1ncarnadine

Well that confirms it. Typhon's chem hand flamer and the Ultramarine Nemesis chem bolters get Panic, but none of the normal Death Guard chem flamers cause Panic. :cuss:

That's a Salamanders variant of the suit that we might still see, as a conversion supported by the Journals, or maybe as a resin upgrade or something. I wouldn't write it off, but I also wouldn't necessarily expect it soon either, even though Salamanders are functioning as one of this edition's poster boys. We don't know if/when they'll get back to legion specific stuff and seem focused on filling in the plastic range at the moment. I somewhat expect we'll finally see Salamanders and Iron Warrior Praetors in the next year or so, though, but that's just me guessing. But yeah, brilliant conversions just using bits from that IH Praetor. They seem like a great Legion to do with the Saturnine box It's going to be a bit before I get to my Saturnine box but I'm planning on removing the Saturnine aquilae and Death Guarding them up a bit with maybe some additional chest plating and maybe some censers/emitters/vents. I think I'll also source a fist from somewhere for my Centurion mini, and use the extra wound and Eternal Warrior (2) from the Unnatural Resilience Prime Advantage to hopefully weather any faster attacks to deliver his punches.

The last time I did a big post summary of what I've been reading, I suggested that I'd give BL fiction a break. I LIED. So here's a bunch more random reviews of things as I dig through a mountainous backlog. I really am taking a break after this spree, though. No, really! I'm already most of the way through the Southern Reach series. Then I can read more BL... Audios: Outer Dark: Oh my god, it's STRABAN!!! I guess I missed any audios by Shogo Miyakita until now, but I have played a ton of Space Marine 2 and especially the Heavy class. I had no idea that voice actor was doing audios, but that's awesome. So now some of the comments here make more sense to me, and I'll be honest... Some of the line reading is a little awkward in the first few chapters of this one. It really picks up though, and his voices feel more natural after maybe a quarter to a third of the way in. Or I got used to them. Re: the story itself, it's a huge leap forward from Red Tithe. I love that we get to see ancient void pirates like the Ashen Claws still hanging around, and deep history references like the ancient friezes depicting the Carcharadons. The action's fine, and the human perspectives have a lot more room to breathe compared to Red Tithe. 7/10 Sea of Souls: have not (and will not) read any of the other Dawn of Fire entries, but hearing that this was essentially a standalone (by Chris Wraight), I figured I'd get to this eventually. I'm glad I did! Just a great horror novel all around, even if it was a bit predictable. It was pretty clear (to me) something was wrong when they got vox hailed and blocked the transmission, but to Wraight's credit I was still rooting for the characters the whole way. Even though I felt suspicious, the book still managed to sustain tension in the blind voidship battle, in the astropathic choir, in the space marine showdown, and so on. He consistently set up moments, over and over again, where it seemed like things could turn around, just to repeatedly pull the rug on each and every member of the cast. 8.5/10; I love this stuff, but probably a much lower score if you want general plot development, character progress, positive outcomes, etc. Novels: The Vincula Insurgency: This was good. Not a bad way to handle some light retconning/flashbacks, tbh, and it's nice to spend time with characters who are long past in the Gaunt's Series itself. Though it's also a little strange to see them pre-Verghast in some ways. Not much to say other than I always look forward to more Sabbat Worlds, and the serpent tattoo stuff definitely makes me wonder if there are any ties to the Alpha Legion at play or not. 7.5/10 Urdesh: The Serpent & the Saint: This is obviously a tough book to talk about on its own because it's one half of a complete story, but I'm still going to address each separately at first. First, Matthew Farrer! Heck yeah! This first half is ok but kind of underwhelming. There is a lot of action, but the quality of that action is honestly quite good. I think Farrer really nails Space Marines and especially the Iron Snakes here... For better or worse. They are relatively emotionally underdeveloped super soldiers with minimal wit and individuality. There are scenes that play off this really well, including one in a submarine meant to deliver the Astartes on a secret mission. But mostly there's a lot of bolter porn, where each section on its own is fantastic, but unfortunately there's so much that it does start to blur together. Eventually, I did start to recognize some of the Iron Snakes by name, but mostly by role, which isn't great. "Oh, it's the one with the plasma gun." "Oh, it's the one with the flamer." etc. The ragtag band of heretic Astartes is great, though, and, well, Nautakah is here from an ADB short, and he rocks. The Saint is necessarily a naive non-character who's being lead by what she perceives as prophetic wisdom, and... Urdesh: The Magister & the Martyr: ...the first section of this book feels so relentlessly optimistic and flat as a result. I actually struggled through this, but pushed on anyway. Spoilers but, essentially, at the end of the last book, the Saint creates a miracle, and there are what felt like over a hundred pages of the miracle happening and everything going great in this novel. It turns out this is set-up for the Saint getting overconfident and falling into the Anarch's trap much later, but it's not the most interesting read ever. There's not much conflict to keep what's happening interesting or engaging. But I'm glad I got through that, because the finale when the jaws of the warp trap slam shut are really excellent. I also just love Nautakah rampaging through everything on his own little mission, finally culminating in probably one of the best duels in BL fiction? The fractions-of-a-second hyper awareness and split second decisions somewhat recall the Holmes vs Moriarty fight from the 2nd RDJ Sherlock movie. I really enjoyed it. It's probably how more Primarch fights should have felt in the Heresy, and feels perfect for two ancient super-human warriors slamming together at the climax of this story. The Saint realizing she's not "always on" as an infallible vessel of the Emperor's will is played well, too. Oh, hey, the one Iron Snake from Salvation's Reach is in this one too, I guess. Hard to rate this and the prior book on their own, and both are uneven in different ways. So I'll arbitrarily slap a- 7.5/10 on to this one, though there are elements in both halves that I would rate much higher on their own. Deathworlder: This was fun! I think Hayward managed a nice balance of making the Catachans feel like they could have come straight out of an '80s action movie while preserving their own identities. The Tyranid world-digestion death spiral is horrific to see depicted in detail, and there's definitely a few scenes that will stick with me. The Cadian regiment who didn't have rebreathers and died in place, microbially eaten from the inside out and slowly melting away... yikes. Kind of reminiscent of the fields of "hox-gene" flower people in Annihilation (the movie, not the book), but so much more hostile. And I appreciate the story never name-dropped its Tyranid horrors. I do think by the end, many of its characters are a little reduced by very simplistic motivational drives, but also it's fair that those are the types that could make it through this kind of situation by clinging to one solid goal amid all the horror. 7.5/10 very solid showing

