Things You Like About... Scars

[bluntblade]

I feel it's a pity that this series of threads stopped after the Prospero duo. So let's get this underway with a non-WS note:

 

Henricos. He's a superbly realised character, with his loss and anger tied to his physical state in a way that's very tangible. In other stories an author will just keep referring to a character's grief or melancholy, but in Wraight's hands this becomes an itch, something that makes it difficult for Henricos to look at his own iron hand because of the chain reaction it sets off. I dig that the extent of his augmetics alters him somewhat from what Yesugei recognises as a standard Space Marine shape, making him something "crabbed and hunched."

 

Also the line: "Sweet soul of iron. That's blood. They're cooling it with blood." There's something about it that just provokes chills.

[Roomsky]

Is "everything" a viable answer?

 

Seriously, I had no complaints about this book. The pacing was startlingly good for a collection of serials, the characters were memorable and went through meaningful arcs, we had other legion primarch battles and cameos that felt organic and avoided the usual issue of pointless primarch brawls, and a strong non-standard ending that didn't just amount to one big fight scene. 

 

All of Wraight's work is worth reading, but to me this is his opus. It injected interest into a "literally who" legion and told an excellent story to boot.

[Xisor]

I like that it deals with the philosophical themes without being *about* them in a corny way. The characters are dealing with these things and ideas, but their practical worries are much more about having a good fight or doing things they enjoy or worrying about their friends and what it means for the things they like.

 

It's human, and yet explores a lot of the inhuman and the irrepressible humanity. It's a good combination. And for all that: it's not especially subtle or coy - it doesn't force you to decode things or wrap it all in too-purple prose (I like that sort of stuff, but I'm not big/good on trying to explain why I like it to people who dislike it, or vice versa - if it scratches that itch *and* other folks like it - hooray!), it's artistic but also simple, but not at all stupid. Elegant. Like the Scars!

 

I really need to re-read Wraight's HH work.

[bluntblade]

That lack of purpleness is something I dig with Wraight's work in general. There's grandeur, but it feels more organic and tangible. Especially when Horus enters the mix, but that's a matter for another mix.

[Chapter Master Valrak]

The White Scars was a Legion/Chapter that didn't do anything for me but after Chris got his hands on them I rank them my 2nd favourties just after my glorious Fists. I really hope the Khan comes back to 40k, I'd love to see his model!

[Jareddm]

I feel it's a pity that this series of threads stopped after the Prospero duo. So let's get this underway with a non-WS note:

 

Henricos. He's a superbly realised character, with his loss and anger tied to his physical state in a way that's very tangible. In other stories an author will just keep referring to a character's grief or melancholy, but in Wraight's hands this becomes an itch, something that makes it difficult for Henricos to look at his own iron hand because of the chain reaction it sets off. I dig that the extent of his augmetics alters him somewhat from what Yesugei recognises as a standard Space Marine shape, making him something "crabbed and hunched."

 

Also the line: "Sweet soul of iron. That's blood. They're cooling it with blood." There's something about it that just provokes chills.

In my opinion Henricos has an even better line in 'Grey Talon.'  He confronts Hibou about what they've both dealt with in the past few years and it's just incredible to read,

 

"'Tell me why I should even suffer you to look at me. I fought as the Gorgon was being cut apart. I fought as my Legion was being cut apart. I have fought every second since, and will fight until fate stops my hearts, and you. You. You were not even sure who the enemy was!"

 

That line alone makes Grey Talon one of my favorite stories tied to the White Scars.

[bluntblade]

Henricos may actually have the most consistent showings of any Iron Hand character.

[Kelborn]

The White Scars was a Legion/Chapter that didn't do anything for me but after Chris got his hands on them I rank them my 2nd favourties just after my glorious Fists. I really hope the Khan comes back to 40k, I'd love to see his model!

 

Same here.

Before Scars, the Wolves were my most beloved Legion / chapter with Sallies and Raven Guard being the next ones.

 

After reading Scars, I literally threw those two away and placed Chris' Legion (how I'd call them :P) on rank 2!

