Warhammer: After 18 years, finally an end

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Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Belisarius Cawl: The Great Work. Just out today and is a multi protaganist work split between tetrarch felix and belisarius himself, their histories and hints of the future. It takes place after plague war the book but before the end of the plague wars and details felix and cawl visiting the dead world sotha of the emperors scythes chapter. You get an interesting insight into how dying chapters view the primaris reinforcements but also one thing i really like about guy haley ive noticed is hes very fond of writing characters full of doubts and fears, even space marines.

Im also early on but ill say it is a good book. Belisarius is a very fun character and the book has the feek of a sciebtific expedition or episode of star trek, very different vibe from other 40k books ive read.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 19:42 on Sep 21, 2019

# ¿ Sep 21, 2019 19:35

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 23:06

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Zasze posted:

The new cawl book was fun till they got to sotha then it kinda became objectively bad.

Not really a spoiler below

My favorite bit was it turns out cawl wants nothing to do with being fabricator general and he is a little worried that cawl inferior keeps demanding it of guiliman

Strong disagree, I like it more than Spear of the Emperor (still really good tho) and I'm not comparing them just because its the last 40k book I read but because they share a lot in structure and theme. They're both books about discovery and the importance of knowledge but also narratives dominated by their character explorations. Cawl is such a different character than the majority of stuff I've seen in 40k that it becomes very refreshing to see him work, but the book also wrings a lot of pathos out of the cast it has, its a very emotional book through and through. It's also just wild and fun in the way pulp can be with lots of small scenes of wild vistas with big implications that may never get explored fully but are just interesting to think and dream about. Even being fun though it maintains a high sense of danger and tension and borders right on the line of psychological horror for much of the early exploration. Before getting into big spoiler stuff I wil s ay some of the mystery and revelations are a bit weak though is my main gripe. I'd also say its not a book you should get without having read the dark imperium series books out already because it is very much a sequel to them.

To get specific end of book spoilers and gripes about the narrative: I bought the book partially because I like the scythes of the emperor and They get done real dirty hoo boy. Their specific take on what the death of the chapter means and their impending replacement by primaris marines is novel and the ecological subtext about how even if Cawl succeeds in terraforming the world back to livable state it will still not be their Sotha with their memories is neat but the dark secret they must all die to protect and erase being that the world had a genestealer infestation and the last remaining of the small marine old guard dying to kill one broodlord is a real bummer.

If you wanna know more about Cawl its a must read becuase you will in fact learn almost everything about cawl, it did not disappoint on that front though.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2019 21:13

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

D-Pad posted:

I will do a big Cawl book effort post in the next day or two, but here is some new lore from the book regarding how easy or not it was for Cawl to create the Primaris:

*Big spoilers relating to a major aspect of the ending and the story as a whole.

Cawl arrived at Terra shortly at the end of the heresy. He was summoned by a scientist named Sedayne because Cawl had been an acolyte of a tech priest researching consciousness transfer and had a special (heretical) altered memcore that was made to work with the transfer technology, although they had never gotten it to work.

Sedayne is over 1,000 years old and at the end of his life. He owes his longetivy to having joined the Emperor's science team working directly under him before the Emperor had revealed himself and started the unification. The Emperor was known in those parts as the Master of Lines and would appear at a purity fair once every year were he would purify the blood of the lines. Which basically means you would get married but not have kids until you had gone to him during the purity fair and he would basically make sure you didn't have any mutated horrors since the Earth was an even worse shithole at the time. Sedayne went looking for him in a journey very similar to the one undertaken by Dante in Devastation of Baal in that he almost died crossing a irradiated wasteland and climbing a giant irradiated mountain. Sedayne ended up leading the Black Carapace part of the Astartes project, without which the project would have failed.

Sedayne wants to transfer his mind into Cawl's body. It is explained that Cawl's old magos abandoned the project because one personality always ended up taking over and absorbing the other. The loser only existing as a small piece of the overall new personality, although the winner does have all of their knowledge. Basically he is going to overwrite Cawl because he has the right memcore and he believes now that the Emperor is effectively dead his knowledge and expertise as a true scientist outside the machine cult is more important than ever to the imperium.

