Sandlemad

I know they use that pose and angle on almost every titan at some point but hhnnnn it looks good. Also if anyone deserves transfers, it's Osedax players. I do not envy whoever tries to freehand that cockatrice.

wasn't that titan described as a Warlord variant though? It doesn't mention a class, just it's a "siege titan" and that it's bigger than a warlord. Could be a Warmaster variant, though it's rather imprecise, suggesting that this was all put down before anything to do with the Warmaster had materialised in SG. Not that there was a huge amount of detail on the Rapier earlier in the book either, mind, but at least that had a capitalised class name. Either way I wouldn't be holding my breath for a new Warmaster variant so soon after release for the reasons Zodd mentions.

I agree with the majority of your dislikes here but this,

Definitely, things like the skorpekh destroyers for about 25% of their usual cost is more than solid. The devil of it will be getting copies now Forbidden Planet just aren't shipping to the EU anymore...

Those armpit plasma blastguns are turned out pretty far. I guess it's to account for their broad-ish firing arc but it's interesting that they seem to be able to move independently of the rest of the arm. Looking forward to seeing how the construction works.

Even with the pixelation that does look like the current Warbringer head. Maybe the variant will still appear on the sprue? I guess we'll see. The head on that Ignatum Warmaster really is the coolest one.

RE: that big thing that everyone has in spoiler tags:

You'd miss a lot. You could follow the plot, broadly, though there would still be significant elements that might not make sense. Some are minor "Abnett-isms" like a generally more sophisticated tech level than in other 40k fiction - there's quite a lot of psyker-tech and anti-psyker tech that doesn't appear elsewhere all that much - but also larger elements, like the importance of the Glaw dynasty, or the Cognitae, or the graels, or enuncia (though that shows up in his heresy novels too). You could probably work around this somewhat by reading summaries of the previous books or trawling through lexicanum. More significantly though the nuances of how the half dozen most prominent characters interact won't really be there for you. All three of Abnett's inquisition trilogies are very character-focused series and we're talking about multiple books' worth of changing relationships. Even in Penitent there's a persistent thread of how different Eisenhorn is with his comrades since the events of The Magos, which might not be apparent to someone who hasn't read it. It's not all that deep really but seeing e.g. Harlon Nayl and Patience Kys interact in Penitent without having read the previous books would not be the same.

It’s Abnett doing Dickens or, I think more to the point, doing Gormenghast. It does fade a bit about half way through Penitent but it’s so refreshing after what I found to be a sort of ugly sub-Whedon quippiness in the Ravenor books. Both are maybe examples of Abnett being more willing to switch it up in terms of style than other BL authors, even if it doesn’t always land.

Just finished this. Some stuff to mull over alright, what you might call galaxy-scale stuff in a way that we haven’t seen in the Eisenhorn/Ravenor books before, but what’s sticking with me most of all is how enjoyable the slightly baroque voice that Abnett adopted for Pariah and Penitent is.

This is really cool, thank you for pulling it all together.

I haven't read Mortis but overall I'd agree with mr_r_parker. The perpetuals are particular manifestation of small universe syndrome. They're supposed to be incredibly important but then in practice they come off as just a mediocre rehash of Highlander, you know? None of the weight of deep time stuff shines through. I get that all 40k is built on a weave of pastiche/theft of other ideas and properties but this has increasingly felt like seeing it in real time and not done in a terribly interesting fashion. As individual characters though, they're often enjoyable enough. I like Oll Persson in Know No Fear.

Brilliant stuff. The cool white and the gold are particularly nice.

As a heads up, there's a loyalist legions book coming out soontm and the promise of a traitor book at some point as well. We don't know if the legion rules are likely to change or not but there's a risk that Titandeath will become outdated in the near future. As such you might want to hold off purchasing Titandeath, maybe just use screengrabs or summaries of their rules for now. There's very few must-avoid loadouts, which is nice, and only a handful of loadouts which aren't must-haves so much as 'so good others need some justification': the classic would be the versatile vulcan megabolter/plasma blastgun loadout for the Warhound. Above all it's worth emphasising the value of magnetising your titans so you can swap things out as you please. The Warlord and Warbringer are purpose built for this and it doesn't take much effort to do the same for the Warhounds and (to a lesser extent) the Reavers. You've probably heard it before but seriously, this is the most magnet-friendly game GW makes. For general tips, it's worth having a look at some of Goonhammer's Warlord Wednesday articles. Here's the piece on Legio Fureans, with suggestions on maniple composition and loadouts, and it's worth looking at the articles for specific titans as well.

This one is hilarious. "See dad? Like you! Like your, uh... skin and hair..." "I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time my son."