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I always feel a little sad Legion didn't end the way I thought/wanted it to: I was actually expecting the Alpha Legion to have been playing double/double/double-cross, and have been loyal to Horus from the start. When the Cabal & chums make their big reveal to the Alpha Legion, it would have been great for them to go 'Yeah, we know. We've always known' *DAKKA DAKKA DAKKA* and would have set them up as the total arseholes they are in the 41st Millenium and still let them use Omegon as the 'good' Primarch option. Just feel like Abnett missed a good option there. Baron Bifford posted:Lore question: it seems almost every genuinely magical object in WH40K is an unholy daemon-possessed thing. Are there any Warp-imbued objects that DON'T draw on unholy power? I always preferred this method (because it drills home there's no evil that we don't create ourselves) but GW have swung back & forth from a fiction POV. Shockeh fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Mar 31, 2014 |
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Mar 31, 2014 15:49
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And yeah, the Daemon Primarchs spend just as much time plotting against each other, supporting their infernal masters or generally just dicking about (Fulgrim) as they do conquering the Imperium. They have literal Infinite Fun Space to play with in the Warp; Why should they care any more about the fate of the lovely little Imperium they came from? Betrayer is excellent in this regard; Potraying Angron as something apart from the 'lunatic' he's actually quite an interesting character, who has been fundamentally damaged by the Butcher's Nails. Without, maybe he'd have been another Gulliman. In contrast, Konrad Curze has generally been portrayed as 'generic evil badass' at best, and 'Evil Batman' the rest of the time.
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Apr 1, 2014 15:20
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I'm behind on my HH books, and just got to Angel Exterminatus, and at half way in, I'm sadly just bored. It's competently written, but the characters themselves seem to barely get any airtime or development, and if they do, it's 'generic 40k dialogue 101', interspersed with the usual fare of basic 40k action sequences. I feel like it's a little my own fault, and I'm being jaded, but this book isn't capturing my attention at all, and I don't think it's furthering the HH plot either.
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Apr 9, 2014 09:27
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On the subject of 'How many more', I have a IRL friend in Black Library who is typically defensive over anything GW does and generally won't tell me anything, but he has dropped at least once that the Siege itself will certainly be multiple books in it's own right, possibly even parallel stories across books. (So my conjecture; A book on the Eternity Gate, a book on the war in the Assassinorum, a book about Lion El'Jonson continuining to be a dick, etc.) Always the one bit of Gav Thorpe writing I thought they should have kept, incidentally; The idea that which half of the Dark Angels was corrupt might actually be blurred by history, and perhaps Luther was in fact the loyalist, and the Lion was just waiting to see which side won. The greatest strategist of all the Primarchs, and the most logical other choice for Warmaster aside from Horus, and he's late to the Siege of Terra? It even sounds plausible.
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Apr 10, 2014 09:22
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Kegslayer posted:I'm pretty either GW or Gav Thorpe retconned it so that the Lion is and always was loyal now.
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Apr 10, 2014 13:09
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Impaired Casing posted:In regards to the whole slave to the plot thing, how set in stone is the 40k lore? Are secondary characters like Kharn, Typhus, or Erebus set in stone? I don't really know what happens to them in the current setting other than they are still around. Does the 40K lore ever get retconned, throughout the codexes, or only minor stuff and not major plot points? Well, as much as it's not supposed to happen, it's occured plenty of times: - The Word Bearers / Erebus influence on starting the Horus Heresy - The Tyranids previously were an intelligent faction that negotiated with the Imperium through Zoats - Genestealers going from shameless H.R.Giger Rip-off to Harbingers of the Tyranids - Space Marines going from shameless Sardaukar rip-off to 'Regular guys with elite training in power armour' to 'Knights Templar in spaaaaaaaace' - The Necrons becoming a faction - The Necron C'tan changing from unholy space Cthulu down to 'Shards', controlled by the Necrons - The Necrons being retconned from being enslaved to the C'tan to the other way around - Hurr Hurr the Dark Angels are gay whoops we're a major corporation now and it's not cool to make homophobic in-jokes - Hurr Hurr Birmingham is the 'Black Planet' whoops we're a major corporation now and it's not cool to make racist in-jokes - Squats & Zoats being a thing and then eliminated (Explained in universe and kinda justified, both sucked) E: In the context that very early GW (And very early, Rogue Trader era 40k) was.... 'heavily influenced' by a mash of different sources, including primarily Tolkien, Dune, Aliens and Starship Troopers. Shockeh fucked around with this message at 14:32 on May 7, 2014 |
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May 7, 2014 13:56
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Uh.. you know this has nothing to do with race, right? (If anything, it's part referral to the Black Country, partial shocking reference to population, partial reference to the sheer horror that is getting in & out of Birmingham.)