 

It was him, who recreated the Scars entirely. They once were "just" a Space Mongols meme. But with the glorious arc of Brotherhood of the Storm up to Path of Heaven (and several other great shorts), the Scars became one of the deepes, culturally richest and interesting Legion of them all.

 

I'm very grateful for what he's done. And only because of his work, were other authors like RobMac able to follow his lead and expand upon it. The Last Hunt is a great 40K Scars novel, which takes a lot from Chris' work but also adds a lot new to them.

 

IMHO, the White Scars' story arc is the best thing the Horus Heresy has to offer. By far.

There's not one comparable story arc. Not. One.

 

In total, I dare to call it a masterpiece.

[Fedor]

I wonder if we'll see Hibou again. He seems like a character that may fall through the cracks with things now swiftly moving torwards Terra, and the White Scars "traitors" arc being finished in POH.

[Fire Golem]

I really liked that it made me go from indifferent about the Scars to them being one of my absolute favourite legions, as others have said.

 

I really liked the Khan/Mortarion duel, and Mortarions portrayal in general (and in Path of Heaven) is excellent.

 

I also love the flashback scene on Ullanor, with the Khan, Sanguinius, Fulgrim and Mortarion. One of my favourite individual scenes in the series.

[R_F_D]

I agree with all of the above and dare say this is a majority opinion on B&C?

 

I loved the exploration of the native vs Terran recruits in Brotherhood and Scars. Garro and Iacton whatshisface were the only two Astartes I can recall being Terran in the preceding books but it seemed to me that they were presented as being perceived to be fusty because they weren't native.

[b1soul]

Well, Scars (and BotS) put the WS on the map.

 

I thought it was just very well-written and expanded upon everything Wraight had established in BotS.

 

Also, Scars was the best portrayal of Mortarion up to that time

[bluntblade]

Now, something Scar-centric.

 

Yes, there's an element of Terran v Adoptive World with the lodges, but that's not the essence of that conflict. There are Chogorians on both sides of the dispute, and that immediately makes it a bit more believable.

 

The death of the Alpha Legionary at Bjorn's hands. Complete with an apologetic look before the "For the Emperor."

[Huggtand]

I can only echo the above opinions. Both Scars and PoH is among my favorite books.

 

One of my favorite scenes is Khans dialoge with the shard of Magnus. Both Magnus regret and the Khans reaction of what happend to his friend are very well written.

[Lord_Caerolion]

 

The White Scars was a Legion/Chapter that didn't do anything for me but after Chris got his hands on them I rank them my 2nd favourties just after my glorious Fists. I really hope the Khan comes back to 40k, I'd love to see his model!

 

Same here.

Before Scars, the Wolves were my most beloved Legion / chapter with Sallies and Raven Guard being the next ones.

 

After reading Scars, I literally threw those two away and placed Chris' Legion (how I'd call them ) on rank 2!

 

It was him, who recreated the Scars entirely. They once were "just" a Space Mongols meme. But with the glorious arc of Brotherhood of the Storm up to Path of Heaven (and several other great shorts), the Scars became one of the deepes, culturally richest and interesting Legion of them all.

 

I'm very grateful for what he's done. And only because of his work, were other authors like RobMac able to follow his lead and expand upon it. The Last Hunt is a great 40K Scars novel, which takes a lot from Chris' work but also adds a lot new to them.

 

IMHO, the White Scars' story arc is the best thing the Horus Heresy has to offer. By far.

There's not one comparable story arc. Not. One.

 

In total, I dare to call it a masterpiece.

 

 

While I agree completely, I've got to say I still love Argel Tal as a character, and his arc.

 

...Now I want to go reread Scars though...

[Warpmiss]

I knew next to nothing about the WS before reading Scars and, man, did I love this book!! I found the Khan to be such a likeable character, probably because I found it easier to relate to him than others with the way he was written.

 

Not just that, we even got Mortarion's portrayal being one of the best! The Ullanor flashback was great (I loved when Mortarion said something like: "Do you only fight sworddancers?") and the duel afterwards was brilliant.

