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Okay, after the slog of reading through this entire thread before posting, I'm finally here to talk. So I've been reading the Gaunt's Ghosts novels, and the word that Sabbat Crusade will have the old Sabbat Worlds Crusade handbook fluff in it has me excited. I'm currently reading Traitor General, and I'm loving it so far. First off, its a much meatier book than any of the ones before it, looks almost a hundred pages longer. I really hope that this spells good things for the later novels, because Abnett's earlier books end with all the subtlety of a jackhammer. He actually seems to be taking his time in this book to develop Gereon and make the character scenes more meaningful while still keeping up the action. This reads like a science fiction version of the movie Where Eagles Dare, and I love it. I'm not sure exactly what everyone sees in Necropolis. It's decent, mind you, but I still felt like it was middling Abnett at best. Then again, I also thought First and Only was the best book in The Founding arc, so what do I know. First and Only and Ghostmaker: I really enjoyed First and Only, and I thought the interspersing Gaunt's past with current events was a good way to weave all the setpieces together. Ghostmaker wasn't quite as good, I thought the individual stories were better than the Monthax campaign and its goofy ending. Best stories were probably Dorden's, Larkin's and Bragg's. Necropolis: Decent, but way overblown for my liking. I found myself counting every time Abnett used the word "sheer" to describe the battle, and some parts I just thought were laughable in how abrupt they happened. "We need to deal with the overseer of Vervunhive!" two pages later "MUAHAHAHA I'M A DEMON!" Still, some great action sequences, the fights at the railyard gate and the tank engagement being the best. Unfortunately this novel is also where Abnett's dropped subplots started popping up. Stuff like Curth and Dorden's investigation getting exactly one scene before it got wrapped up with a bolter round to the guilty man's head. I'd also have liked to see more stuff with the scratch companies fighting in the suburbs outside the curtain wall. Honour Guard: Another middling book, the fight in the Doctrinopolis went on too long, and the ending was probably one of the most abrupt I've ever read. I quite enjoyed the middle section involving the convoy, however. Bavnagher is I think my favorite battle in the entire series up to where I am now. The side story with the wounded Ghosts working their way up to the Shrinehold should have been more fleshed out, and the ending did peter out. Points for introducing Cuu. Guns of Tanith: Tied for worst book so far with Sabbat Martyr. Does almost nothing with any of the characters besides Gaunt and Kolea, Abnett's usual ability to paint a vivid battlefield is utterly wasted by throwing everything into featureless corridors and wildly inconsistent architecture. The trial felt tedious rather than tense, and that loving ending. I was upset that Bragg died, but the way it was handled was just so sloppy, and of course the book ended one page later. Also, Slaithe gets the award for dumbest villain death in the whole series. "NOOOOOOOO!" *Boom* Straight Silver: Yes, it's World War 1 in space, but I actually loved this book. It still has its problems, like Banda and Rawne's one page relationship, but I put that aside because it actually used loving pacing! It wasn't a nonstop grind that Guns of Tanith felt like, and it actually tied into the Saint storyline. The backroom fighting between the commanders was a great touch, and I appreciated the campaign not being finished up as soon as the book ended. Of all the Ghosts novels, this one, despite the smaller fights, captured the utter scale of 40K better than the rest. Necropolis told us the fight was huge, but Straight Silver made the world feel huge. Cuu was even better in this one. Poor Muril and Gutes. Good characters and nice, impactful deaths. Sabbat Martyr: gently caress this book is frustrating. Parts of it are drat good, but the action is almost unbearably bad. Stuff that should be huge gets resolved in single pages. The nine assassins are all taken out without so much as a whiff of tension. There is no downtime, but nothing is there to make things feel dire. The best part of the book was the space battle, but everything after that just went downhill so fast it ended underground and then tunneled its way up into the holy chamber to make the Chaos Dreadnought appear like the fuckign Kool Aid Man. The thing that pissed me off the most was how Corbec's death was handled. Or, how it wasn't handled, he just died, bloop. I'm not looking for melancholy or a blaze of glory, but just having him lie there and Larks tell us he's dead was a waste. His death should have been from his own POV, so we could appreciate what was going through his head before the moment happened. The Saint arc was really frustrating, because it had this potential to be so much more than what it turned out to be. It's about three or four hundred pages shorter than it should have been. I also read Sabbat Worlds Anthology. Some good stories, like Apostles Creed, and some ungodly terrible ones like the Headstone and the Hammerstone Kings. After I finish His Last Command (last Ghosts book I own), I'm going to take a break. On a whim, I picked up the ADB Night Lords Omnibus and I'll have a go at it next. Arc Hammer fucked around with this message at 05:00 on Feb 6, 2015 |
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Feb 6, 2015 04:55
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Arquinsiel posted:Some of your complaints about certain books contradict complaints about other books, and then.... really? You don't like Headstone and the Hammerstone Kings? A bunch of mechanicus aides go wandering around a junkyard, one guy pokes his shoulder and gets caught on a wire, and then a bunch of cultists try to activate the Woe Machines and then die from poison before they can get them moving again. The plot wasn't bad but the writing was just impenetrable to me. As for contradictions, well, I like different things in different books, and Abnett does stuff better in some books than others. I just didnt like Guns or Martyr at all really. Mr.48 posted:You....... Like Cuu?