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May 8, 2014 16:39
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Why does Vulkan have black skin/red eyes, when he's not from Nocturne.
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Jun 2, 2014 11:16
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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. (And wow, both of you assumed I wanted there to be the 'token black Legion' rather than the reason I was trying to bring up. That's some weird projection / damnation going on right there boys.)
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Jun 2, 2014 11:21
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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.
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Jun 7, 2014 11:05
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vigorous sodomy posted:Want Nick Kyme to write a series of books about life from the perspective of a grot or gretchen. So, an autobiography? 
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Jun 16, 2014 10:40
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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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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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Plavski posted:Now where have I heard that before? If the Imperium having analogues to Nazi Germany is news to you, I don't know what universe you've read up until now.  SUPER NEAT TOY posted: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!' Oh, that's my fault - I didn't mean to imply he doesn't trust them at all, he clearly does. What I'm trying to say is he does do quite a bit of manipulation of them through their egos, which works variously well or poorly depending on the exact case, we just only generally see the impact of the poor cases because those cause the Heresy. Each Primarch has their faults & vices, and I appreciate that, because it's what makes them relatable as characters (Rogal Dorn is too proud, for example) and the Emperor works with what he's given; He's got literal demi-Gods to deploy, so he's not going to bin one like Konrad Curze off just for being sociopathic when there's obviously a way he can use a sociopath. The biggest problem standing in the way of this being a good story is the hugely variable quality of the various GW authors.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:48
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A totalitarian/facist state ruled by a supreme leader that aggressively imposes itself over anything it finds, and wipes out anyone not matching it's profile of racial purity using cadres of elite stormtroopers? No Third Reich vibes at all? Nothing? Really? The entire 40k setting (at least, before it hit it's stride and started writing it's own material) is at least 33/33/33 Dune/Starship Troopers/<Various other cribbed settings> anyway.
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Jun 19, 2014 15:58
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That's a pretty decent attempt at a defence, but I think he probably knows he's arguing from a standpoint of trying to justify something that's just endemic to the setting - Ezekyle Abaddon has had ten thousand years to get his poo poo together, so unless the death of Horus figuratively made the Legions immediately entirely fall apart (even by Star Wars 'The Emperor dies and everyone just forgets about all the Star Destroyers' level of storytelling) it just doesn't add up, and it's difficult to reconcile now they're having to actually write it. He's had quite literally thousands of lifetimes to get this going - By this point, if you were writing him as a 'character' rather than a trope, he'd be a lot more wily, a lot more subtle and a lot less prone to 'villainry'. This is why I like his Night Lords so much - They're actually far more believable as modern era Chaos Marines than most portrayals, because they at least make some sense. The only way Abaddon makes sense over the timescale he's been given is that either he's been successful in the aims he's set (and has, for whatever reason, made them quite limited, given that timescale) or he's been a monumental failure as a Warmaster, and the only reason he hasn't been desposed is because external rivals to the Black Legion are put off by the supremacy of the Black Legion, and internal rivals haven't because... reasons?
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Jul 7, 2014 13:28
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I'm in two minds about Scars - I enjoy Chris Wraight, he's easily the best of the 'newer' crop of GW writers, and as he states in his own notes on the book, the White Scars have been notably absent from much of the HH, so it makes sense they've got their own motivations and plans; That said, he does drop into the trope maybe a little too much. The problem for me is Jaghatai himself seems to skirt between 'inscrutable' and 'just plain random' a little too much. Yes, I know that's rather defying the definition of the word if he explains himself, but at least expose perhaps why he doesn't pick the other courses, and let us infer, rather than just saying 'Nope, I'm going this way lol'
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Aug 4, 2014 10:12
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The other problem with all three, Battle for the Abyss, Nemesis and Outcast Dead, is that basically they're nothing to do with 30k, or the Horus Heresy, and don't add anything to the overall story either. They could quite literally just have transplanted the entire story into the 40k timeline, and setting aside the (somewhat awful to terrible, depending) writing standard, they'd be exactly the same books. Hell, I actually wondered that exact point when reading BftA (Don't. Just don't.) - Did someone, casting around for some HH content to push out the door, just pick up a rejected 40k novel, and say 'Yeah, we'll just run with this story about the Word Bearers building their lovely
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Aug 12, 2014 23:09
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Sephyr posted:They also show that in Betrayer, with tons of craft parked in low orbit or making planetfall causing continent-sized storms. I'd love someone to 'fix' the Night Lords, as a colour scheme. Some of the Legions updated really well to less 80's aesthetic, (for example, they ditched the other colours on Ultramarines, and used the Gold trim instead of Yellow) the main Loyalists especially, but the dark blue/bronze/blood red of the Night Lords just ends up looking a little silly on them as an army. They look so sweet in the greyscale drawings, and I wish I could find any that looked as good in colour.
