1ncarnadine

I don't know if/when we'll ever see another Titanicus FAQ, but yeah, based on the LI rules, I fully expect that an update would note the Warbringer access. So now that we have these upgrades in hand, do we think they'll release a few more by end of year or next year? I can't tell if they're winding LI down or what they plan to do with it, even though there's plenty of things still missing (Arquitors!!!). If they did plan to move it all, then on the Titanicus front the resin that still hasn't been moved to plastic includes: Warhound C-Beam Dissolutor and Graviton Destructor Reaver Warp Missile, Volkite Eradicator, and Graviton Destructor Warbringer Belicosa Volcano Cannon Psi-Titan Armigers & Moirax I think that's it? Fingers crossed that these all get moved, and hopefully come with some other new goodies. Though part of me wonders if they did the new Reaver arm weapons to fill the role that some of the old top mounts did, with no intention to convert the old roof weapons to plastic. I did see that the upgrade sprues are sold out on the US webstore, so that might be promising. All the new, complete titan kits are still in stock though, so maybe not.

I don't feel that the hive was meant to be a character. This book is more about the culture of a hive, and creating an example for the depth of culture that hive cities in the Imperium should have. The culture of the hive is a character much more so than the hive itself.

Yeah, the Grav is great. I think I'd rather have S6, Beam(2) and the eradicator's range over S5 with the range and better Beam rule. It's only got a few edge case uses as it stands and maybe should have been priced at 25 or even 20 points for an arm mount. Gryphonicus and Venator can swap Reavers in to Extergimus to power up the Volkite. But they can also power up the Grav to S11, which might be better. The volkite is less heat buildup via the maniple rule than a gatling, though, so that's something. For Titan Legions that have safer reactors (Astorum, Crucius) maybe a volkite arm, volkite roof and melta build could do alright? With no intervening terrain you can beam twice and force 10 shield saves, hopefully having the second beam roll on a weakened 4+ save. Might be ok with Fureans as well with a higher chance to get an awakening in. If they're just Reaver Arm mounts on the cards, then they may not work on the Warbringer unless there's a little faq update. But I suspect many folks who are still playing AT are just going to house rule them to be compatible.

The bizarre build-up of the Deathwatch, spending time with them, and the Arbitrator Sinos, only for them to conduct a raid that sees them wiped out and accomplishing nothing.. that's kind of 40k? But also why. There's a discussion to be had about good vs bad negative story arcs, where things go wrong and that's just how it goes. I really liked Sea of Souls. I think that book is a master class in . This one just kind of had them around, and I can't decipher what the point was or what kind of lesson anyone should take away from it. But then what was this? The middle act almost should have been its own story, entirely divorced from the Necron plot and left as a mystery on this world where humans slowly get wise to a Necron tomb awakening and come to terms with that doom in various ways. It's like a novella inserted into the middle of a different book. I felt the horror was effective, though, even though it didn't end up servicing any point greater than "Necrons can be scary." I still think I'd recommend this if you're a Necron fan. Twice-Dead King is insanely good and makes it difficult to compare other works. Infinite and the Divine is fun but I think the very unique nature of its subject characters can readily distort your view of the Necrons as a race. Tomb King is trying to find its place distinct from those (both tough acts to follow), and despite being disjointed as its own story, it still has a lot of little hooks for someone who's looking for insights into the faction.

Lots of nice details on this guy, from the legatine axe, to the pads, the iron halo, the angry mustache, etc. But as many have said, I think one of the last minis folks were asking for was "Calgar's best bro." Wake me up when we primaricize the likes of Pedro Kantor (the Crimson Fists are on Armageddon!) or Gabriel Seth, or some other successors. God forbid they do a Blood Angels character when they're on the release box set art, or a new 3rd Company Captain who's inherited the role from Tycho.. who famously died in the 3rd War for Armageddon.* *edit: keeping mind that Captian Sendini and the 5th Company are present for the 4th War right now, and Sendini may be represented by the Armageddon box captain & art.

I finished it back in February and thought it was solid. I just don't typically bother posting if there isn't a thread up, or in some cases, if the thread is too old. I recently finished Fall of Cadia too and it was fairly terrible, but didn't end up posting my against-the-grain spite review because the thread for it was old. Happy to offer my thoughts when Roomsky gets a thread up, of course. The middle "horror" act was my favorite, but the horror segments are always my favorite.

The titan heads and the Reaver arm weapons are new. Everything else is stuff that was resin moving to plastic. Some of the Reaver carapace guns are missing, so there might be more new Titan weapon sprues coming in the future. Same with the Warbringer Bellicosa. Finally, the Psi-Titan and the Armigers are the last AT kits to move to plastic, if they're doing all of them.

It's mostly self-contained, though you do see the occasional mention of a Tronsvasse pistol or things like SteG armoured vehicles (presumably from Urdesh).