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Feb 6, 2015 17:47
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I rather prefer reading them individually. I have the founding omnibus, but I was able to score some really cheap deals for good condition single books off amazon.
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Feb 6, 2015 19:50
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Tolkien also described the Orcs as having armored transports and tanks. But Jackson didn't quite get to put those in...
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Feb 7, 2015 06:36
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Space Marine had a distinct lack of Dragon Ball Z voice actors like Dawn of War had. Mark Strong was good, but that was about it.
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Feb 13, 2015 17:14
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Which I find is kind of weird because Relic was probably the best at balancing the darkness of the setting with the more insane parts. Again with Dawn of War, they've got some seriously hosed up moments and dramatic scenes, immediately followed by Orks wanting to strap Cyclonic Torpedoes to their backs and applying stealth tactics to lava flows. Seeing them go entirely in one direction felt a little disappointing.
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Feb 13, 2015 18:41
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So I'm about halfway through His Last Command. I'm asking for some mild spoilers, but can someone tell me if anyone ever tells the Gereon 12 survivors to shut the gently caress up and stop being such assholes to everyone? I've got a feeling that its coming, and while I sympathize with the poor bastards, Criid and Varl are just acid to everybody. Rawne's actually mellower and Mkoll's a professional, but jeez, lighten up and stop taking it out on your friends. I'm really enjoying the book and I like this new dynamic, but still, lighten up.
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Feb 21, 2015 02:48
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SavTargaryen posted:They're still hosed up but yeah they stop being assholes. Good. Seeing Criid and Varl poo poo on Kolea like that was harsh. And I have to say, while I loved Lijah Fething Cuu as a character, I don't think I'll hate him nearly as much as I've come to hate Flyn Meryn. What a loving jackass.
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Feb 21, 2015 05:59
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Just finished His Last Command. Abnett is getting better at endings. Sure his denouement still involves a gigantic battle being wrapped up in two pages, but at least he'd already put the ending into perspective what with the 2nd Crusade Front pulling out and the big fight ultimately being a retreating action. I am absolutely digging The Lost's themes and tone however. The concept of losing identity and agency after such a long time on the frontlines, and how the Guard as a whole are being asked to give up more and more over time is fascinating to me. I may have come down harsh on the Gereon 12 for being such assholes to everyone on their return, but they redeemed themselves after Kolea and Daur shut them up and Caffran told Larks to go gently caress himself. I'm gonna take a break from the Ghosts books for the time being and dig into the Night Lords Omnibus. I already finished Shadow Knight, and as my first exposure to ADB's writing, I must say I'm really impressed at how he can set a scene with just a few sentences. I feel I'm going to like this one a lot.
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Feb 22, 2015 05:20
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SavTargaryen posted:Armour of Contempt is probably my favorite Gaunt book, because it has a view of the General Guard Ideology contrasted with other chapters. You're doing yourself a disservice if you don't go to it! I will go for it, I just don't actually own the book at the moment. Amazon hasn't shipped it yet (And yes I'm reading the paperbacks, can't stand E-Books)
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Feb 22, 2015 15:04
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Speaking of Blackheart, are there any other books that really deal with the Red Corsairs? Apart from the Forgeworld Badab War supplements and Night Lords. For a group that is allegedly the second largest renegade force in the galaxy after Abaddon's host, there isn't much written about the space pirates. And that's a shame. because they're SPACE PIRATES, and they steal more poo poo than the Blood Ravens.