Finished this on a plane flight yesterday. My thoughts: Angels of Another Age: This was ok. I think it almost belongs in a late-siege anthology that doesn't exist, rather than the post-Siege anthology, and felt like French just wanted to do his own take on the Black Rage and remarking on the Blood Angels going forward. Which was fine, but we've already seen some of this a bit in this series Fulgurite: Hahaha, weird Fabius cameo but ok. Again, another story that feels like it's not really part of a post-Siege anthology. It's hard to place this with everything else, but I guess Erebus took a little detour while hopping through time and space to chase Oll and his crew? The short itself is probably the least interesting in the anthology. Just tying up the loose end of Narek, or setting up something else re: the fulgurite. Fragments (All We Have Left): Another story that isn't post-Siege! Feels like something that was cut from TEatD, even though seemingly nothing was cut from TEatD. It was good, though. It's sad to think on the loss of even the most banal histories in this conflict, and the way the driest texts became a temporary reprieve is a fantastic thought. Ex Libris: I am essentially always in for weird John French Ahriman warptime shenanigans, so I enjoyed this, though it was very short. Also the first story that understands the assignment in this anthology, because we're actually dealing with the metaphysical fallout of Horus's death. System Purge: I was really in for the first half, remembering that at some point in The Last Wall we had a Dark Mechanicum character cameo in Inar Satarael. And I just love seeing into the Mechanicum in general. But it's just the obliterator virus being the obliterator virus. Very interesting set-up, very poor pay-off. After the Dawn, the Darkness: Yes, excellent. This was good. I'd strongly argue some of the first few shorts of this should have been swapped out for more of this kind of end-cap story, actually dealing with aspects of the fallout of the conflict. This one does very well on the human side of things, giving Katsuhiro's story the ending it deserves. That the people who survive the Siege are essentially press-ganged is pretty brutal in and of itself, too. Again, I feel like there's more to say here, about how the Imperium treats its people, about the Ultramarines overseeing it, about the lives and politics at play, but still this was a great look into it. Homebound: Oof, ouch. Amazing. The journey through the wasteland, reflecting on the devastation, and seeing the various ways the invasion has affected the world despite the increasing distance from the palace, was all handled pretty beautifully. This is a story about mourning, that times have past, and accepting the end of them. Not just for Ilya but for the White Scars as a legion, personified by Sojuk. Also, it's so painful to watch someone you love waste away. I'm going to add TMI, but I watched by his bedside as my father passed on last weekend, so this story hit extra hard. It was an end to a very long fight with a terrible disease. I'm glad his suffering is over and sad that he's gone. And that sums up my feelings on this one pretty well. Yeah, worth the price of the anthology for this one alone. 11/10. Actual art. The Carrion Lord of the Imperium: Wow, we have really been starved for ADB content for a while, huh? This was great. I appreciate following Dio's perspective through from Unity to the end, and the story does a huge amount of lifting regarding the Talons of the Emperor with limited pages. I have a pet theory with the Custodes, that their souls are bound to the Emperor's own amid the alchemical process that creates them. So when Dio admits he's getting nightmares, I had to wonder how that relates to the Emperor himself. And I wondered if there's a second unspoken question after Dio's first; "and are your dreams nightmares too?" But hey, that's just my read. Also a really dark juxtaposition of how the Sisters are treated after the Heresy vs Aphone in Fragments.