Of course in the end, despite the odds, Cawl becomes the dominant personality and absorbs all of Sedayne's badass knowledge. He gets primarch creation process knowledge as well. It's also revealed that over the last 10k Cawl had absorbed others that had similarly useful knowledge. Remember he absorbed his Magos knowledge in Wolfsbane too, but not her personality.

So it goes a long way in explaining how Cawl was able to pull off the Primaris project. Alpha Primus is his one of a kind Primaris marine that he made as his ultimate bodyguard and servant. It is implied that he was partly made with some of that primarch knowledge. He is a lot more powerful than other Primaris and also an extremely powerful psyker. He has also been in pain for 10,000 years. Cawl never attempted it again, or says he didn't. Most of this is shown in flashbacks and we also get Felix flashbacks showing what it's like to be kidnapped as a child and put in stasis to be taken out every few hundred years to undergo hardcore, painful surgeries with your body going through huge, disorienting changes in between waking periods.

Buy the drat book.

A small thing relating to Cawls origin thats also a spoiler but you didn't put here:

Cawl himself was a vatborn clone child of mars implanted with knowledge and grown rapidly to 10 years old but it seems the process normally leaves the child unable to speak or process all the knowledge implanted until further teaching and augments are given. Cawl was mysteriously able to comprehend it and communicate at birth which was very unusual and might have something to do with him becoming the dominant one when the mindlink happened.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2019 04:49

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Schadenboner posted:

It's because the Ultramarines are complete poo poo, OP? That's why is spewing: he just discovered that he's an Ultramarine.

I think I like more ultramarines and imperial fists and their successors characters now than most other chapters. I was real excited to read more on the salamanders but I havent found a book or story on them I liked as much as the crimson fists or iron snakes and even dark imperium has a couple ultras i like.

# ¿ Sep 24, 2019 20:58

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Angry Lobster posted:

Just finished Cawl too.

I was a bit dubious about the book because this exact plot has been done to death before but the way it unfolds and ends makes it great.

It starts with the classic team of Space Marines/Mechanicus going into a tomb/fortress/temple/dungeon/whatever to find a priceless relic/forbidden knowledge/McGuffin of Destiny with all the best good intentions and then everything going downhill from there.

The twist is that instead of the usual heroic sacrifice to keep the Big Bad Evil of Doom and destroying the MacGuffin of Destiny because it turns out is super dangerious, our good lad manipulated the Big Bad Evil, releases it, gets the MacGuffin of Destiny and gets away unharmed and uncorrupted, like a friggin boss, and because he doesn't give a drat about tradition he's actually in position to help humanity and make a difference.

In fewer words, Cawl is a magnificient bastard and I liked it this way.

Im not super well read in these books but out of everybody Ive read guy haley in the current, advancing, storyline seems to have the most hopeful spin of the grim darkness in his writing. Sacrifice and death will be meted, the imperium is flawed and broken and beset on all sides, but enough will and fury still exists to possibly turn back the tide of darker forces.

Other writers i like such as dembski-bowden or abnett have heroics too but the outlook is usually more dour and in tune with the classic view of the imperium as destined to dim and die. Fehervari ive only read one thing of but its like abject existential horror which is neat.

Also shoutout to danie wares sister of battle stories, they were the first shorts i read and what convinced me to check out more black library books.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 05:44 on Sep 26, 2019

# ¿ Sep 26, 2019 05:29

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Sephyr posted:

The writing in the Cawl book must be pretty good, because the actual plot points people have been tossing here seem...kind of awful?

-See, he's a special miracle science child! The others all failed or required extra care but he was just born knowing lots!

-Then someone tried to eat his mind, but he's so special he ate THEIRS instead and got even smarter! And then he's done it all over again and now his smarts is over 9000000

-Then he made himself a SUPER bodyguard that's stronger than even the other strong guys, oh and a megapsyker too because otherwise he'd be punked by some sorcerer, so he wipes his rear end with Eldrad. But it's not just perks, he's in -pain- all the time, it makes him super emo guys! He's -deep- like that.

-By the way he knows Primarch-fu even though the Emperor himself barely managed to make 20 of the things and it took bargaining with the Powers Beyond. Also he has the bestest, huuugest ship and can just terraform a planet like that, doesn't even make his resource gauge wiggle!

