DarkChaplain

Brooks' Alpharius: Head of the Hydra was excellent and I love it to bits, too. Unifying a lot of elements from other authors' works while giving his own spin that intrigues and excites. He's already had elements from Rites of Passage appear in Harrowmaster, so it'd make sense for further connections to be built across his works.

It also helps reinforce Legion and other AL outings throughout the series, by making it clear that the Hydra is playing all sides, post-Cabal "recruitment". We see them abandoning their Cabal contacts in Deliverance Lost, and we have them play both sides vs the White Scars, but overwhelmingly, we've seen the Anti-Emperor faction in action, with little note given to the loyalist-branch of the legion's schism. It's nice to account for it here, since this is the earliest I believe that we see them in action after Legion, if we look at the timeline. Slotting the novel in before or after Fulgrim, but before Legion, also feels sensible then, because new readers will likely have plenty of questions about the AL intrigue, and find the reasoning behind it in the AL novel soon following in release order.

To quote some of Horus's lines from the Warmaster audio drama, set after Isstvan V, Calth and Signus, the Dark Angels pushing back at Thramas, Alexis Polux and the Retribution Fleet escaping from the Iron Warriors at Phall: "The fire is lit, and all that was is cast to the wind. We are committed – he and I, my brothers and our Legions. All humanity’s futures bound together in this circle of blood. We are all the storm now. The Imperium will fall and rise by my hand. Or fall, and fall, and fall." "You would say that I listened too much to Alpharius and Lorgar – that a war fought with deceit is doomed to fail." "I cannot control them or their sons, and they know it. Mortarion and Perturabo and the rest, they can all feel it. They all know that this war is no longer something that can be guided, only ridden out. But they never understood me. Not truly, and they understand less with each passing second. They doubt. They think that I have lost my way. I can see it in their hearts – the pettiness, the pride, the seeds of ruin driving them on, feeding the tempest. With such creatures must I remake the future." Horus is coping in that audio short. He knows things have gotten off track in many ways, on many fronts. This is after he finds out in Aurelian that Fulgrim has lost himself to daemonic possession, too. Things are falling apart, yet he talks himself into believing he's still in control of something. It also makes very clear that Isstvan V in particular has done one thing for him: It committed the traitors to his cause. There is no going back for any of the participants. For Magnus, perhaps, as he was still holding out on full commitment despite being part of the council post-Isstvan V. But not for any of the Dropsite Legions. He has ensured that none of them could stand against his war against the Emperor. They might on occasion be bothersome to handle, pursuing their own goals all the while, but they have to see this through with him. Any freedom and autonomy they might gain is only after Terra has fallen, if even then. They cannot afford to stand alone against the Imperium. Horus has chained him to the Heresy, and every Legion is bringing more to the table than it takes. Alpharius, in particular, is a vital piece in his game. He cannot afford to lose his network of spies and infiltrators, not at this point. He doesn't know, and never can know, all that the Hydra is up to. But he does not need to so long as he gets access to their resources as far as he needs them. He knows they're holding things back, that they're running circles around everything, but it's worth the price. They're playing their part, up until the opening of the Siege.

That article is actually making me pretty upset. It's such a blatant display of mental acrobatics to retcon him into a "he's always been here!!!" role as Captain of 2nd, preceding and succeeding Sicarius. And AGAIN this infringes on Uriel Ventris's turf. You know, the guy who ascended to captaincy of 4th Company, reluctantly following from the noble sacrifice of his mentor, then going on to do a bit of Ultramarining until he gets demoted for potential corruption/renegade tendencies due to.... actually very uncontroversial actions on Tarsis Ultra (I believe it was?), gets exiled for a bit doing his thing in the Eye of Terror before coming back, "buddying up" with some Grey Knights, who confirm his purity, and then returning to the Chapter to be reinstated to his Company eventually. Just that Ventris wasn't gone for centuries, enough for two other Captains to have centuries-spanning careers of glory and fanfare, like Cato Sicarius - who, as we recall, not only took part in the Damocles Gulf Crusade, but he was THE Ultramarine hero on Medusa V, the big summer campaign almost 20 years ago. Sicarius was Captain for at least 250 years before Acheran even took over, for heaven's sake. He's been Suzerain of Ultramar for 150 years before the Rift even opened. He was a Captain at the Assault of Black Reach, he encountered M'kar (who is QUITE a bigger deal than only-just-ascended Nemeroth, having been the doom of Calth 10 millennia ago), then went on to join in the war against Shon'tu, before defending Damnos from the Necrons. Just to do it again in 999.M41. And then we have the whole Invasion of Ultramar as shown in the Ventris books and Codexes, all before the Rift and the Terran Crusade. So we're now to believe that Titus was just... returned to his new-old post after almost three centuries of being gone, with two genuine heroes of the Chapter doing the actual work keeping the Chapter alive in the meantime? Heck, they had to set Titus's birth back to 660.M41 even just to give him some time with the captaincy, with how long Cato held it. They even retconned a throwaway name of Chapter heroes in Veil of Darkness to be about this Titus? Heck, the original description for Titus on the old SM1 website even refered says " Titus became company commander when his predecessor died in battle. He was by his mentor's side when he fell, and still feels the weight of taking over his mantle." - it was just Ventris even then, I guess.

