Warhammer: After 18 years, finally an end

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Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

EyeRChris posted:

Just started Unremembered Empire and love that they already have a Loyal Marine from a Traitor legion. I'd love a few stories just following the struggles of those loyal to the Empire but traitors to their legion.

We've seen a loyal Deathguard and Iron Warrior. I'd have included a World Eater and a Thousand Son, but the timeline for the Furious Abyss was a loving mess. I'd just like more stories from their point of view. Perhaps because the majority of the legions don't trust the bands of loyalist traitors they become a legion of their own and become the Firehawks only to have the warp gods strike them down forming them into the Legion of the Damned.

James Swallow pet stories about Garro and the start of the inquisition/grey knights is made up mostly of marines from traitor legions. It even has loving Garviel Loken in it.

I'd like something of what you describe from a good author in a good book, though.

# ¿ Mar 1, 2014 06:34

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 15:54

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Fried Chicken posted:

ADB posted the Night Lords omnibus cover and it is gorgeous. I guess the one posted here was a placeholder or something? Because the book he showed looks very different

http://aarondembskibowden.wordpress.com/2014/03/07/look-what-i-saw-in-the-wild/

That is so, so much better. He sums it up.

ADB posted:

I like how subtle and understated it is. It�s not wacky or cartoony, and credits the license with some intrigue and maturity.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2014 16:32

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

BrosephofArimathea posted:

I just finished Eisenhorn, and so as directed by the thread title, have returned.

(he is a good writer, but it's almost like he gets 2/3 of the way through a story and then just gets bored with it and timeskips to Final Boss Fight. still, I enjoyed all three, and the short stories were awesome)

Now, I am in the mood to read something along the lines of spacemans pewpewpew aliens. Are there any decent books about Tyranids?

Nope!

But Brothers of the Snake and Helsreach are both about marines fighting orks. Former is (old) Abnett and the latter is ADB and is the better one, but both are decent as far as vs aliens "bolter porn" goes.

fake edit: Ah, there's also the short story "Deathwing" which deals with genestealers. Old fluff, though.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 02:22

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Waroduce posted:

Im really looking foward to the new BL books from ADB amd Abnett. Ive read most of the Horus Heresy novels, as well as Helsreach and a random amount of other books like Grey Knights, space wolves, ghosts, and funny commisar. Are there any less known or one shot campaign type books I could get into until we get new stuff? Are the Ultramarines novels/omnibuses by Graham Mcneil (i think) terrible? I also saw Siege of Castilex at the bookstore. Any one shot campaign books yall could recommend?

The Ultramarines series by McNeil is indeed terrible. Assuming you already read everything by ADB and Abnett, I'll second Mechafunkzilla's recommendations.

Did you, though?

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 16:06

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

*Aurelian

The Core (Night Lords short story) is good, and there's likewise a Helsreach sequel.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2014 16:49

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Anonymous Zebra posted:

I've also always pictured him as bald. The very first HH book also describes him as being bald (but by the time that came out, lots of art had already drawn him that way).

The first HH book unfortunately, is the only book that actually has primarchs acting like the hyper-intelligent, enlightened individuals they are supposed to be (instead of emotional, over-grown children that punch things that disagree with them). Horus, despite being the Warmaster, shows lots of hesitation to actually fight people, and even though Abnett shows that he is very manipulative in how he uses his subordinates, he does it in a very intelligent manner.

I feel Prospero Burns and Know No Fear do alright with it (the former mainly by showing very little of Russ, and all from the perspective of a man awed by him). I'd add Betrayer as well, but it deals with the two primarchs that are more emotion driven: the fatalistic Lorgar and... Angron.

# ¿ Mar 13, 2014 22:02

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

UberJumper posted:

Going from Right to Left:

Fulgrim, Horus, Unknown, Unknown, Jaghatai, Unknown, Magnus, Mortarion, Sanginous

Who are the rest? I thought there were only 7 present at Ullanor according to Scars?

Fulgrim, Horus, Dorn, Lorgar, Khan, Angron, Magnus, Mortarion and Sanguinius.