That doesn't sound like being the 40k tony stark. Not even a huge fan of the movies but Stark actuall screws up and pays for it, has to make tough choices that cost him friends and more, and actually changes.

So I might pass.

None of those are plot points of the novel except the second. Cawl himself is the secondary figure in the story with his history told in a many times fractured flashback. If you just pull random details and events divorced from the narrative or context of course it won't sound good.

Cawls narrative arc without the storyline advancing spoilers is one of constant doubt and apprehension and regret, his self assurance in his own abilities and knowledge leading to unnecessay sacrifice that he still deems acceptable for his end goals. Hes a very cool character.

Biplane posted:

The Great Work seems like it's a sequel to a specific book I don't have.

It takes place after dark inperium and plague war and the main character and their character arc is introduced in those works so theyre worth checking out.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Sep 28, 2019

# ¿ Sep 28, 2019 18:41

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Angry Lobster posted:

While I agreet that Cawl has a ton of plot armor, he's hardly the first rogue AdMech that has made huge technological breakthroughs by dismissing the AdMechs rules and using alien tech, like the antagonist in the Priests of Mars trilogy. The only difference is that Cawl has not gone insane/corrupt and tried to destroy the Imperium (yet). I just find it refreshing that, for once, there is someone in the Imperium whose actually making things go forward instead of just temporary holding back the grim Darknes of the 41st millenium.

Cawl himself was introduced in the end of 7th edition so I can understand somebody already upset with Primaris disliking a character moving the storyline even further ahead, but even before The Great Work as originally described Cawl was a biological and xenotech specialist working by himself with the sanction of primarch for nearly 10 thousand years without terran oversight. You can get a lot done if you aren't held back by committee and time is no object and he was working in the dark for multiple times longer than even dante has been alive.

A wierd giant man robot showing up on planet with a seal of Guilliman and every test you can come up with returning genuine would open a lot of doors with very little questions asked. The Great Work just reinforces further how he is so long lived and adept at what he does and so gosh darn self assured.

Near end of The Great Work spoilers:
Saying he absorbed a brain is a bit misleading because for all purposes Cawl is both men combined, Cawl just being the primary personality. He maintains his near heretical leanings and roguish attitude from himself but from the other he has a tremendous drive to see the emperors will and dream completed and Cawls personal belief in rejecting technologic augmentation has been overwritten by the other mans fear of losing his lifetimes of knowledge to death. Other personalities and knowledge gained via the more traditional and well used mechanicus methods seem to not affect him as much. It means Cawl isn't just ancient in the setting, he's a biologist that worked with the emperor himself in the making of the original space marines and possibly the thunder warriors. He at least predates the ascension and revelation of the emperor to Terra because he is from the part of the Himalayas the emperor was hiding out in during the old night and sought him out under one of his guises.

I think it makes a pretty good case for why one character would be able to accomplish all the work they have.

Verloc posted:

Sorry for spoilering most of the post but the discussion gives a lot of poo poo away.

I drat near put the book down with Cawl's needlessly XTREME entrance into his own book. It wasn't even Tony Stark, it was Poochie The Rockin' Dog. Belisarius Cawl is loving cool and good and right and built himself his own personal Primarch and crash dives his Ark Mechanicus out of the warp danger close to planets and does cyber-kickflips over loving C'tan while ripping out bitchin' guitar solos and effortlessly hacking necron technology while being cool as a cucumber.

Then you get through the disjointed flashback stories and realize that Cawl is a technological genius, but is also a prisoner of his own ego and hubris. Cawl pulls off repeated ridiculous chaos dunks via his awesome technological prowess, but the rest of the cast becomes increasingly distraught at just how close they came to utter ruin because of Cawl's self-centered, ego-driven antics. Cawl's equerry is the 88th clone of his BFF whom he couldn't save from death despite being so awesome. He literally spends his life being followed by the ghost of his best bro that he couldn't save. Cawl has spent 10 millennia avoiding coming to terms with his own failures via coming up with ever more bitchin' technology. He's 40k Tony Stark that never addressed any of his issues.