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Mar 6, 2015 06:38
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Sounds like the Dawn of War mission where the Blood Ravens encounter a pair of guardsmen who held a machine gun nest for a week against Orks and Eldar. As soon as the Marines arrive, the guardsmen show them to an Eldar Base and promptly get killed by guardians.
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Mar 13, 2015 16:55
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Night Lords does have a few annoying quirks, like the constant referral to Astartes as demigods. Yes, I get that that is how mortals often see Space Marines, but could you change it up a bit? I've heard more references to Demigods than Abnett's use of the word "sheer". At least the Night Lords are all jackasses enough to comment on the bullshit titles, so ADB is aware at least.
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Mar 20, 2015 16:08
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A book series set during the Reign of Blood would be awesome.
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Mar 24, 2015 02:50
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There's no way this is the end of warhammer fantasy, especially if they just announced a Left 4 Dead style skaven video game. It's called Vermintide. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1rdqUZlx7s
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Mar 28, 2015 14:10
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There's a BFG Vidya Gaem coming out that seems promising. It looks like Empire at War, except if you fail to protect a planet in time, the Inquisition just exterminatuses it.
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Mar 31, 2015 03:47
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Finally got back into reading Night Lords again. Man, Talos's flashback to Nostramo and the parade. That's gotta be rough.
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Apr 5, 2015 04:09
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I just found it interesting, that's all. I love how ADB has sprinkled bits of humanity poking out of Talos and co. from time to time. It lets you empathize with them, only to get a cold smack of reality whenever they do something deplorable, and then you are reminded: these are serial killers who turned their back on humanity for humanity's sake, and it left them bitter old assholes.
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Apr 5, 2015 06:21
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Isn't Warrior Brood the one with the backflipping terminators and the venomthropes floating away with squealing Space Marines?
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Apr 8, 2015 17:44
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Keep in mind just how drat big the Eye of Terror is. There are multiple Chaos empires within the region. It's certainly possible to fly around it without instantly being attacked, but it'd still be suicidal considering all of reality is constantly shifting around you.
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Apr 12, 2015 05:22
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CaptainAttitude posted:Yeah, you're right, I was mixing the Eye with the full on Warp. I didn't really think it through before I posted that. I mean entire civilizations exist in the Eye after all. Isn't that where the Blood Pact guys come from? Originally, I believe, but the Blood Pact had turned the Sabbat Worlds into their base of operations almost a hundred years before the Sabbat Crusade began.
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Apr 14, 2015 04:45
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Was walking through Chapters today, and I saw that Black Library has done another reissue of First and Only, with a new cover. Are they planning on rereleasing the other early Ghosts books as well? Another thing I noticed was that the back cover blurb now mentions the Astra Militarum instead of Imperial Guard, and now the Sabbat Worlds have been Chaos occupied for a thousand years rather than a hundred. Is that a typo on their part, or am I misremembering? Because I could have sworn it was mentioned that the Sabbat Crusade was only launched after it became clear that the cluster was no longer under Imperial control, and only after a few decades had passed.
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Apr 16, 2015 18:06
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So they went from easily identifiable Imperial Guard to pig latin "Space Army." Right, because anyone who is looking up the 40K Imperial Guard on google is going to confuse them for the Emperor's Guards from Star Wars or the Napoleonic Guard.
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Apr 16, 2015 20:30
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I actually quite like the first book. Also, they aren't that big a set of veterans yet, it's only been about a year and some since their founding.
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Apr 18, 2015 02:16
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I'm still baffled by all the fellating the saint arc and necropolis get in this thread. The only good book in the sain arc was straight silver, and sabbat martyr just sucked. The lost arc is loving fantastic however
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Apr 18, 2015 23:21
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Everyone in my home has their own bookshelf. My dad's a huge Tom Clancy/Clive Cussler fan with a ton of classic Science Fiction thrown in, my mom has more fantasy books than anyone else. My brother has a boatload of Discworld novels on his shelf, and I've got Black Library, Star Wars and David Eddings books all over the place. Nobody whose come into our house has ever judged us for our taste in novels. Nobody loving cares.