The Talons PDF rules only covers the existing miniatures, which tracks with a lot of how this is being handled. I think something that needs to be brought up re: the Talons is the GW policy that ranges should not share models. It leaves the Talons in a particularly weird place, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Custodes range(s) contributed significantly to that policy being put down in the first place. Because FW developed the miniatures, originally in resin but moved immediately to plastic for general release. Then those plastics became a big seller for 40k. So if the Talons Liber is delayed, it might be because they're planning to more firmly split the 30k and 40k ranges and release more plastics for 30k at that time. Possibly in an army set like the Solar Aux and Mechanicum? Which may (or may not) include an expansion to the range of the SoS. Or that may come later in Journals, at this rate.

Yeah... That was a really rough transition period. I remember the way the Dark Angels rules were completely re-done between the get-you-by rules in Retribution and the ones that released in Crusade. I was tee'd up to do a DA Ravenwing force based around Outriders with rad grenades. Then the newer rules stripped the character from the DA rites, and second edition ran closely with those same ideas. They made the Dreadwing rules I'd been looking forward to an oppressive mess, too. That's a big reason why I skipped second edition.

That's Chris Wraight. Though I wouldn't be surprised if other authors had started adopting his writing policy.

That's fair, they do stick out a lot more. I honestly love it. They look more anchored to the carapace for a beetle-back look,* look like they might give more real estate for transfers and other designs, and also appear more practical for arm range of motion (which could also lead to better poses with the sculpts and more open poseability with resculpting and reposing). I'm hoping this model design also has a complete helmet instead of the half-helms for easier head swapping, but that remains to be seen. *The old Cataphractii are great, but something I really didn't like is when the double-stacked pads would have a huge gap between the pads and torso. It just looked like too much weight stacked awkwardly over the shoulder joint, and like a giant bullet trap. So I'd always move the top pads in as far as possible.