This is a post that's less of a spoiler for the end of the book and more just a discussion about Cawl's attitude and personality in general:

The Cawl we know in the Great Work is a partial reconstruction of only a handful of his personality traits, specifically engineered and designed to infuriate felix to help him overcome his personal fear of cawl while still leaving cawl enough competency and diplomacy to accomplish his goals. I think it's also possible to read it as cawl attempting the personality Felix would like the most and absolutely missing the mark through sheer hubris but accomplishing the goal anyways accidentally, claiming a backend victory. A neat promise that I hope a sequel will actually deal with is Cawl deciding to locate the rest of his scattered memories and personality traits at the end of the book maybe leading to a fully realized cawl and whatever that will bring.

I really like The Great Work because even as a pulp book its structure and themes really strongly resonate with the main theme of memories, the characters major and minor are all defined by it, and even with a rather simple through line plot aspects of it are still pretty open to interpretation because of the fragmented nature of its title character.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Sep 29, 2019

# ¿ Sep 29, 2019 15:59

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Taerkar posted:

Turns out Cawl is the latest episode of the Emps' Just As Planned.

At this point I'm honestly half expecting them to bring him back in psychic awakening.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2019 00:11

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Continuing haleyquest with devastation of baal and Valedor, two books about tyranids. Maybe because the enemy is so implacable and alien, Guy writes way more about emotion and feeling in the more human characters than im used to, so all in all the fights against endless swarms are only minor portions of the work, as dramatic in scale as they are. Instead theyre all very focused on the state of being of the people doing the fighting, their prides and triumphs and especially lots of sorrow, the books are suffused with pathos and Dantes vision near the very end of baal is absolutely my favorite scene in all of these pulp books ive read so far.

Valedor made me love and care about the eldar for much the same reason, with a whole host of memorable characters and a perspective that makes them feel infinitely more human than even normal people in the imperium, its very neat. I especially love the detail that long range psychic communication for eldar is done with basically emoji, kanji like runes that carry multiple meanings depending on context and psychic scrying but im just imagining them as instant messager apps.

Guys definitely my favorite black library writer now so im glad he seems to be always working on parts of the narrative that push the story forward, theres a really humanist bent to what he writes.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2019 15:44

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

One interesting thing about how quickly/slowly they're advancing towards the end times final battle of all the eldar and humans and probably some xenos against the tide of chaos is that the gathering storm creation of the ynnari as a faction was a huge step forward in plot elements that had been kicking for years hinting at the alliance and end times and now a couple years have gone by and they haven't really added anything to the faction since in either crunch or fluff.

The new psychic awakening book for eldar doesn't seem like it will be a huge game changer either, mostly just hinting at some kind of civil war between the elfs and a handful of resin models getting replaced with plastics. Could end up very surprised though, Games Workshop says its supposed to be larger than gathering storm was in scope.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2019 21:16

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Space Marines being mostly independent and outside the inquision also means over the thousands of years theres a pretty diverse variety of relationship levels bewtween the two. Some chapters give freely to the deathwatch and are always willing to aid inquisitors, some do it begrudgingly while only tolerating the inquisition as a necessary evil, some show near hostility and there are a handful of chapters who will kill inquisitors on sight for a variety of reasons. Even if Imperium Nihilum rejoins the Imperium at large there are certainly going to be sectors that inquisition vessels will never be allowed to travel ever again.

# ¿ Oct 1, 2019 16:57

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

jng2058 posted:

Anybody got a reading order for the "new" 40k stuff? I presume the three Gathering Storm books are first, but then what?

I recommend dante and devastation of baal for the leadup pre gulliman and also just being fantastic and emotional, and dark imperium, plague war, belisarius cawl the great work is the post gulliman awakening new books pushing the story forward.

Spear of the emperor isnt related but is very cool, and space marine conquests the series is all in the new timeline but is a mix of authors and I havent read each one.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2019 06:50

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Inspector_666 posted:

Can you descend from Daemonhood? I mean, it seems like if you forsake the Gods they wouldn't continue to bless you with their power.

You can exorcise people who are daemonhosts and it turns them back human, it happened in Sons of the Hydra.

I don't really recommend it, its a very weird book. Theres a good bit about a gellarfield going down midwarp though.

# ¿ Oct 7, 2019 19:41

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Biplane posted:

obviously Cawl will turn out to have some EC Primaris prototypes lying around, extremely fortuitously.