Damn, that actually put into perspective why I have such a "meh" feeling about Titus becoming more prevalent since the SM2 success. I liked him a good amount in SM1, but it's definitely retreading a lot of the Ventris beats at this point, while egging out established characters who should be doing those jobs instead. Considering that the Uriel Ventris mini was pulled from sale, too, just before Titus gets his second (after the awful first model), it leaves a bad taste. Frankly, anything to do with the Nightbringer should have been Uriel's job. Heck, Swords of Calth is basically opening that arc for him already!

I mean, we have had Iron Hands as part of Fulgrim already. It makes sense not to tread on that too much in the endgame. As for Khârn, I get the criticism, but I think it's pretty necessary, narratively, as there's been a bit of hole in his arc between Galaxy in Flames and Betrayer, and you can't really show Angron without Khârn. He doesn't "trust" anybody else to get as close to him and have the spine to tell him off. Even Khârn didn't fare well in that regard here, but anybody else would've been probably straight up murdered. I think Khârn is the necessary lens for the reader to view Angron through without much of the Legion's obedience or awe, or the other Legions' disdain.

I'm eyeing the Troggoth box, myself. The Skaven one would come second, but it'd have to be pretty well-priced for me to overlook the unnecessary second Warpblaster - strange decision to include that. Will have to see if the price is good enough to warrant picking up the whole thing, but my Gitz could certainly use another 1000 points of Trolls - I only got 3 right now, anyway, and that kit is excellent, among the absolute best GW has produced. Then again, I should prioritize the old Nurgle Spearhead via retailers, before it is gone for good...

So they dropped a bunch of stuff this weekend again and the next but got nothing but a special edition for a years-old novel and a french HH omnibus coming the next. Figures.

I mean, Grimnar and Dante got shown up by the new Necromunda character guy last night. The guy is supposedly older than the Imperium of Man. He beats out Bjorn, for feth's sake! As for dead Marine Characters, Lazarus succeeded Balthasar, the guy from Dark Vengeance, who turned into the generic Company Master Dark Angels model. The bloke had a novella, audio drama about his ascension and appeared in other books, and was axed for a new model that might have just as well been him. There was also the dead Chapter Master of the Raven Guard, who Shrike succeeded, before stepping down for the new bloke. That Chapter Master didn't have a model, though.

RIP Acheran, I suppose

"The Horus Heresy Saga", 12 "core" books from the HH they chose to get new hardbacks with new artwork. Gotta milk it dry.

They obviously noticed there's an issue with the audio, considering they do dial it up for the trailers, halfway through. But.... I guess a multimillion pounds company can't figure out how to raise the microphone volume even 10 minutes into the stream. Unknown technology, I suppose. It's a crying shame because I really want to hear all about the Warhammer Quest: Darkwater box they're going to put onto my shelf soon.

The Ascension Omnibus should be out in general retail as of this week, by the way. Best make sure you got yours ordered, we all know how low BL keeps even Omnibus print runs... My one regret is that the White Dwarf short story remains uncollected as of today. I figured it might be included in the recent Darkness Eternal anthology, but that was Altar of Maws, so that hope was dashed.

Haha, that Hereticus description ends with: As opposed to what? Every other BL release that doesn't get a normal retail launch? They also marked it as getting an ebook and audiobook, despite both already being available. Warcom is so silly. The Twice-Dead King Omnibus is really nice in that it includes both short stories from the limited/special editions, which hadn't been released properly before. It does, however, absolutely suck as far as the cover is concerned. Both novels had excellent cover art, and this is just generic Necron stuff they've still had lying around.

That only works out for Guilliman's storyline, though. Weren't Russ and the Khan still out there somewhere? If I remember correctly, Guilliman thinks of having to leave them alone like that, before he gets put in stasis. I just can't see them skipping the Khan's departure, or Russ's feast (even though we have seen that already in the Bjorn audio drama and elsewhere).