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Aug 28, 2014 00:25
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The Rat posted:I dunno, I thought it looked good on the tabletop when done passably. Well, this is also a little off the 'standard' scheme for them - Very little of the (garish, officially) red, no Legion symbols, no bat wings and you've gone Bronze, rather than Gold for the trim. (Don't want to sound negative on your minis by the way, anyone actually bothering to paint their minis deserves some love, to my mind.)
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Aug 28, 2014 13:28
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To be fair to Honour Guard, that's kinda the buildup for the whole Martyr piece - The Saint is actually real, and yes, she is a super-powered badass. It's not propaganda.
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Sep 5, 2014 10:54
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My view? Gaunt is wrong, and trying to be a scientific person in an distinctly unscientific universe. This parallels the early Horus Heresy books, which is basically the same concept.
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Sep 5, 2014 11:50
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Uroboros posted:It is mentioned that aliens are even more reviled in The Eye than within the Imperium, which is just bullshit. The forces of Chaos collude with alien powers on the loving regular. I can understand the other characters not liking Neiteri, but saying it is because she is a dirty xenos is dumb.
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Sep 24, 2014 11:24
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Basically, every 1st Founding Legion has it's own little way of circumventing it, in one manner or another.
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Sep 25, 2014 11:55
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Sramaker posted:I know Dune was a source of inspiration for 40k but did anything else influence it? And the understatement of the year award goes to.... In addition to what Improbable Lobster wrote, also add Ridley Scott's Alien/Aliens, Tolkein, the usual array of Star Wars & Co. and a healthy dose of the other early miniatures companies like Ral Partha.
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Oct 3, 2014 09:55
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MrNemo posted:Also based on the general level of seriousness applied to 40k when it started I imagine there was as much sniggering about that naming as Lion El'Johson and Mazgull Thrakka. Mag Uruk Thraka, thank you! (Doubles as a LOTR and 80's Conservative Party reference, both at once!)
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Oct 24, 2014 09:05
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Donnerberg posted:There were other people around the crazy dude in Fight Club too. I could totally roll with the legionnaires being too freaked out by their schizo Primarch to confront him about it.
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Jan 6, 2015 16:38
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I can't imagine liking Eye of Terror. That book reads like some serious fan-fiction poo poo. "AND HE HAD A SWEET MELTAGUN AND THEN THERE WAS A WRAITHGUARD CHILLING IN THE EYE AND NO WAIT IT WAS A PLASMA GUN" (Genuinely, it interchanges between the two in the version I have; I went & checked!)
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Jan 13, 2015 20:32
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Mowglis Haircut posted:You should read Battle for the Abyss, it's probably the best entry in the series. A plot that compellingly adds to the chaos of the heresy while fleshing out sympathetic, three-dimensional characters from both loyal and traitor legions. The prose is also beyond tie-in fiction levels and reaches up to the heights of actual literature. Even knowing this was a joke post, I still loving hated you for it on the one in a million some other poor bastard bought that book as a consequence.
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Jan 25, 2015 17:29
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I always liked this theory: Every Primarch has his flaw, and if Russ has one primarily, it's a blind spot forged of confidence - He 'knows' the Truth is nothing like what his father has told everyone, and feels he's in on the Big Secret, with his Legion being poised as Executioners of the rest. Of course, his blind spot is himself; he doesn't realise he's no more incorruptible or better than anyone else. He creatively interprets his orders to watch his Brothers, and the Emperor/Malcador are okay with that, but if it really came down to it, they know the only way you kill a Legion for real is to set multiple Legions on them. The only reason it worked on Magnus and the Thousand Sons was because they were taken unaware, and Magnus himself did nothing until it was too late. Of course, by the 40k setting, that action has become the thing of myth, and just reinforced this assumption in the Space Wolves, who now think they're the Big Bad Scaries of the Imperium. "There are no wolves on Fenris."
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Jan 27, 2015 20:05
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I didn't mind the Eldar in Talon at all; She wasn't half as bad as the Internet (indeed, even this thread) made out, and there wasn't anything that made me squirm. Fine, it's a bit fanservice-y to have her in at all really, but neither was she used for anything offensive.
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Jan 28, 2015 11:50
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I can't help but imagine that every White Scar ends up sounding like the Blademaster from Warcraft 3.