# ¿ Mar 17, 2014 16:35

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

UberJumper posted:

I am reading Helsreach, and apparently Stormherald is around 50 meters tall? I really do not understand the size of titans in the books, i swear they change from book to book.

Yet this is including the massive church ontop of the titan, including massive marble statues of the primarchs, as well as a court yard. Isn't 50 meters a tad short for that kind of thing?

How tall can a church (not cathedral) be, 10 meters? A titan can mount that.

# ¿ Mar 18, 2014 05:25

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

berzerkmonkey posted:

On another board I frequent, everybody loves the book. I don't know - I think this thread suffers from "McNeill-itis" and automatically hates everything he writes. Note that I am not saying this is good or bad, I'm just saying it is what it is - everyone's tastes are different and this thread tends to lean anti-McNeill (which is completely understandable after the Fulgrim torture scene.)

When he was at Adepticon doing signings, I wanted to ask him if he gets a lot of poo poo for that story, but I didn't want to hold up the line. Should have done it anyway.

I think it's not really being anti-McNeil and more being spoiled by the better authors. I personally consider him very hit-or-miss; sometimes he delivers compelling stories with good characterization, but oftimes he does not.

If you take the BL output as a whole then even his bad stories are definitely up there, however.

# ¿ May 6, 2014 18:57

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

The ending is as Abnett as you can get, doesn't feel much like a HH book, and introduces a much controversial character/element to the series, but as a story it's overall pretty good.

# ¿ May 10, 2014 21:05

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Mark of Calth?

# ¿ May 15, 2014 03:08

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

JerryLee posted:

Finally got the chance to read Scars today. I can't be arsed to dig back through the thread for what the exact criticism of it was, but I found it to be amazing, and it definitely increased my appreciation and respect for the White Scars as a legion. I wonder if the 40k Scars ever look at the 40k Wolves and go, 'yeah, well, we were doing the disdain for centralized authority thing while you guys were still swinging from the Emperor's nuts.'

It was simplistic and filled with stereotypes and instances of the author trying to be clever and waggling his eyebrows but actually having no idea how the setting works.

# ¿ May 17, 2014 09:26

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

EyeRChris posted:

The one thing in HH that is really confusing...what is the time line between Prospero and Istavan V? Scars seem to imply it was almost at the exact same time, but that would imply that we knew Horus was traitor and Russ was a moron to take his orders to wreck Magnus. Initially in my head Prospero took place before Istavan III so that their overt traitorous acts wouldn't have been wildly known yet.

It happened between Istvaan III and Istvaan V - the wolves were sent away so they wouldn't participate in the dropsite massacre, but the Istvaan III virus bombing is what prompted the Emperor to send his punitive fleets in the firs place.

# ¿ May 17, 2014 22:22

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Don't treat it as a book about them, but rather the story of a character that ends up caught between them as they both try to resolve a situation in their own terms, and it's good.

# ¿ May 20, 2014 01:36

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

True robots are banned in the Imperium as a result of wars against "the Men of Iron" during the AoS. They get around this by using cyberized corpses (aka Servitors and derivatives) - they're unintelligent and use brains as part of their processing components, so they're considered safe.

While mostly mechanical servitors are technically better, they still need organic parts or they could end up being deemed heretical.

As for the mechanicum, they're technically human even if they gradually swap all their fleshy bits with machinery, and since you need to be a fairly powerful magus to have the expertise and wealth to afford a full conversion, it's not like anyone will object. Note that completely replacing all brain functions with machinery is very rare.

# ¿ May 20, 2014 23:59

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

IIRC poo poo like cataphracts have wetware as their processing unit.

# ¿ May 22, 2014 04:43

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Frankly posted:

I was under the impression that the False Gods, Galaxy In Flames, Flight of the Eisenstein Horus Heresy books along with Fulgrim covered a lot of what happened at the Drop-Site Massacre, though it's been a long, long time since I read those. Actually I can't remember anything at all about False Gods or Galaxy in Flames apart from Angron jumping out of a moving jet or something to smash puny loyalists so that may be telling of their overall quality. It's been a long time though so feel free to correct me!

