1ncarnadine

The hellish catch 22 of where BL is at right now is that authors are being tasked to write about these characters that won't change or die, so they often choose to write about characters near them who actually can experience growth and consequence. But then there's relentless whining that Book didn't feature Character enough. It's exhausting. Some of the books that do this are good, some are bad, and some are mediocre, but people crying Not Enough Title Character in Book haunts these entries no matter what when this happens. What's ultimately frustrating is that 40k could kill more of its special characters and they'd still be popular as long as they have a good story behind their circumstances. Just look at Captain Tycho. And maybe we'll reach that point some day? I don't know, maybe ADB as 40k narrative lead may have some impact on that, too.

I'll speculate, and also note that these aren't necessarily my preferences, just what I expect. Guy Haley on a Russ/Mars book, which almost has to be #2. John French on book 3. Unsure on content, just a hunch. Not sure otherwise. Nick Kyme? Maybe Mark Collins? Thorpe will likely write more Dark Angels shenanigans re: Caliban, for better or worse, but I'm not sure how soon that will be. I'd love to see "new blood" in this series too, but I am worried they'll stick to the set who did the Siege and to some extent Dawn of Fire.

I'm glad we're not getting this because I would hate it. It's against the Index Astartes description of the Iron Cage, and that's essentially what I'd like to see. Just play the hits. In the Iron Cage I want (and in IA: IW), Perturabo sets it up for the Fists well ahead of time. There's no desperation, just a sophisticated and evil plan borne to fruition. Dorn expects this to be their resolution, an honorable fight where he and his brother finally settle their score, but at this point Perturabo has moved on to new goals, and Dorn and the Fists get absolutely mauled by the trap. Eventually Dorn has to be saved by the Ultramarines. Perturabo only takes too long and fails to annihilate them because he's grown to enjoy tormenting them too much, then takes heaps of gene-seed and ascends to daemonhood on his own terms. Not being forced to because he's cornered, or because that "soul-wound"* was going to become a mortal failing. Meanwhile the Fists take nearly two decades to return to strength and Dorn is left an utterly broken man, having failed in every way. I just want that. No significant subversion of expectations. Just the one major win that Chaos is supposed to get in the Scouring described in detail. I think what will be changed is the size of the conflict. Instead of just mentioning Sebastus IV, they mention a series of planets in Ashes, so maybe it's a conflict that spans systems now? Like the Beta-Garmon conflict. And I suspect that rather than being surprised by just really vicious tactics, the Fists will be ambushed by the Iron Warriors embracing Chaos and warp-based weaponry, where they expected to just grind through via gruelling siege warfare (but without the IW relying on the warp extensively, which they would not have done to the same extent previously). *I suspect this is still going to crop back up though, right? When was the last time it was mentioned? I feel like it was Slaves to Darkness but was it brought up during the Siege?

I also voted for Dropsite Massacre. I'm not sure it was strictly the best-written BL entry among the candidates, but it was the one I personally enjoyed the most from what I've been able to read. Of the 2025 entries that I've actually read, Voidscarred was good but not great, Interceptor City I think I read and voted for last year in LE format, Fulgrim: The Perfect Son was just ok, and Era of Ruin was too uneven as an anthology. Grotsnik was very good and my runner-up choice, so I hope it performs well. I still have a lot of of 2025's offerings in the pile of shame in some format or another so I can't judge them yet, unfortunately. And Ashes whenever that shows up. I suspect Interceptor City will win this year because it's Dan Abnett and more people have had access to it, even though it was 9th last year. But you never know... last year's results were baffling to me.