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May 4, 2015 21:10
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I dunno, I kinda like the iron warriors' doctrine. They stuck to the original combat techniques more than any other legion, thus giving them a uniqueness all their own as other marines became more specialized. Bitterness is a part of their character, and perturabo is an intriguing figure who unfortunately hasn't been given much focus in the books, and certainly not with any talented writers. There is potential for the iron warriors to maintain their bitterness without devolving into whining about how unfair they got treated. There's a sense of perfectionism about them and their siegecraft, which contrasts nicely with the absolute savagery of their assault force. They literally bottle up their anger so much that they explode and unleash their pent up rage on the enemy once the walls are breached. They just need a good writer to get this stuff across.
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May 12, 2015 19:26
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So I saw that both First and Only and Ghostmaker have gotten reprints with new cover art. At the rate they're going, the entire Gaunt's Ghosts line will be reprinted before The Warmaster or Sabbat Crusade reach shelves. You lucky bastards who got the early premium copies of Sabbat Crusade, I am jealous. The new cover art isn't all that special though. I really miss the oldschool covers for GGs with the wonky proportions on the mysterious "doesn't look at all like Ibram Gaunt" commissar.
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May 27, 2015 22:13
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Straight Silver is my favorite cover piece.
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May 28, 2015 15:36
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I finished the first book in the Night Lords omnibus, and I'm still dissatisfied with the way Black library absolutely fails when it comes to endings. I don't think I've read a single book that didn't feel like they cut about thirty pages from it to tie everything up. I get that this was written as a trilogy, but the story of Soul Hunter could have easily have tied up everything and been a complete story on its own without feeling like they're dragging things out for the sake of getting two more books written.
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May 30, 2015 21:37
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SRM posted:It doesn't feel like they're dragging things out for the two other books - they're all very different stories with the same crew of characters. There's a tonal throughline through them all, but it's not like it's one big book split up into three. They're my favorite three BL books, period. Perhaps. I still enjoyed Soul Hunter, but I felt that it got rushed along at the end. I could easily see that book end with Talos taking control of the Covenant and the Void Child thing fleshed out more, while the Ruven bit could have been dropped completely and still made it a self contained story. Then again I feel that every Black library book could do with a good 100 pages more to tell a more fleshed out tale. As it was it just sort of petered out. Ditching the Crusade and flipping off Abaddon is one thing, but to have something as big as the Blood Angels boarding and slaughtering half the ship be relegated to an off-page duel between two dreadnoughts before an abrupt end felt like a copout.
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Jun 6, 2015 06:54
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The Black Library: Aporkalypse Now.
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Jun 26, 2015 23:36
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Blood Ravens also get a whole crop of Dragonball Z voice actors to prop them up. If you need someone to scream FOR TEH EMPRAH into a microphone for forty minutes a day, you go to the best.
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Jul 7, 2015 16:34
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Been watching Sharpe, and more and more I notice just how much of an impact it had on Gaunt's Ghosts. Obadiah and Lijah Cuu are pretty much the same character for a start.
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Jul 8, 2015 05:23
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Mange Mite posted:Read the books, those TV movies are terrible in comparison That's a pretty lofty claim considering the only film that can top sharpe for portrayals of napoleonic warfare is waterloo. The series is still good on its budget.
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Jul 8, 2015 14:54
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The best thing about the DOW 2 campaigns is playing around with the late game super abilities. If there was an option to play through Retribution's early missions with maxed out heroes, I'd get some more fun out of it I think.
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Jul 9, 2015 14:52
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SRM posted:I like Sergeant Merrick, the hardest working sergeant in the Imperium, and his late game abilities. He could have an autocannon and there was a % chance that every shot would turn into an artillery strike. Even if that chance was like 10%, that gun shoots often enough that he's leveling the map singlehandedly. I also love that after three games he's still a sergeant and hasn't been promoted. Come on now, Sergeant Major is a pretty nice title. In funnier news, the Age of Sigmar release has claimed its first victim. Man burns 900 dollars worth of plastic in protest.
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Jul 10, 2015 02:45
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Games Workshop fans.
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Jul 10, 2015 03:01
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See above: Games Workshop fans. The kind of people who take tournament play so seriously that they will throw out models that don't fit their powergaming army list if the rules update and invalidate them.
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Jul 10, 2015 05:49
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jng2058 posted:
http://imgur.com/gallery/V0gND  How else would we get stories like this?
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Jul 10, 2015 07:44
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