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Feb 13, 2015 15:37
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Mange Mite posted:I think this is more a function of the better BL writers being in charge of those characters. The same reason people above made an exception for Guilliman once Abnett had a crack at rehabilitating his image. I'd agree with this view - I'd love to believe it was some intentionally chosen theme of the series, but I'm more inclined to say the reality is just that the better writers have written mostly about the falling Primarchs than the loyalists.
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Feb 26, 2015 08:56
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Well, they're not going to retire the kits, but I'm wondering if we won't see a reboot of WHFB to be a little bit more Mordheim/40kish; Bigger scale than Warband, but still less than regiment-sized units.
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Mar 27, 2015 15:07
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Cythereal posted:I think the assassin kill team idea should have been saved for the tail end of the Heresy, going after Curze. We know a Callidus assassin kills Curze, and revising that whole thing into an entire assassin kill team comprised of the best of the best could have made for a wonderful story. The point is that M'Shen doesn't kill Curze because she's especially The Best, or lucky, or the plan is good. She kills Curze precisely because he permits her to, all to prove a point. If you retconned it so a team of Assassins get there, and they do so on their own merits, you're devalueing Curze massively. It's one of the strongest stories in the 40k mythos because it implies some self-awareness beyond BADASSSES DOING BADASS THING *Bolter Chunk* so it would be a really, really terrible thing to toss away on something like that.
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Apr 24, 2015 11:40
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Blood Angels are prominent as Vampires that I can first remember in Codex Imperialis as part of 2nd Edtion, '93. In fact, went and found the exact quote from it... Codex Imperialis, 2nd Edition, 1993 posted:Upon the seed of the Blood Angels there lies the most ancient curse of mutation, a foulness that cannot be seen, which is covered over by the grace, intelligence and high achievements which are the proud boast of this most noble of Chapters. Yet the fire that burns behind the eyes of these sons of Sanguinius is bright with a thirst which only the blood of man can slake. Aye, it would be wise to but whisper the name that comes from time heavy with age and fear, a name which echoes in the march of the Blood Angels, the name of Vampire. Also back when the Blood Angels were much more interesting, because the whole 'assault over everything archetype only came in with 3rd Edition, where it made them competitive. I'd much rather see them be a more 'general' Chapter with some predilictions and odd units than the straight assault army they turned into. Shockeh fucked around with this message at 14:52 on Apr 27, 2015 |
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Apr 27, 2015 14:34
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Sadly, the Space Wolves suffer SO MUCH from their authors. The route Abnett took them in Prospero Burns was exactly what should have been done with them, but then people get away with awful, awful things like their Codex Which is depressingly bad, from a adding to the mythos POV. Think how excellent Lukas (the Loki Analogue) could have been, drawing parallels with a darker, more believable character, or even more low key (pun intended) like Floki from Vikings. Instead we got this... quote:Lukas was only once bested, during an abortive attempt to cripple the flagship of the Dark Eldar Duke Sliscus, wherein one of his two hearts was cut out as a souvenir and he was set adrift in space - an ordeal that only a Space Marine could survive, and only Lukas could laugh about. Lukas later had a Stasis Bomb wired in place of his secondary heart, so that when his primary heart stops beating, he and the one who finally bests him will be frozen in time as a gruesome and eternal monument to his own glory - giving Lukas the last laugh after all. 
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Apr 28, 2015 08:06
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Gapey Joe Stalin posted:That book was exceptionally rough. I also really disliked the idea that a single squad of marines posed any kind of real thread to a Primarch in close quarters. I dunno; The point is to show how much preparedness impacts the outcome (Which is Guilliman's thing, after all) - Armed and armoured, Guilliman is more than a match for 10 Astartes on a battlefield. In an assassination situation, with 10 armoured Marines with Bolters vs an unarmed Primarch, their odds start to look pretty good. If anything, it plays up their Demigod status, because in that situation anything else is a guaranteed, 100% kill. The very fact it's an uncertain outcome tells you something about how ridiculously difficult to kill a Primarch is meant to be.
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May 24, 2015 09:48
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Fried Chicken posted:Never read anything by Neal Stephenson, have you? Neal "Got a great idea for a book, no idea how to finish it mind." Stephenson?
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Jun 24, 2015 09:53
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Arcsquad12 posted: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. I'd say 'impact' would be being a bit too lenient on Abnett; The Ghosts evolved a lot over their novels, but it's often pretty much 'Sharpe in space'. (E: This isn't knocking the quality of them at all, I think they're fantastic, but let's not pretend what they are!)
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Jul 8, 2015 15:09
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