Let's Read Warhammer: The Night Lords

The First Heretic inspired me to read more Dembski-Bowden, and more about the Night Lords' Primarch, Konrad Curze; then Shadows of Treachery made it worse. To be honest, I knew next to nothing about the Night Lords before this reading project, except that their colors are dark blue and red, and they like skulls. They also have a potentially hilarious legion trait in Legions Imperialis where if they kill an enemy HQ unit, everyone close enough takes damage.

I started with the short story The Abyssal Edge. A grievously wounded Imperial Navy officer is assigned to the Night Lords as an archivist, and comes across some disturbing information about a clash between the Night Lords and the Thousand Sons and their Primarchs. It's a good little story, written well and effectively. There were also good Night Lords short stories in Eye of Terra, and a whole ADB novella in Shadows of Treachery, as well as a Graham McNeill story where Curze kicks Rogal Dorn's ass. Curze was also just about the only good thing about Unremembered Empire. So suffice to say that at this point, I'm becoming a fan.

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The obvious next step was to pick up the Night Lords omnibus, and read it while waiting for my copy of Master of Mankind. However, in the foreword to the omnibus, Dembski-Bowden waxes lyrical on Simon Spurrier's Night Lords novel Lord of the Night (2005), which, it turns out, is available as an ebook. So I started there.

Lord of the Night follows two characters: Captain Zho Sahaal of the Night Lords, and Interrogator Mita Ashyn, a sanctioned psyker of the Ordo Xenos. Zho Sahaal drops out of the warp and crashes on a hive world where Ashyn is rooting out xenos cults, and all sorts of hijinks ensue.

It's an unexpectedly excellent book! Both protagonists are great characters. Sahaal is as insufferably emo as his primarch, but also does an excellent Predator impression. Ashyn's travails in her Inquisitor's entourage sometimes feel a bit too hackneyed, but overall it's a good story, and I like how on some level, I at least kept rooting for the Night Lord. So in that respect, this isn't helping. But I definitely recommend Lord of the Night.

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The omnibus itself collects Dembski-Bowden's Night Lords trilogy and a couple of short stories. They're all good, and the trilogy itself is superb. I think it's probably the best 40k fiction I've read.

The Night Lords omnibus follows former Apothecary Talos, who's inherited his Primarch's gift and has visions of the future, and is therefore known as the Night Lords' prophet. At the start of the first novel, he's the de facto squad leader of First Claw, Tenth Company of the Night Lords, aboard the strike cruiser Covenant of Blood. The company and cruiser are commanded by the Exalted, who used to be Tenth Company's commander, captain Vandred, but is now a daemon of some kind.

Talos is the main character, but we're equally here for his human slaves, especially his long-suffering pilot Septimus, and the marines of First Claw. As new slaves are captured and new marines join the squad, there's a sort of found family vibe that's one of the main attractions of the story. The other is Talos, who's an excellent character.

The first novel follows Tenth Company as they join Abaddon's current project and participate in an assault on forge world of Crythe, while dealing with schemes and plots both outside and inside the company. Abaddon is still basically the same guy he was in Horus Rising: someone you'd be quite happy to have leading an assault, but not necessarily planning one. The story is great, with some special highlights like the Night Lords fighting a Warhound Titan and the flashbacks to the legion after the Heresy and the death of their Primarch.

The second part of the trilogy has Tenth Company join Huron Blackheart and his Red Corsairs for an attack on a loyalist fortress-monastery, and it's good stuff, with Talos and the gang going fully Night Lords on the Imperials, and trying to steal back a Night Lords cruiser from the Corsairs and still scheming and struggling for power among themselves.

While both of the first two novels are threaded through with flashbacks to the Night Lords' past after the Heresy, in the third they return to Tsagualsa, where Curze died, and fight some elves. It's high drama, and an appropriately epic ending to the trilogy.

Dembski-Bowden deserves particular respect for making Talos and his gang genuinely sympathetic characters whose adventures you want to follow, while never letting you forget that they're Night Lords Chaos Marines, and therefore utterly horrible monsters. It all adds up to a surprisingly wide range of emotions to feel for a Warhammer 40,000 story. So, y'know, highly recommended.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 31: Praetorian of Dorn

The ghost image collapsed into smoke.

 - The Horus Heresy: Praetorian of Dorn, John French

This one's available in print, for some reason. Even though this project has taught me to appreciate ebooks, it's still nice to read an actual, physical book and not stare at a screen all the time.

We're back with the Alpha Legion, which is excellent, and with the Imperial Fists, which is not. The plot of Praetorian of Dorn is a ludicrously overcomplicated scheme by the Alpha Legion to attack Terra, but where Legion was 'Allo, 'Allo 40,000, this is a technothriller.

The book is not without its weaknesses. Clearly, in a story like this, the loyalists kinda do have to be Imperial Fists, but they and Dorn are just so, well, boring. Rogal Dorn doesn't come across as quite such a repulsive, violent bully as he's been in some of the previous installments, but he's just dull, as are all of his legionnaires. There's also a largely pointless interlude around the middle of the book that's more or less the battle of Helm's Deep, but with Imperial Fists.

For the most part, this is absolutely silly and quite enjoyable, and in that a worthy successor to Legion. It's actually better than Legion in that there's no sexism or other macho bullshit, apart from Dorn's buffoonery. But it's very badly let down by the ending, which feels rushed and unsatisfactory. I think I'm going to choose to believe that the events of the last three chapters are after-the-fact Imperial propaganda with only a tenuous relationship to reality.

