Book review: Dark Imperium
Dark Imperium is one of the first books based on the apparent new millennium (although not yet confirmed anywhere), where the Primaris Space Marines have already been created and are on their way to join (or should I say slowly replace?) their "classic" brothers, Roboute Guilliman is back and fighting chaos forces. While not the first primarch to return, it is the first loyal one to come. He feels a bit obsessed with his grim brother Mortarion, probably because of the attacks on Ultramar, but also seems to be quite impacted by what he's seen everywhere, from how the imperium survives to how the emperor "remains".
I didn't knew what to expect, if a quick sell of the Primaris and Death Guard miniatures range or new lore and maybe, just maybe, some tiny steps of the story moving forward in the 40k universe. And, while not incredible, it delivers. Hints to the emperor having lost any bit of humanity (if he had some actual care for people at all in the past), mentions on the maybe not so "legal" origins of the new space marines and Belisarius Crawl, surprise and disgust about the current state of affairs everywhere in the empire of man (will we see changes in the future?), even traces of disgust in Marneus Calgar's thoughts of his primarch's comeback. Plus of course some battles, just not anything incredible. I enjoyed more the intrigue fragments than the actual action segments.
An interesting read, I would check the synopsis before reading more books (in theory it's a trilogy) to confirm it's still appealing but not bad for "a new era".
Tags: Books Warhammer 40000
Comic Book review: Warhammer 40,000: Marneus Calgar
Marneus Calgar is a 5 issues comic in which we get to know the origins of this Ultramarines chapter master. Meanwhile directing a battle against chaos forces, Marneus explains his youth and how he got chosen to became a Space Marine to an Adeptus Mechanicus ally, combining flashbacks with "present action".
The quality of the drawings is excellent, with no problems on depicting some gory scenes. As for the story, on one side the origins are quite interesting, I won't spoil the surprise but it is quite unexpected what we learn, specially for the Ultramarines chapter begin so based on laws, code and rules. On the other side, the situation becomes quite absurd, a too talkative chapter master telling a story to an adept which sometimes seems to be more interested in the actual war than Marneus itself. It feels almost absurd that he would go and tell a very profound secret to a random unknown ally, even more so during a battle, no matter how incredible he is calculating strategies to defeat the enemy.
I applaud the desire to create genuinely new content (even if coming from known characters), and a really grim and dark tone more akin to the Warhammer 40,000 setting, but the scenario and way to tell it feels too much forced. That said, it is interesting and seems that Games Workshop is really trying to push the lore component forward and make it way more complex than until now.
Tags: Comic Book Warhammer 40000
Warhammer 40,000 Rhino APC inspiration
It is common to use real world vehicles as inspiration for creating new fictional ones, even in science-fiction settings, such as Warhammer 40,000. While Games Workshop today probably tries to build all models mostly from scratch (just based on their previous designs, so there's the sense of evolution and familiarity), on the early days it seems they used real world tanks.
First, let's take a look at the M113 APC (Armoured PErsonnel Carrier), a tank born in 1962 but still in use at least until 2019!
Now let's compare it with Warhammer 40,000 Rhino APC MK.I and MK.II models:
As you can easily see, it's not only that the general armoured vehicle form is the same, it's that the threads are almost exactly the same (actually in the old MK.I model they are), in MK.II they changed them to that eagle-like design), the lights are pretty similar, and even the upper turret dispositions and back door is equal.
There are of course some changes, like side doors and exhaust pipes, and the side design has a more triangular shape compared with a parallelogram shape of the M113A.
The Rhino MK.II model became a bit more different with its changes to appear more sturdy, more reinforced than the original Rhino, but still the influence is there.
And really there's not much else, I just found a real tank photo and thought it would be worth to document the visual comparison. If I have time I'll research from which real life models the Leman Russ and Land Raider tanks come, as I believe both have military counterparts.
Tags: Warhammer 40000
Moving more old miniatures
After moving some old miniatures, I've decided to move most of my remaining painted miniatures to my family's country-house. I mostly only keep painted from now on my Deathwing Terminators (+2 full squads) and some Genestealers including the big patriarch on the throne. I'll decide what to do when I finish painting other minis when I'm able to finish painting anything.
So, I've moved some really old miniatures, like the Rogue Trader Dark Angel Space Marines:
And an old Land Raider:
But also some newer miniatures, like this plastic Dreadnought:
Or the Ork Stompa I had already photos of:
And non-Warhammer miniatures, like this (already pre-painted) Metal Gear Gray Fox ninja:
This small Aliens APC (also pre-painted):
Or this old Aliens Queen:
As usual, you can see a few more photos and all the archives at the Warhammer 40k gallery and the Assorted gallery.
Moving some old miniatures
To make some room and fit all my miniatures in less shelves, I took the (hard) decision of a) selling a few miniatures and b) moving some old painted ones to my mother's house. These last months (years?), mostly due to friends either moving out of the country or just all of us having a very busy life, I've stopped playing and keeping boardgames (with a few special exceptions), so it was reasonable to also "get rid" (in a safe way) of some miniatures. I decided to take some photos first and uploaded here to my galleries section.
The galleries that have been updated are Epic 40,000, Warhammer 40,000 (newest one as there are multiple galleries) and Assorted/Miscellaneous.
And this are some samples of the photos I've added to it. As you will see, nothing incredible and most if not all painted when I was young, but still so full of memories I wanted to keep some photos of them always available.
All my Epic 40,000 painted miniatures. I had already only kept at most 2 units of each from my Eldar army and from the Space Marines and Orks armies. Now I'll only keep the titans and gargants I have pending painting.
Miscellaneous fantasy heroes and monsters. Some from HeroQuest and Advanced HeroQuest, others from various sources.
And then, some Warhammer 40,000 stuff, mainly some old Rogue Trader era tanks from my Dark Angels Space Marine army:
But also other minis like an old metal Tyranid:
Scenery...
And an old Leman Russ fully-armed
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