Cawl has access to their pre heresy genetic material and only promised guilliman he wouldnt do experiments on the traitor or lost legion primaris.

But what's a promise worth nowadays honestly?

# ¿ Oct 8, 2019 06:33

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

jng2058 posted:

Well, following earlier advice, I started with Dante, and am in the middle of Devastation of Baal, and since I already know the broadstrokes of what happens, I'm nodding along with every garbled report from the Blood Angel task force at Cadia. It's working for me so far.

I think Guy Haley always starts out pretty weak and doesn't write immediately gripping battle scenes compared to the dembski-bowden or abnett I've read but he builds up the characters more and more until I'm hooked until the finale. Baal is my favorite of all the books I've read so far by a big margin.

I finished David Annadale's Neferata: Mortach of Blood since it's halloween time and they've been advertising preorders for its sequel and despite being a compelling enough political thriller from a villain's perspective with some very dark and gruesome scenery, the feeling I was left with the most was: Why doesn't everybody just move away from Neferata's city? Vampire or Human it just sounds like a nightmare world where your queen will murder you and your entire family and all your servants constantly as part of her wheels within wheels plans. Even Commorragh sounds more appealing. I guarantee she kills more of her citizens than any enemy in a given year. There has to be somewhere else in the realms for a vampire to live.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 01:39 on Oct 9, 2019

# ¿ Oct 9, 2019 01:05

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

MonsterEnvy posted:

Well I imagine ditching Neferata will bring Nagash's wrath down on you. Also her only Vampire Equal is the probably even worse Mannfred.

I haven't read the books it happens in but Mannfred in Sigmar times built up a city that was trying to replicate old sylvania including dressing up animated skeletons like vlad and isabella but it really just bummed him out after a while so he left it behind entirely and just wanders the world doing jobs and things for nagash. He seems to have chilled out compared to the old world and isn't interested in backstabbing allies anymore, although hes still hella murdery when hes doing war.

There are some other vampire cities you could move to that are still under Nagash control but another strike against staying in nulamia is Mortarch of Blood spoilers: By the end of the book this is the second time she has entirely destroyed her city and gotten almost every mortal and vampire killed. But at least its still her city!!

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Oct 9, 2019

# ¿ Oct 9, 2019 05:02

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Arcsquad12 posted:

I'm more of a striking scorpion kinda guy myself. It's a shame they don't show up more because they're basically the Predator except more pansy. Howling Banshees and Warp Spiders and Dark Reapers are the poster boy aspect warriors, with Dire Avengers being your baseline dudes in BL. Need some more mean Green mandiblaster dickheads.

Valedor has a really cool Scorpion Exarch in it.

Valedor spoiler:
Unfortunately she gets a really heartbreaking and gruesome death during the evacuation. Honestly the most upsetting way to go I've seen so far even with all the other horrors of 40k: Trapped in a now closed wave serpent with hundreds of the tiny burrower beetles tyranids use as ammunition, seconds way from rescue. Before that though theres a lot of her and her squad lying in wait and very patiently hunting all the Lictors across the planet trying to keep the hive minds head down so to speak. She gets to strip a carnifexs face off with the mandiblasters too I think.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 19:56 on Oct 14, 2019

# ¿ Oct 14, 2019 19:52

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Arcsquad12 posted:

Marines and their religious views differ from chapter to chapter, with some being hardcore Cult Imperialis worshippers and others being pragmatic secularists.

Theres a bit of mysticism that hangs over every chapter with their rites and hymns and such but generally speaking the closer you are to the codex the less religious you are. Ultramarines and their successors venerate heroes but are pretty secular, Salamanders and Templars are hella not. Blood Angels have their own thing going on because of their personal relationship with the primarch and their flaw.

To be extra fair though, in a universe where psychic powers and demons are just plain real theres really not much functional difference between seeking guidance from the psychic remnant of your all powerful forefather to protect against interdimensional entities and praying to god to save you from demons. It's more a difference of attitude between the chapters.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Oct 22, 2019

# ¿ Oct 22, 2019 21:18

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

ed balls balls man posted:

Reading through The Great Work after recently reading through The Devestation of Baal and Plague War. Guy Haley is great in the sense he can smash out ok books consistently but I never come away from one of his novels absolutely blown away like I do with Abnett or Demski-Bowden and occasionally Wright.