[carlisimo]

I'm another White Scars convert thanks to Chris Wraight's series. I'd never even been a fan of space marines - I couldn't relate to big, burly men disciplined enough to wake up at 4am and train 20 hours a day, and always described as remorseless, implacable, etc. In 40k especially, their psycho-indoctrination makes them dull, imo. So I initially dismissed the whole Horus Heresy as, "too many marines."

 

But then I read Scars, and then Brotherhood of the Storm and The Path of Heaven. Here we have space marines who are contemplative, sometimes artful and curteous, a little aloof, not so good with punctuality, carefulness, or organization, and like the wind in their hair. That's more 'me' than I ever expected out of anything in this universe. I also kinda identified with the Khan being wary of "the easier choice" and being slow to act. That's very different from most marines we've seen, and from most of the good guys in any fiction, really.

I'm painting up a 30k White Scars army now.

 

Anyway, on to the book itself! The fog of war leading the Scars to declare Leman Russ a traitor for his attack on Prospero was both hilarious and totally logical. The Space Wolves scenes were jarring, because I was pretty new to the series and didn't realize how common it was for books to run several threads in parallel. I'm not sure I ever came to like that approach. But I like the way Wraight presents the Wolves. And everyone else, really. His legionnaries seem to fit the stereotypes without becoming caricatures. I like his take on Mortarion and Magnus, too. The primarch duel is nothing special, but the dialogue in that scene is.

 

The Shattered Legion sub-plot is masterfully handled. We not only get to see Yesugei's introduction to the war, and everyone else's reaction to a psyker, but their story ties into the main arc a lot better than most side stories. It's not just the role their ship plays in getting the Death Guard and White Scars to shoot at each other, but also that they give the Khan the idea to form warbands with the exiles. There's a lot of payoff to that arc.

 

This may have been the start of Wraight's propensity to give each legion a twist, a way in which they aren't like their historical inspirations. So the "space mongols" are great at naval warfare (in his other books, the "space vikings" aren't) and they take care of their appearance (the Mongols didn't wash their clothes, just let them wear out). But I might be reading too much into it and they simply aren't pure Mongol - they have the Japanese samurai class's fine arts hobbies, Chinese Taoist philosophy and weaponry, maybe Korean seamanship, tulwars from closer to Persia or India, and probably other features from there that I didn't catch.

 

The book wasn't perfect for me, the way The Path of Heaven was. The split felt Terran vs. Chogorian even though it wasn't meant to. I'm not sure the pro-Horus camp got enough screentime to feel very justified, and I think I would've liked a larger contingent to leave and go Traitor. Are the White Scars really worthy of a "fidelitas scindere" (split loyalty) descriptor if most of the would-be traitors fell into line as soon as the Khan beamed back up? But overall, great book, and the one that got me started in 30k.

[Huggtand]

Yes I really like how Chris portray the Wolves in Scars and even if Dan's PB is my favorite Vlka novel, Chris did the second and third  (Wolf King and Leman Russ)

[Indefragable]

1. There's a certain realism to it. I'm struck by the hints of Crimson Tide or any other

 

"...but the orders say nuke Moscow, sir!"

"Hold, on just a second. Let's get verification first..."

 

...type of story. ( ahem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanislav_Petrov). Or that scene in Valkryie

Hidden Content

where the German commander in charge of the defense of Berlin marches all the way into Goebbel's own office to very what the heck is going on. That'd be like the commander of Quantico personally driving to the White House and walking into the Oval Office to be like "you want us to do what?"

. 

 

Khan makes up his own mind. As much as I love me some of the other Primarchs, characters, and forces in the series....can that be said of anyone else?

 

2. The sense of distance--physical, mental, and emotional--between Chogoris/the Scars and the rest of the Imperium. If you have ever wanted to get inside the heads of someone in a trench "on the edges of the empire," this is a good starting point.

