Book review: The Lion: Son of the Forest
Book: The Lion: Son of the Forest
As my Space Marines favourite chapter (and most miniatures) are Dark Angels, I picked The Lion: Son of the Forest out of curiosity to learn about the return of their primarch. I also have the miniature pending assembly and painting, but that's another story, let's focus on the novel.
One remark that I want to do is that I haven't read Arks of Omen: The Lion, but as far as I understood, the Son of the Forest novel happens before. The Lion awakes at The Rock, it is transported to the place where Son of the Forest begins, and I'm guessing that where the novel ends is more or less where the Lion "officially" reappears.
I also did not know about the Imperium Nihilus/Dark Imperium, caused by the Great Rift. It is a good trick by Games Workshop to make things advance at a different pace, by having half of the galaxy now blind to the Astronomican light.
With that out of the way, let's go with a small, spoiler-light review.
The Lion is back! I'm happy to see my beloved Dark Angels have their lore finally advance, both regarding having the primarch again, and his attitude towards The Fallen.
The novel is a decent read, with good amounts of action, and entertaining enough that I read it quickly. It didn't felt boring at any point, opens the right amount of plot threads and gracefully closes them (except a main question, as I'll mention), and it mostly feels appropriate of what you would expect from a super-human being that it's still disoriented after so much time "out".
Two points felt unsatisfactory to me. First, we are given zero reasoning as for why the Lion awakes, when it does and where it does - it simply happens, and it is what it is. And the second one is that I feel that the author went too far in giving so distinctive personalities to some of the fallen characters. I'm sorry but I don't buy the image of a Space Marine becoming a peaceful hermit, chasen by Dark Angels or not.
All in all, not a bad return, although neither a grandiose one. And the multiple open questions, like how he'll reintegrate in the Imperium, or what will happen regarding Luther or the mysterious Cypher, leave the door open for multiple future novels, which is always good.
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:
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