...Bonepicker hosts? Really curious as to what these are. I'm assuming tech thralls of some kind with a rules variant. Otherwise Skitarii aren't looking too great. The Marshal offers relatively little, there's no Assault on the Arquebus for a Volkite Charger profile with +5" range, and only one Trait worth much (Line). AP(-) on the rad charges. No rad furnace like their 40k counterparts. Access to lots of neat Mechanicum vehicles via this list, though. The troops are a little disappointing but not strictly bad. And the minis are cool. Maybe there's more Skitarii coming eventually with loadout variants (dedicated melee, special weapons units, 30k iron striders with extra extra long legs, etc). Doesn't seem like Myrmidons made it into their list either which is unfortunate

Far from a parade of bashing Gav, I think it's mostly his Dark Angels (and his Corax/Raven Guard) work that I'm not thrilled with. I think he wrote great Codex material, his Primarchs entries are excellent, Honour to the Dead is an awesome audio, he's produced some banger Heresy shorts, and my dad loved the Last Chancers so much that we had a long-running ritual of watching The Dirty Dozen every year. He's written a lot of cool things. But yeah, as phandaal said, he's also written some cringe. Some cringey cringe-cringe whyyy cringe. This is possibly off-topic, but seeing the summary of major Dark Angels works got me thinking... Why the heck aren't there more stories about their Successor Chapters? I would think the Angels of Absolution would be worth a story from their perspective, and a lot of the newer successors that have been added since the Great Rift have some mighty neat prompts. I get that the Unforgiven operate to some extent as a Legion, but that should justify more stories from non-Dark Angels perspectives if anything. The Dark Angels can't be everywhere themselves. Maybe it's just something that hasn't caught on yet. But with all the secretive orders that used to exist in the Heresy, some of those have to have been passed on to the Chapters and influenced their cultures, not to mention where they tend to operate (such as the Knights of Abhorrence in the Ghoul Stars), their home world influences, etc. We have so many stories about Blood Angels successors, in comparison.

Just finished this yesterday, and yeah, it was a fun little romp with chaos space marines. I'd rate it close to Lord of Excess and Harrowmaster, maybe a touch shy of either but nonetheless TRB has its strengths. The Night Lords in the book are the type that haven't operated in the depths of the warp as much and have little (or no) experience of the Legion days of old. Nonetheless they're pretty firmly indoctrinated and are in most ways exemplary Night Lords. They thirst for hunting prey, prefer to stick to shadows, love to flay people, establish control via terror, use the typical tools that seem to have been handed down (knives, chainglaives, lightning claws), and so on. So there's no musing on how the Primarch used to be, no pining for a glorious past, and the only attachment they have to names like Sevatar or Sahaal is old legends that have been passed on, not completely dissimilar from how loyalist Chapters think of their founders and ancient heroes. This book definitely covers the bases on the typical contradictions that curse the Night Lords (and many Chaos warbands in general). They're ultimately often fatalistic, self-destructive, and constantly vying for dominance, but they have to maintain their numbers to some extent or they'll be subjugated by other warbands or won't be strong enough to raid meaningful targets. They don't get along with authority despite craving it. They talk a big game about being skeptical about Chaos but the Gods still worm their way into their confidence in various ways, and when push comes to shove they aren't above using the warp to accomplish their goals. As I started this I was concerned this was going to be more of a sales pitch for the Nemesis Claw Kill Team, but actually the cast doesn't really track directly to the minis, which is a small plus. They are certainly shallow characters for the most part, but that's fine because most of them don't last too long anyway. There's also some little lore callbacks, like the Flylords, who are on the list of chapters lost to Chaos in the Abyssal Crusade. Some of the more interesting characters actually pop up outside the Blades, including the lord, champion, and warpsmith from a rival warband, and a pet techpriest who is also kind of a plot facilitating macguffin thanks to a stolen set of datastacks from the Forge World that they raid in the first chapter. The main character is a pretty irredeemable, hypocritical jerk. The main antagonist of the novel is potentially worse, but it's very easy to imagine a situation where Dalchian betrays an underling warband of Crimson Slaughter to their doom in the exact same way. There's really no well of sympathy for him, so that leaves the draw being the inherent fascination of following a Chaos Space Marine and his warband around. If that's not something you're in to that could be a big hurdle to enjoying this one. The middle of the novel transitions into more of a Black Ship heist planning, where the warband(s) raid and plot their way around until they have a means to catch up to a dreaded Black Ship in the system. And the last 1/4 or so is that plot executed, which is fun for a while but honestly kind of overstays its welcome. The action in the rest of the novel is paced well, but right at this point it does start to drag as we go through wave after wave of faceless Black Ship Sentinels in endless corridors designed to confound the psykers onboard the ships, and then they fight the occasional silent sister. It's well set-up for a sequel if it ever gets one. Nice twist at the end. Good showing for the Sisters of the Ebon Chalice here, and honestly the Silent Sisterhood as well. The tech priest who facilitated the plot in this story would be well set-up to be a major complication in a second one. Yeah, idk, 7/10 or so? I'd recommend it if you like to read about Chaos warbands, the Night Lords, or ever wanted to see the inner workings of a Black Ship.

I enjoyed Cypher, but it does trend towards being so mysterious and unreliable that at times it doesn't really say anything. I'm just not that excited for Gav's Dark Angels. I haven't read all of his works on them because I just haven't been interested from what I have read of his Dark Angels. But I did get through his Heresy Dark Angels, and I remember reading Angels of Darkness ~20 years ago and feeling marginal about it even then, before I could read as critically. I liked most of Luther, I guess, but nothing else impressed me. It's poisoned the well for me in some ways, because I also haven't read Brooks's Son of the Forest, Guymer's DA works, or Kloster's Lazarus. I probably should at some point, because I have most of those in various formats. I do really like the Dark Angels that Wraight and ADB depict, but as Roomsky noted, it's still just the Dark Angels as side characters in other stories. I think Annandale did alright, too. The whole concept of the Lion having a noble exterior that contrasts with a savage core borne from his time in the dark depths of Caliban, and that that nature contrasts Russ's, is actually great. It just doesn't always meet an execution that sells me on it.

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?