 

3. Characters. There really aren't any duds.

 

4. Khan himself. He's a thinker as well as a warrior.

 

5. Mongols-in-space were great. Mongols-in-space that are fleshed out and grounded in the setting are awesome.

 

6. Khan vs Mortarion. An unexpected duel between an unexpected pairing. The unstoppable force meets the immovable object. The right balance of Vader vs Obi-wan and Darth Maul vs Obi-wan.

 

Last but not least:

As others have said, this book just nails the feel of the V Legion. They are swift, mobile, deadly, without being the Speed Marine squad of the Speed Marine company of the Speed Marine division of the Speed Marine Legion deployed Speed Missiles on Speed Bikes to kill their enemies in a speedier fashion than any other force. Rather, it's a mosaic. Khan's personal request to the Mechanicum about how to customize his fleet. Racing in the bowels of a ship. The friction between two brothers, one who wants to whittle the enemy down by running laps around them and the one who wants to plant his feet and blow them to smithereens. In an Imperium of "it's better to die gloriously on this useless scrap of rock then ever let the enemy see your back!" you have warriors who "strike, fade away, then strike again."

 

On a personal note, like many others I:

1. read Scars

2. Listened to the Wrath of the Khans podcasts by Dan Carlin

3. Saw the Scarblade decurion from the Kauyon supplement

4. Bought/built/played a 2500pt White Scars army

 

On Jaghatai Khan:

“They say he is elusive,' he said. 'You will hear that a lot. But listen: he is not elusive; he is at the centre. Wherever he is, that is the centre. He will seem to have broken the circle, drifted to the edge, right until the end, and then you will see that the world has come to him, and he has been waiting for it all along.”

[Brother Lunkhead]

From the beginning of my foray into the 40K universe over a decade ago I've admired the White Scars from a distance. Unfortunately nothing of worth had been written about them. For too long they remained just an intriguing idea with a lot of potential. Then Chris Wraight came on the scene and changed all that. First he touched the Space Wolves and no longer were they just mead guzzling, brawling Space Vikings. They were now something more dangerous and noble.

 

What he did for the Space Wolves he did many times over for the White Scars. Although he was not the first to write about the WS, he might as well have been. He really brought them to life with balance, grace, and just the right touch of savagery. I think carlisimo did a fine job at describing these "new" WS, so I see no point in repeating it. I'll just say that Wraight  finely balances the character of the WS by injecting traits of many different eastern warrior traditions. Like the SW's were no longer just Space Vikings, the WS were no longer just Space Mongols. They were now much more.

 

'Scars' was one of the better HH novels of late. Wraight balanced all of the threads very well and the climax of the novel had me on the edge of my seat. Since so little detail on the WS social structure and fighting style had been available until now, this novel held many pleasant surprises for me. Wraight has really left his mark on the WS. Even when I read other authors works where the WS make an appearance I can see evidence of Chris Wraight. A good example is John French's audio drama 'Templar'. In the beginning there is a dual between Sigismund and Jubal Khan. It was worth listening to for that scene alone

 

In summary, I'll say that 'Scars' is great read. Also, check out 'The Brotherhood of the Storm' and 'The Path of Heaven', all WS 30K fiction worth reading. Thanks Chris, you were well worth waiting for

[bluntblade]

Just remembered a little nugget. The Word Bearers replace binary systems with quaternary ones.

[Apothecary Vaddon]

Here, this is my copypasta answer for anything like this relating to Chris Wraight

[Manchu warlord]

A better question should be:  What don't you like about...  Scars?

 

Only one thing:  Jaghatai failed to kill Mortarion.  He was a microsecond away from cutting his head off, before Morty teleported away.  

Actually, one other thing:  The fact that Space Wolves were involved.  Now, the SW scenes were good, and acts as a prelude to "Wolf King" novella; but the way how Chris Wraight slips the VI legion into this IV legion novel just felt awkward.  

[Lord_Caerolion]

Well to be fair, he couldn't exactly kill off a Primarch that we know doesn't get killed by him.

[mc warhammer]

Well to be fair, he couldn't exactly kill off a Primarch that we know doesn't get killed by him.

 

[spolier]

dorn. alpharius