It's good to see that Death Guard & some other legions seem to be getting some of their armoury back in Legacies. Though I think it's weird that Blood Angels are missing a similar entry. They could have at least done an Angels Tears Fire Support Squad with assault cannons in a support slot or something. Also, while I'm on the topic of chem flamers... I noticed in the leaks that the Grave Wardens Heavy Alchem Flamer doesn't cause Panic like normal flamers. The weapons that have been described as either alchemical emerald fire or aerosolized gouts of deadly microbial and biochemical solutions? The latter I'm imagining as being like tear gas sprayers but instead of just painful spicy air, your target's flesh melts off. That's not causing Panic!? Either of those are somehow less terrifying than your average flamer? Come on, SG team. Hopefully that gets changed.

There are separate profiles for Power Armour, Terminator, and Saturnine Terminator Praetors in the Libers, so I think it stands to reason that there are Jetbike and Outrider Praetors in the Legacies PDF. And if not, then fair enough, we can all riot. I'm being patient, but that would definitely be fair cause for pitchforks in my eyes. It's very frustrating how much hinges on that document at this point. And whichever corporate window-licking mouth-breather made the decision that the only rules that can be published are for existing models definitely deserves a little surprise trip in an unmarked van either way.

Going off what's on Lexicanum, which I'm pretty sure is straight from the Aranthian Succession: Emphasis mine. Also worth pointing out these are basically disintegrator pistols vs what the Astartes might have deployed in the Great Crusade/Heresy. It is a theme of Necromunda (and the Warhammer Crimes series, for that matter) that select, highly privileged and powerful families of major hive worlds have access to archeotech they probably shouldn't, by way of pilfering, blackmailing and bribing their way into accessing troves of stuff like this. They might even hire gangs to retrieve mysterious boxes that may have something like a disintegrator or two in them. Ain't none of this going to the Astra Militarum, that's for sure, and it's not necessarily reliable enough to survive long in the high intensity warfare that Astartes are known for. Also, Helmawr's personal retinue was supposedly made up of these guys. Even the WarCom article makes multiple references to guarding nobility, not low-rank enforcers. And if nobility does want to get into a hive scuffle, that's their business. Sometimes they do it because they're just bored. Like the Emperor Commodus putting on lion furs and going around beating commoners while imagining he's inherited the power of Hercules.

Do you mean just the flamer profile they could attack with? Grave Wardens still have Death Cloud under their Special Rules instead of as wargear, as does Typhon, and Mortarion. Tarantulas have unit type Vehicle, so they're excluded from benefiting from the bonus under the WS legion tactica.

He's interesting because he gives a damn about humanity as a concept, but the instant they move to a kind of "out group" territory he's happy to slaughter them with zero remorse. In reality, he's significantly more concerned with the act of toppling a perceived oppressor than he is with liberating humanity, and it constantly shows in his decision making. As with Lorgar and his mask of humility, it's a kind of excuse to disguise what he really wants to do. When he liberates people, it's almost a happy accident as a consequence of toppling a tyrant. But if it is a lie that he cares about humanity, it's one that he does believe in himself. Mortarion is one of the most self-delusional Primarchs, if not the most.