I feel he's the go to guy to forward the plot because he can write it in 3 months to a good standard and include all the latest model releases without kicking up a fuss.

I've said this before quite a lot, especially about Abnett. But I'd like to see Haley given his own little corner of the universe to write about and give him a decent page length rather than the 400 odd pages every 40K book is. I wish we saw more variety of novel length from BL, its rare I don't read something and think it could do with another hundred pages. It's a good sign he's been given a Siege of Terra book though which I haven't read yet.

Having about a dozen books and shorts read now from a bunch of various authors I have to say Haley's space marine writing is what sticks with me more than anything else I've read in black library. They're given emotion in a way I appreciate which is the style of old heroic epics where heroes burn with an intensity that's hard to match. They aren't all stoics who can only show no fear: they smolder with fury and weep openly at their losses, but most importantly they question and doubt and even despair at their place in the glaaxy as it burns around them and they feel they can barely keep up. They're ancient and tired and their emotions are larger than life as their sense of duty stretches them beyond the breaking point because of it.

I'm going through Eisenhorn and despite being a very different genre of action and still also being very entertaining and good to me it feels really cartoonish compared to the emotional height I felt at the end devastation of baal.

# ¿ Oct 24, 2019 14:32

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

After the second eisenhorn novel i dont think ill move on to the 3rd. Its neat swashbuckling but i think the first person perspective really lets the embarassing sci fi author male gaze stuff come to the forefeont and each one just ends so abruptly.

Its very fun to imagine dan abnett watching a bunch of like boyz in the hood and friday, notebook in hand, to write all the dialogue for the twist town strip club though.

# ¿ Oct 26, 2019 23:24

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

HerpicleOmnicron5 posted:

Trust me (and I assume everyone else here) when we say the third is probably the most important book of the trilogy. As individual stories, they don't end very well, but I thought the ending of the trilogy was fantastic.

Okay, you have charmed me.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2019 22:47

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Arbite posted:

How are Guy Haley's Dante books?

Dante and Baal are my favorite books about space marines along with brothers of the snake. Theyre pretty personable books that read fast and flesh out a lot about death world life in 40k and the payoff for reading to the end of baal is pretty emotional and cathartic which was unexpected to me. I like haley the most out of the black library ive read.

# ¿ Nov 14, 2020 01:46

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

I've finishedd David Annadale's A Dynasty of Monsters, and I believe I like it the most out of all the Black Library books I've read now.

It's partially a romance and partially a very acerbic, if unsubtle, satire. If you've read his other books about vampires, it has a similar style where it is more interested in character relationships and politicking than the gore of battle (although there is much gore and battle), and jumps between many characters and their perspectives on events. It's very tightly plotted and lays the groundwork for strings that all connect to one hell of a finale, and I really recommend it. I especially appreciate it reframing the common vampire allegory of representing the wealthy and powerful into one that charts them as the rage of the downtrodden and betrayed.

Short version: read it if you want to see a lady dance with a six-limbed dragon vampire.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2021 21:33

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Really loved The Last Hunt. White Scars are cool.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2022 04:27

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

AnEdgelord posted:

Tau are at their most fun when their naivety smacks face first into the true horror of the 40k universe. They basically exist to do two things, fill the anime mecha aesthetic niche and explore what would happen if a relatively "normal" sci-fi civilization was dropped into 40k and had to play by its rules. If they aren't confronting dangers that threaten to undermine their entire worldview then they're really not that interesting.

Eldar are way more anime mecha, Tau are kinda weird aesthetically. Very unique to themselves. Super top heavy balance, lack of hands, mostly boxy angles on construction, and the wierd hoof foot that is original to tau as far as I can tell.

Wraith constructs are more properly bottom heavy and have a very gundam leg construction with a more rounded form and pronounced calves. Which makes sense, Craftworld take a lot of direct inspiration from an outsiders concept of japanese mastery of craft and bushido etc, just with celtic names.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Sep 8, 2022

# ¿ Sep 8, 2022 22:34

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

I've only just started, but Harrowmaster is very fun so far.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2022 14:28

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Angry Lobster posted:

Oh poo poo, I forgot about this one. Brooks writes entertaining chaos marines.