Edit: The First Heretic had some pretty cool scenes with the massacre but was about a lot of other stuff as well. Good book!

False Gods, Galaxy In Flames and Flight of the Eisenstein all happen before the Drop Site Massacre; the included astartes vs astartes combat is when the traitor legions purge their own loyalist elements, but the DSM is a different event where loyalist legions are brought to bear against Horus and they get backstabbed by traitors they thought loyal.

The end of Fulgrim does cover some of the DSM, but only near the very end. Ditto for The First Heretic.

# ¿ May 26, 2014 08:07

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

JerryLee posted:

I want you to know that I read this sentence, mentally parsed it for a moment as DSM as in DSM-IV, and it still made sense.

poo poo you're right.

# ¿ May 26, 2014 10:59

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

KramFoot posted:

Prince of Crows was a story in the Shadows of Treachery novel, the new cover for it looks awesome though.
Oh also Nick Kyme just mentioned on his blog that he's writing a sequel to Vulkan Lives. or at least planning it out. I don't know whether to be happy or afraid right now.

Board up the windows and hide the women and children.

# ¿ May 30, 2014 23:05

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

SUPER NEAT TOY posted:

Vulkan during Unremembered Empire spoilers or something?

I'm pretty sure I'm thinking of Unremembered Empire, why was Vulkan so insane during the parts he appeared? I picked up the book in-store and started reading at some random point and it was basically Vulkan being crazy.

They tortured him out of his mind while trying to find ways to kill him.

Vulkan is 100% immortal, you see.

# ¿ May 31, 2014 01:50

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Shockeh posted:

No, I don't care about that, that's just a bit of 'whoops, this could look a bit racist' common sense. What I mean is, the people of Nocturne the place are genetically black skinned with red eyes. Vulkan does not have these genetics, he shouldn't be that colour.

No, actually; Salamanders are black skinned with red eyes as a result of becoming Space Marines - an endemic mutation of their progenoid - baseline Nocturnites are whatever skin color they happen to be. Vulkan being coal black then makes sense in the context that the Salamanders are taking up his mutant traits, like most legions did with their respective primarchs.

# ¿ Jun 2, 2014 19:14

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Shockeh posted:

That's rather the issue with all sci-fi when it comes to galactic-scale conflict: There's nothing an individual planet can really have (without employing Plot Device) that is worth a land assault for. Natural resources? Orbital Bombardment. Hospitable to human life? Orbital Bombardment. Physically lies in your path? Hello, 3D space. All set against a backdrop of near infinite alternative worlds to harvest whatever you require from.

If you can take whatever orbital structures exist, the planet really isn't relevant apart from being a gravity well for it all to sit in.

Excuse me? The infrastructure of a forgeworld is pointless? Food production of an agriworld? The billions of inhabitants (as bodies) of hiveworlds? All of that is worthless to an hypothetical conquering force?

# ¿ Jun 7, 2014 11:12

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

If you want to go there, it's not a matter of space superiority, just impossible to intercept relativistic projectiles.

But that's completely different from the tall assumption that you wouldn't even live on planets.

# ¿ Jun 7, 2014 12:11

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Err... I kind of see what you're trying to do here, but you're picking terrible examples.

The Imperium has ships too, and they fight the tyranid bioships (thus hurting the space-bound infrastructure you place such a big emphasis on), and the orbital battle is more often what ultimately determines the outcome. Yet, they engage in ground combat because both nids and humans need to control the surface for their own ends - tyranids need to neutralize planet-bound defenses and establish their harvesting ecosystem, and whatever other reasons the Imperium might have (protecting civillians/religious sites/critical infrastructure and resources), by maintaining control of the surface they also contribute to slowing down the nids and increase the net resource cost of the harvest.