I've long thought that Imperium Secundus is a really fascinating concept that would work great as a story told in the Heresy black book format. Cloaked in historical revisionism and unreliable historical narrators trying to retroactively justify all of what happened out there, and way, way less of the view from the ground and the perpetual/primarch story lines. It could be really fascinating, and there should be a ton of conflicts between traitor Forge Worlds, lingering elements of the Shadow Crusade and Thramas Crusade, daemonic incursions, inter-Imperium disputes, blackshields, piratical fiefdoms, etc. And many of the inter-Imperium disputes could easily be called "wars in the interest of the security of the noble cause of Imperium Secundus and the greater Imperium iteslf, against an upstart, blackguard pirate kingdom..." again, retroactively, even if you can read in between the lines and realize that some loyalists didn't want to go along with the whole idea and had to be "forcefully reincorporated." It's the sort of thing that lends itself to further drama in the Scouring, too. But yeah, TUE kind of stinks. I'm in agreement that I've read it once over a decade ago and I'm not going back. Oh hey, I've also broken my Siege of Terra reading block and read a lot lately. I'm going to go ahead and do a rapid-fire round-up rate-what-I've-read since roughly Christmas. Flesh and Steel- Heck yeah, this was fantastic. The looks into the AdMech conclave was really fascinating, and the explanations of their forms and their holy meanings was something I'd love to see more of. The main character is (for better or worse) deeply relatable to me. I've been sitting on this and other Warhammer Crime for ages now and could never find the time to get to it, and this was a great starting point. 9/10 Grim Repast- More crime series, more evil perpetuated by the elite ruling class. Solid, but echoing a lot from Flesh and Steel and Bloodlines (though I read that after this). Just a little warp cult stuff, nothing too big. I actually kind of wish it hadn't even went there, tbh. We could have evil Slaanesh and Khorne leaning cultists without an explicit "blood for the bl-" winky wink. 8/10 Bloodlines- Still great, still not quite as good as F&S. I loved the secret serpent cult reveal. All three of these make me really hope they do a second wave of Crime books, but especially Bloodlines and Flesh and Steel. Hopefully Haley and Wraight get at least one more shot on these, though it seems like they've pumped the brakes on Crime & Horror for the most part. 8.5/10 Ghazghkull: Prophet of the WAAAGH- The best explanation of Ork metaphysics, probably? If Makari is trustworthy, so, maybe not. I think this one suffers a little for wanting the reader to know a little about the wars for Armageddon, but as a long-time fan it all tracked really well. Loved this one. 9/10 Mortarion: The Pale King- I have not been a fan of the Primarchs series books using the black book exemplary battles as a writing prompt, and imo the best of this series have been the books that avoid doing that, like Fulgrim, Lorgar, & Perturabo. But Annandale added several layers to the conflict with the Order on Galaspar that made it more than just a re-telling of the section from the black book, ultimately bringing Mortarion's vision for himself and his purpose into clear view and providing an example of yet another time that he rejected any kind of direction from the Emperor as a father figure. Solid, 7.5/10. These next 4 I listened to as audios over commuting: Elemental Council- Oh dang, this was good. There are so many layers at play, with a xenos faction that's often presented as asian-coded attempting the imperialist subjugation of a world that itself is layered in Chinese/SEA culture and is a member of a much older empire. And the Imperium is operating an insurgency via a Raptors captain? Artamax steals the show as the antagonist here and deservedly so. This novel demonstrates the relative naivety of the T'au as a race incredibly well, and their lack of questioning regarding their Ethereal caste and the Greater Good does highlight why, as a species, they haven't resonated with the warp much... yet. Something that stuck with me after this one is that the catastrophe Artamax nearly enacts is kind of inevitable the larger the T'au Empire gets? It's only a matter of time, but at the same time it's easy to feel relief that he was thwarted. Bellisarius Cawl: The Great Work- Very functional story, fun Cawl stuff, and doing the work of "cleaning up" the fall of Sotha and the OG Scythes of the Emperor. 7/10 Wrath of Iron- I had never read this one, but I've always heard good things. It's very good, though feels a little dated and heavy on the action now. I'm hoping to get to Guymer's Iron Hands at some point after this, too, but I haven't yet so I can't compare/contrast his with this. The Kaesoron cameo is fun. The Iron Hands are dicks. IMO the best parts of the book were ultimately the interactions with Lord Commander Nehata and how he struggled with how to deal with the Iron Hands. Ultimately the ends justify the means here when it comes to the Iron Xth, but you have to wonder how often that is not the case. 7.5/10 Krieg- Oof, dark. I really appreciate how grounded this one was. There are no warp entities, xenos, cults, or anything else on the planet Krieg. Just uncompromising humanity, retreading why, once again, we can't have nice things. The darkest part of this book to me was the Cadian trooper ultimately settling into admiration and respect for the Krieg soldiery, even though they had been disturbed at various points by the behavior of the Krieg troops. 7/10 Not many low scores here, but to be fair, most of these books were rated fairly well by most folks around here so I wasn't exactly taking a chance on much. It's a big chunk out of my BL backlog, but also probably time for a well deserved break to read some non-BL fiction and non-fiction.