Finished it up, very fun adventure with a lot of swashbuckling, lots of mind games and plotting, betrayals, many characters from several factions whose eyes you get to see through, some fun little bits of world building for the setting, some big narrative events if the series continues or mr. james workshop decides to bring some of it to the table, and a good amount of humor.

I usually just say whatever I read last is my favorite 40k book because I'm easily impressionable, but this definitely was a good book I enjoyed.

Favorite small little thing:

Heretek magos have created transhuman women who are skilled enough to kill space marines and primaris, and large enough they can wear captured marine battleplate, although they don't call themselves space marines. They don't play a major part but its neat to see.

Quick synopsis of narrative impact for those who are curious:

The Alpha Legion start out as the usual disparate bands of varied raiders and plotters, and end the book as a partially combined legion of a full battlefleet with a space hulk for a flagship, several titans, traitor guard regiments, and about a chapters worth of space marines, led by a charismatic leader with the explicitly stated goal of casting off the 10 thousand years of plotting from the shadows. Instead they plan to strike the imperium right at its heart, tearing out new rebel worlds until the whole thing dies, and can either be replaced with something better or with humanity being doomed to fall anyways. Space accelerationist renegades. Theres still so many other alpha legion warbands unaligned with this new group though, including the warbands of most of the other alpha legion books, who are mentioned but not present.

Cool book, yeah.

# ¿ Oct 29, 2022 20:54

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Warden posted:

Are you talking about Fabius Bile's gland-hounds / new men? Those were present in the Fabius Bile trilogy, and they were stated to have augmented physical abilities and instinctive pack tactics that allowed to them to overwhelm Chaos Space marines when attacking as a group. The big thing about them that they were capable of independent reproduction the natural way, instead of having to be made on an individual basis.

Nope, A new process developed by a magos aligned with the Alpha Legion, they don't go into much detail because they're a very small part of the book, but they're apparently capable of killing ultramarines on their own, taking the armor they wear directly from their kills as a point of pride. Later on in the book they defend the flagship of the new alpha legion fleet from primaris boarders while the rest of the legionaries are busy elsewhere, killing about a dozen, although how many of themselves were present and what the odds were isn't given. From the perspective of the legionaries given in the text, they believe they're a bit slower than normal marines because they lack the gifts like the black carapace to interface with their looted armor, and theres a bit of tension between them and the more opinionated marines, but in general they seem to be respected, the alpha legion will take whatever advantage they can get.

As an aside one of the people who went through the process is a character from Mike Brook's earlier short story with the alpha legion, a schola student who was crushed the regular space marines wouldnt take her, but the alpha legion rescued her and several other students. She shows up again in the novel, one of the ones who killed an ultramarine to get her armor.
The magos dismissively waves his hand that sure they aren't capital S Space Marines, but the classic process is only one way to make a transhuman and it doesn't matter what path is taken as long as it gets results, a bit of tongue in cheek commentary from the author I feel, which the book has a good smattering of. It seems like it can be done to humans in their middle age too, or at least its presented as a possibility, later on characters comment that the process does involve a lot of horrible screaming, however.

So yes, canon female space marines. Hope to see more of them if Renegades ends up a series that follows this one crew, I hope it does, because I enjoyed this first book a lot.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 17:57 on Oct 30, 2022

# ¿ Oct 30, 2022 17:39

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

A teensy role, with a lot of possibilities. I assume there was a bunch of back and forth about having them at all from the loremasters.

# ¿ Oct 30, 2022 18:01

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

bob dobbs is dead posted:

anyhow, the doylist reason theres no female space marines is that the fascism they originally skewered has Definite Ideas About Masculinity and a built-in homoeroticism that was way more upfront when they called it gene-sperm instead of gene-seed (gene-seed is still pretty homoerotic) so it kinda fits in with the alpha legion theme that they're the least metal csm

I vaguely recall something textual about the emperor having a rigid view that the foremost soldiers must be the physically widest with the biggest shoulders, hence the classic goofy pauldrons. Something about how warfare in the thunder warriors days happened that kept going into the space marine design phase.

A bit like the historical obsession with grenadier units of getting your countries biggest boys to intimidate the other countries big boys.

