them off against one another. Now where have I heard that before? 
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Jun 19, 2014 15:35
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I disagree he doesn't trust any of them; he has to trust them. He has given them armies vast and well-equipped enough to destroy hundreds of planets, who literally wipe out entire species. This isn't the sort of thing you give to people while you cross your fingers and hope 'well i sure do hope they never think to do anything weird with these guys!' Likewise, I disagree he doesn't trust the Space Wolves or that Russ isn't the final sanction; it's already strongly implied Russ was responsible for the dissolution or destruction of two Legions and the death of two Primarchs. At a certain point, the Emperor can say he doesn't trust anyone, or whatever, but his actions obviously imply the opposite.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:42
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