The (biggest) reason why the Tyranids are such a big threat to everything is that there's so many of them, since they're basically migrating in from another galaxy they already stripped bare: their numbers, by default, make any defensive action against them unsustainable unless more esoteric countermeasures are found. Should be noted that most means to resist them also make their bug-boners harder, since they feel throwing hivefleets upon hivefleets to the grinder is a good trade to learn/adapt against whatever tech or biological traits you're using to fight back.

So that's Option B and D, and C and A face the realities that nids are very good at finding things to eat, relentless in their pursuit, and even if you successfully manage to evade them you're limiting your species to living in small, scattered groups scrapping a living from whatever rocks are left behind. Which I guess is a valid survival option, but doesn't accomplish much more than, well, surviving like 3rd class galactic vermin.

Nephilm fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Jun 7, 2014

# ¿ Jun 7, 2014 22:51

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

They all follow the same formula, but should be noted that the idea is Cain is indeed a hero not far removed from how the Imperium deems him to be, but he holds himself to unrealistic standards and is highly self-critical in his memoirs.

# ¿ Jun 9, 2014 06:12

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

SUPER NEAT TOY posted:

I haven't read it, so I wouldn't be able to say I enjoyed it. In general, most BL characterizations of Chaos are so ridiculous that I can't just wonder 'why hasn't this caved in on itself years ago?'

Once I catch up on the HH novels (only need to finish Vulkan Lives...why...) I'll move onto Night Lords and hopefully book 2 of Pariah.

Speaking of Vulkan Lives, what was Nick Kyme's background? The language he uses is so not-40k it's actually jarring. He wrote like a Modern Warfare book and replaced Smith, Adams, and Rogers with dumb Salamanders names and called it a day. I've never imagined a Space Marine saying 'we'll clean house' before but it strikes me as distinctly un-Space Marine.

Amateur writer, got a few gaming articles and short stories published on magazines (namely white dwarf) as a teen, then got hired as layout designer for White Dwarf before becoming editor at Black Library, and from there by virtue of seniority he's been able to publish whatever the gently caress he wants.

You really should just drop Vulkan Lives, you're wasting your time.

# ¿ Jun 11, 2014 20:43

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

AndyElusive posted:

I can't tell if this Terminator has hosed up proportions or if it's so spot on with how it would look on someone that size that it just looks silly when rendered correctly.

It's off; head's too big for how bulky terminator armor is supposed to be..

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 00:54

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Being heavily exposed to decent writing and the process behind it for years, you figure some skill would've rubbed off on him by now.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 01:29

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Maybe all he does is fix typos.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 09:36

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

I can't get over how exposed the belly is.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2014 22:19

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Deptfordx posted:

This website has another fun look at 'realistic' space marine designs and concepts.

http://www.philipsibbering.com/wh40k/10-01-marine-morphology.shtml

what the poo poo is this

# ¿ Jun 13, 2014 00:09

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

The Tau are authoritarian, ultranationalistic zealots entirely convinced that their philosophy of "The Greater Good" (a highly stratified caste system where the pseudo-mindcontrolling Ethereal caste lies at the top and non-tau are on the bottom of the rung) is the right and proper way for all sentients in the galaxy, and are thus justified in using any means necessary (political, economic, military) to expand and convert everyone to their views.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2014 15:58

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Not quite recently, but a couple years after their introduction, that with GW realizing the entire race was a mary sue that didn't at all fit the setting.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2014 16:10

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 15:54

Nephilm: Jun 11, 2009; by Lowtax

Kegslayer posted:

I don't know, having one optimistic race wouldn't have ruined the setting. I think the initial concept was a pretty good contrast. You had a young race of naive technologists that sought to embrace innovation and growth in the same way that the original Imperium did during the Dark Age of Technology. Their weaknesses would still be the size of their empire and their lack of knowledge about the scope of the true dangers in the galaxy. There's really no need to have them commit genocide or mass forced sterilisations just to add more character to the race.

The thing is that they didn't do that, what they did was a "progressive" society that only wanted peace, who in a couple thousand years managed to technologically surpass the imperium, that was immune to chaos and managed to fight off the tyranids after failing to make peace with them.

# ¿ Jun 15, 2014 22:49

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