Articles tagged with: Warhammer 40000

I continue my reading of Horus Heresy series in disorder, but focusing mainly on Dark Angels-themed books (being my favourite chapter). My latest read, Angels of Caliban, has been a pleasant surprise.

In this volume we get to learn with lots of details mostly two plot lines: How began Caliban conversion to chaos, and how (and why) the Imperium Secundus and Triumvirate dissapeared. On one side, new details about Caliban hidden forces, about the origins of The Order, about how Luther slowly turns to rebellion after being banished to Caliban by the Lion. On the other, how the Triumvirate worked, with Sanguinius and Guilliman and the Lion who goes hunting for Curze with drastic measures. We also get to see more of the character of the Dark Angels primarch and some decisions that might have consequences...

There are also nice links with previous books, like the Tchulcha device the angels have, but also with future events, like mentioning Luther befriends Typhon (who is already tainted by Nurgle but keeps it in secret), of the old formations the chapter had (especially the Dreadwing), and we get to learn some "motivations" we can say of some of the will-be first Fallen Angels.

As a Dark Angels fan, can't but recommend reading it. There are some chapters who feel a bit long (e.g. a certain Luther speech...) but overall quite enjoyable.

Posted on 2018-03-03

After the events of Will of Iron, Revelations covers the second volume of the series. This time the story and pacing does increase, maybe opening too many branches. Why I think that? Well, because we have as foes now Chaos Space Marines, Chaos human cultists, Traitor space marines, The Fallen, Eldar Harlequins and even Necrons! And inquisitor Sabbathiel arrives and seeks the Dark Angels...

The drawings are once again spectacular, so well done the comics seem worth even only for them. Fantastic coloring, great use of lights... is a pleasure for the eyes. One thing that I liked is that we get to see more imperial interiors than usual: an inquisitor dorm "room", Space Marine penitence areas and other places you don't usually see many images of.

With its ~90 pages feels short again (and of course we're left with some cliffhangers) but I liked it more than the first volume. If you get it alongside the first volume or already own that one, go for this volume 2.

Posted on 2018-02-01

Small review of the 20th book of Horus Heresy series, The Primarchs. On it we find four stories regarding primarchs in the Heresy era, and get a deeper view into how they think and act. The novellas included are:

• The Reflection Crack'd by Graham McNeill: Is Fulgrim possesed and corrupted by a daemon?
• Feat of Iron by Nick Kyme: Where and why did Ferrus Manus dissapeared?
• The Lion by Gav Thorpe: Is The Lion trully loyal? (I read and reviewed it in the past)
• The Serpent Beneath by Rob Sanders: Is really Omegon going to attack an Alpha Legion base on an asteroid and kill its own brothers?

An interesting read, with some twists and surprises. I like the concept of different stories as they don't share scenarios (nor writers), each one being fresh and different. It is hard to not spoil the contents so I'll just say that I enjoyed them.

Posted on 2017-12-24

Azrael is a novel classified in the Space Marine Legends group that tells us the story of how Azrael became Supreme Grand Master of the Dark Angels chapter, and his first hard difficulties when faced with a powerful enemy and the dilemma of choosing as allies the Eldar xenos.

It is a nice narrative. We get to know about how Azrael thinks and plans, but also are presented with Belial, Asmodai and even Ezekiel, other well known Dark Angel characters that will provide advice and support to him. Belial for example is presented as a Deathwing sargeant, and for once the hunt for the fallen is mentioned but not the main drive/topic "above everything else" (meaning the only drive or reason why they take decisions).

It is not a long ebook read so don't want to get into spoilers, I liked it but felt a bit short. Action tends to end quickly and I would have loved to learn more about the main character, and about his enigmatic advisor Ezekiel... but was interesting anyway.

Posted on 2017-09-25

The end of July and beginning of August has been busy, but I managed to squeeze some time to play and even paint. I'm slowly shifting towards more painting and less playing but summer vacations mean no painting either. Anyway this is what I've mostly been doing (apart from farming Zelda components to max out almost all clothing):

I'm playing again Space Hulk Deathwing main campaign, and I have to test the cooperative mode now that has been improved. The game came out a bit unpolished and I paid the hype price, but still the atmosphere it's impressive and I'm enjoying the second run (with graphic options almost maxed out as framerate is better).

I bought Dawn of War III with a heavy discount, and how lucky I was, because the game has been somewhat a dissapointment... The multiplayer component is great, even skirmishes against the computer. You have three elites who level up, three battle doctrines (modifiers for unit types or special general weapons) and basically looks like the best representation of Warhammer 40,000: Big battles with dozens of units (a lot more than DoW 2 and also more than the original DoW), amazing graphics, imperial Knights and the Eldar & ork equivalents (well, almost, a Gorkanaut instead of a Stompa... meh, sounds like a GW-imposed choice), bases and many, many nice looking and intense battles. On that regard it is a great game, and with a decent graphics card it looks amazing, just like the miniatures. But on the other hand the campaign is... a waste of time and effort. It is a forced, badly written and dumb story that looks made only to let you know how every unit of the game works of the three factions. And even that is in my opinion wrongly executed, as you forcibly have to switch faction on every mission (each mission is tied to a faction, that is), and some of the missions are really boring. Combined with decent voice acting but poor dialogs (between predictable, silly and sometimes absurd) and some nasty gameplay bugs that force you to repeat the level if you encounter one... For the first time in the franchise I haven't finish the campaign, as I got tired when I hit another bug just in the final level. It is too uninteresting. It is a pity because it could have really had been great, and after the previous games I can only guess that there were budget constraints on the development because it looks only really polished on the multiplayer part, and there are almost no NPC factions/units (on the later levels it is quite noticeable they even reused 3D models instead of adding more variety). I don't regret the buy as I already poured in around 20h and will probably play some CPU skirmishes in the future, but it is a wasted opportunity of delivering a great game, bringing instead a "just nice" one. Still, some of the videos have really cool images:

And finally, apart from small progress on painting Nagash (I'm on the 3rd layer of bone colouring, and I expect at least one or two more), I grabbed two of the Betrayal at Calth models and did some dark washing on them to prepare to paint them. I'm not going to go for anything really hard so will just highlight with Mephiston Red and maybe some touches of orange. And I should definetly finish the basing of my Imperial Knight, it is only missing that and the decals to be finished...

Posted on 2017-08-08