+1 for Calas Typhon, and I'd love to see it penned by Chris Wraight. He's an obvious favorite pick for anything, but he's dealt with the Death Guard often enough before and his take on this character would be really interesting. And another +1 for Kelbor-hal, or barring him, Sota-nul. Justin D Hill did a short on the disciples and it was pretty fantastic, so I wouldn't mind seeing him on this, but honestly anything covering this faction would be great. Johnathan D Beer could be another newer BL author to do some Dark Mech in the Heresy. Fresh blood in the Heresy and now the Scouring doing full novels and character series entries would be nice to see. Otherwise I'd just echo Roomsky's list for the most part with a few exceptions: -for a Raven Guard character, I'd put forward Kaedes Nex. He has a mini now, and a mysterious, undocumented murder spree across the Heresy that eventually lands him in the Sol system and on Mars for a short stint. John French just wrote him in Dropsite Massacre, too. -for Salamanders, I'd actually put forward Cassian Dracos. Again, we just got some of his perspective in Dropsite Massacre. Though I think if we follow the journey of the Ebon Drake at all, it'd be best to cover him from mostly outside perspectives like Xiaphas Jurr or Narik Dreygur. The Disciples of the Flame is just a really neat concept and something I'd like to see explored more, but there's a lot of story as Cassian Vaughn that feels like an un-mined vein of gold. -I'm split on what would be cool to see for Iron Warriors. A non-McNeill author handling Forrix could be neat, but Falk is an interesting idea. I'm honestly all for a 3rd option here as long as it's not Dantioch, like Idriss Krendl or something. The Iron Warriors feel short on personalities at times. But Forrix still seems like the most obvious choice if we're tending to go by first captain types. -if we see a Jubal Khan (or Qin Xa, or whoever) character book, let's actually have Wraight not do this one, yeah? He's done so much heavy lifting for the White Scars and he's been so good at it, but I feel like we could use some fresh eyes on the faction. Since I've already been author-wishlisting a fair amount here, I'd put forward Noah Van Nguyen. I'm also going to suggest a character series entry for Endryd Haar. He's very representative of the Blackshields, and again, he has a nice, big mini. And I think it'd be worth it to settle the plotlines that brought him to the Beta-Garmon conflict with a ton of doomsday weapons, and maybe move him towards Terra... and make up for Dan Abnett utterly wasting him for no particularly good reason. Ugh, Saturnine. I still have such a love/hate relationship with that book. I'm not sure who would be up for writing a ridiculous final romp with Haar. Maybe Guy Haley? ...Denny Flowers? Probably whoever feels like they'd have the most fun with it. Finally, Jenetia Krole. If Valdor gets a book, she probably should, too.

I think Isstvan III is fine where it's at, personally. Flashbacks and short stories maybe, if anything. But a full-novel retelling? I'm not so sure. Tallarn, same, we've seen enough. It was a massive tank battle but a miserable, grinding one that took place over time. Maybe there's more stories to tell in there but at this point I think, leave it to the tabletop and the imagination of fans running their own Tallarn campaigns. Beta-Garmon though, yes, seems like there's more stories there. More Mechanicum and especially Dark Mechanicum stories, yes. Those seem like they'd also be important going forward into the Scouring?? I will keep saying it over and over but it's wild how little of Kelbor-hal and his disciples we've seen. There's a ton of side-stories I think would be fun to explore more on this side of the setting, but overall I think the Dropsite Massacre is one of the only major events I can think of that deserved to have someone like John French go through and tie it together. And tie it together he did. Just finished this and generally loved it. And I really enjoyed the snippets showing the start of the rot creeping in to Legio Mortis, and the closure on the stories of some black book characters whose fates were left kind of open-ended. But... we mostly knew, right? Poor Orth. I do have some misgivings. We now know the Dropsite Primarchs all had a moment to get together to think things through, and at no point does a single one of them consider that anyone else could be involved in a treacherous plot? That no consideration is given to any other assets being involved in Horus's plot is wild. They even use their time together to give Ferrus a pat on the back over having been approached. No, seriously, they didn't consider that any other primarchs were in on this?? I guess it always was that way, though, so it has to continue to be that way by necessity. And they're having a hard enough time as it is dealing with Horus's betrayal. But it feels like something that, if we're going to revisit this stuff, should have come up and been shot down in some way. "No, brothers, I trust our comrade Curze absolutely." lol.

Yes and no. It's mostly random smatterings of scanned pages in English on 4chan. Someone else got a German copy and posted a few spoilers on reddit. Maybe the scans have been compiled into a pdf by now, or will be, but I think I'll wait for a physical copy. Maybe the hot takes will cool off by then too.

Now that I know there's Aeldari romance, I'm interested to see how the corsairs compare to the Craftworld perspective in the Rogue Trader game.

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.