Sharkopath fucked around with this message at 18:16 on Oct 30, 2022

# ¿ Oct 30, 2022 18:10

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

MariusLecter posted:

Wanna see them sussing out sussy chaos nonsense and go sword against dagger and cloak of the Alpha Legion. Have one say "I'm Alpharius." with a DA marine responding coldly, "no you're not" and whack their head off.

Another small favorite part of the new alpha legion book is a large council of legionaries convening, and when one introduces themself as Alpharius the whole room erupts into boos and jeers. They're so tired of it themselves.

# ¿ Nov 10, 2022 22:25

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

OPAONI posted:

What's it called?

Renegades: Harrowmaster

its very cool.

# ¿ Nov 11, 2022 15:03

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Really liked Harrowmaster.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2022 05:48

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Dante and Devastation are also honestly cool, and some of my favorite lines are from them.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2022 03:05

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

AnEdgelord posted:

Devastation in particular is a very underrated book and one of the reasons I'm not willing to completely write off Guy Haley

It has one of my favorite paragraphs from any warhammer novel:

"In the monster�s eyes glimmered an ancient and powerful intellect. As old as he was, Dante felt like a newborn babe compared to the intelligence staring at him through that unblinking gaze. He sensed that there were two beings looking at him. The monster, and the being that controlled it. They were separate, yet one. A sense of crushing psychic might emanated from it, so great its grasp encompassed galaxies. There was sophistication there, and terrifying intelligence, but all were outweighed by its bottomless, eternal hunger.

For the moment that the man and the monster stared into one another�s souls, Dante pitied it. The hunger of the hive mind made the Red Thirst trivial by comparison."

From the opening of Dante:

His father�s body was ravaged by residual fallout from a war, twelve thousand years lost. Deep lines marked his cheeks. His lips were scabbed with plates of skin. Amid the stubble of his cheek, a trio of ulcers glistened, blood-red flowers blooming in a poison field. A thick mane of brown hair, shot with premature grey and coarsened by salt, framed his face. There were black gaps in his yellow smile. At a little over thirty standard years the man was old and regarded himself well past his prime. His goggles, a priceless family heirloom of age-yellowed, scratched plastek, rested on his forehead, exposing an area of paler skin around his eyes less damaged than the rest. For all the cruelties of the land and the hard life it had given him, in his perfect, amber eyes there dwelt humour and a tender love for his child. Privation was all he had ever known. His humanity had not suffered for it.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2022 04:40

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Guy has the professional reputation of you can give him any job and hell get it done about on time, which some of the other blac library favs have more trouble with. Workmanlike. Hes also been open about how when it comes to product launch stuff like the first dark imperium book, GWs team mandates a lot of the content that has to be in the book, and he has less leeway than say Belisarius.

I like him a lot honestly, and I try to give his books a shot.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2022 18:24

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

D-Pad posted:

Just finished the Sanguinius primarch novel. By far the best primarch novel to date. Wraight absolutely killed it.

A haunting look under the hood at the Blood Angels. He gets them in a way no other author has before. Honestly he should just be forced to write at least one book for each of the legions. This was comparable to Lords of Silence in it's unique portrayal of the legion he was writing about. Like there is a surface level understanding of a legion, then a more nuanced deeper take you pick up once you've read enough lore, then there is the definitive account that Wraight lays out.

It has some strong psychological horror aspects to it. Can't recommend it enough.

Hows his Khan book? I really liked The Last Hunt and would be down for more of them.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2022 21:47

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

I dont know avout velocity but he pretty consistently gives them mass, having kick and impacting with enough force to make bodies jerk or knock people down.

Which Darktide the game illustrates interactively.

# ¿ Dec 8, 2022 13:02

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

bob dobbs is dead posted:

basically every great role in 40k is for middle aged northern english white dude, except a whole lotta tokens like vulkan and the khan and the emperor himself, beloved by all

I'd be really surprised if they ever put in the Salamanders as currently exists in lore, in live action, because it is just blackface full stop.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2022 05:20

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 23:06

Sharkopath: May 27, 2009

Ive been reading Forge of Mars and finished up the second book. Cool series, feels like it was trying something different from the usual 40k narrative. Neat to see stuff from the mechanicus that has a bit of a different perspective.

# ¿ Dec 18, 2022 08:19

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Warhammer: After 18 years, finally an end

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