It took me a little while to find time for the last 40 pages (busy weekend), but I finished this yesterday and have a few more thoughts. This one is my definition of a 6/10, maybe a 6.5/10. It's fine! I'd generally recommend it, especially for anyone interested in the Emperor's Children or maybe the Black Templars. It suffers a bit for standing against some of what is probably the best BL fiction ever, Josh Reynolds's EC works (Fulgrim: The Palatine Phoenix and the Fabius books), and there are still a bunch of other great EC reads too. Addressing the lack of focus on Fulgrim himself, there's something about Tamaris's journey that reminds me of a line from the Sanguinius Primarchs book where they basically say (paraphrasing) "he's just like us, but more so" when referring to Sanguinius vs the Blood Angels Legion, implying that despite his serene facade, Sanguinius does in fact struggle with the Red Thirst. Though we never see it explicitly, even when he has a perspective in a Heresy novel. As Fulgrim: The Perfect Son wrapped up, I think it did much the same. As Tamaris reflects on how hollow the victory felt and his father leans in to tell him he's a perfect son, one can imagine Fulgrim himself experiencing something very similar with the Emperor. It was a nice little ending. And I think Jude's own reply in the WarCom interview backs me up here: Regarding Berengar's vision at the start of the novel, how it repeats until he encounters the Emperor's Children, and how Fulgrim then seems aware of his dreams and eventually appears in one, I'm left wondering if his visions were a product of Fulgrim's powers the whole time. Fulgrim has been appearing in dreams and visions ever since his ascension in the Heresy, so it's possible. There's also a slightly tragic element to Fulgrim trying to sway Berengar over that recalls his similar attempts with Ferrus Manus, but tbh I'm kind of stretching for these themes because the novel itself doesn't make any of this explicit. I do have a pretty big criticism. The Emperor's Children have such a rich and messed up history, with individual legionaries dealing with a complex mix of emotions, and the book doesn't really grapple with much of that past and how it continues to affect them. To be fair, it is standing alongside a bunch of novels that have already done so, so maybe having EC making comments on the Heresy, Legion Wars, Skalathrax, Harmony etc would be treading ground we've already seen them discuss in other books. For example, Lord of Excess just recently hit on how its main character is essentially repeating a self-indulgent cycle of petty empire building and has been in this cycle for 10,000 years. Still, feels like there could be more pathos grounded in that to give its characters a little more depth and make them more sympathetic. I think this one was a little too short, and maybe could have used another 40-50 pages to do that work. As it stands, the characters were mostly flat and one-dimensional (like the moustache twirling sorcerer, or the predictably treacherous apothecary). Tamaris does stand out a bit here, at least, but he should because he's the main character. Jude Reid did describe these characters as following "single-minded pursuits" in the WarCom promo piece on this, so that does track, but I think there could still be deeper characterization, and maybe a little more on Mauvais's relationship with Fulgrim, and what he was or has been. And for that reason, I'm not sure the Black Templars were the best choice of antagonist/foil to this depiction of the EC? They are, by their nature, typically pretty one-dimensional and single minded, so when the EC are also given a somewhat shallow depiction, it's easy for the BT to seem like they were depicted "better" than the EC. I think that's the heart of the criticism I've seen from a lot of folks out there, but I don't personally find it particularly outrageous, because the EC often are shallow, narcissistic and downright evil. I don't think the depiction of the EC was inaccurate, even if it's flat at times. And the book does end with a Black Sword defiled by Chaos and the heads of every Templar on Crucible on spikes, so, it's hard for me to say the author was playing favorites with the BT. I'd also echo that the PDF arc was pretty solid. Easily one of the best perspectives in the novel. This is my first Jude Reid book, and I probably won't go back and pick up the stuff on Cadia or Morvenn Vahl because my reading time is limited and those are subjects I'm just not as interested in, but I do look forward to seeing more work from her in the future. She's not an author I'd auto-buy the special edition version of a book for (and I didn't with Fulgrim: TPS despite being a huge EC fan), but if she's covering a faction or part of the setting I'm interested in then I'm down to keep giving her books a shot.