Honestly, before the ending, I was going to recommend this, but it's actually so bad this doesn't make my "do read" list. So be advised.

Epic: Ruin of the Salamanders

The Ruin of the Salamanders supplement for Legions Imperialis is here, and I'm delighted to report that my wish has been granted, and we now have an Astartes super-heavy formation and some new very large tiny tanks.

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First off, though, let me note a disappointment: the Falchion. In its 28mm incarnation, it had a twin volcano cannon, which is spectacularly silly. However, Legions has now downgraded it to a neutron laser that's almost exactly the same as the one on the Cerberus. I just think that's really boring. I was hoping for a Space Marine version of the Shadowsword, with at least some kind of Engine Killer weapon. I already have a pair of Cerberuses so I don't see the point.

Right now, the only Engine Killer weapon in the entire Marine list is the siege melta array on the Mastodon, and that's just bizarre. I thought for sure that would have been the Falchion's niche.

I did, however, get a box of Fellblades, and with the Demolisher cannon and everything, it's definitely a Space Marine Baneblade.

These were fun to build. I did a little converting and made pintle-mounted bolters with closed hatches for both of them.

The Fellblades can form a Super-Heavy Spearhead with my Cerberuses and Kratices, which I definitely have to try in my next game.

**

As if all these super-heavies weren't silly enough, Shaun was kind enough to give me the gift of true stupidity this holiday season: two Mastodons. They remind me of the GI Joe mobile command center, one of which I remember we found at a flea market when I was a kid, and I got my parents to buy.

They were quite straightforward to build, if heavy flamer sponsons in three parts each do make me wonder: why?

They're ludicrously massive though, I love them.

I painted one for my Word Bearers. No idea what to use it for, but it is gloriously silly.

I took a picture with some other models for scale, just so you can fully appreciate the stupidity.

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Speaking of models that look like they're straight out of GI Joe, when I saw the profile of the Storm Hammer Auxilia super-heavy, I knew I needed to get some.

I loved the original Storm Hammer, a slab-sided, twin-turreted beast of a super-heavy. What they seem to have done with it is relegated one of the turrets to one of those casemate-like structures that the Horus Heresy era designers are so inexplicably fond of, and then given the design to a child and told them to draw more guns on it. If the Mastodon looks like something out of GI Joe, the Storm Hammer is even more so. And I love it.

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All this 8mm stuff has been fun, but I've also been thinking about what to do with my small collection of 6mm scale miniatures, mostly from Epic 40,000 and Epic: Armageddon. A while ago, I picked up some Battletech miniatures, and painted them in the colors of the Magistracy of Canopus. So it did occur to me to paint my 6mm stuff for Battletech as well.

At the end of last year, however, I was persuaded to look into NetEpic, which is basically a fan-made version of good old second edition Space Marine. I was delighted by it, and unless I'm entirely mistaken, my 6mm collection should build a Chaos Marine army with Imperial Guard allies.

I mention this now because it goes with the superheavy theme: I have what I believe is an Epic Armageddon-era Baneblade. I'd started painting it, but some Finnish generic brand over cleaner helped me strip the paint off.

This is the first time I've properly repainted an old miniature like this. And here's how it ended up:

We'll see if this is the beginning of something.

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It's been a lot of fun building and painting big little tanks. The Legions Imperialis models continue to be superb quality and a lot of fun to put together. I hope we get more super-heavies; there's a Capitol Imperialis in one of the Horus Heresy novel anthologies, so I certainly expect a model of one!

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 30: The Path of Heaven

A thousand years might pass and it would never lose its fascination.

 - The Horus Heresy: The Path of Heaven, Chris Wraight

It's the White Scars again! Cue up the Hu.

The Path of Heaven picks up where Scars left off, with the White Scars trying to evade Horus's legions and make it back to Terra. As they're surrounded and pursued by the Death Guard and the Emperor's Children, they go looking for an alternate path back to Terra, and things get interesting.

I think this is actually better than Scars, and goes firmly on my "do read" list. I still like the characters; despite the whole space Mongolian stereotype, Wraight makes the White Scars interesting and at least a little three-dimensional. They're the best loyalists out there by far. Jagathai Khan seems to have the unique distinction of being a loyalist Primarch who isn't a violent, stupid bully. When we've been brutalized with so many tedious and banal Primarch inner monologues, at least the Khagan stays a little aloof and superhuman.

I also like that the plot is proper space opera, with the Navigator houses thrown in for some proper Imperial plotting. I think this got to me because I read the novel while recovering from a slightly arduous trip abroad, but I really appreciate how Wraight conveys that the Horus Heresy is a massive, endless slog through a huge galaxy, and how incredibly tired everyone from Horus himself down is.

So here we are: the White Scars have been one of the great pleasant surprises of this reading project.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 29: Eye of Terra

‘I was there,’ he would say, right up until the day he died, after which he spoke only infrequently.

 - The Wolf of Ash and Fire, Graham McNeill, in The Horus Heresy: Eye of Terra

It's another anthology! One that starts with Graham McNeill echoing the beginning of Horus Rising, in a somewhat forgettable story about the actual Emperor himself. After what I said about anthologies previously, you may wonder why I'm reading this at all. It's because of Aaron Dembski-Bowden's Aurelian, which is worth the price of admission on its own. It's followed by another Dembski-Bowden story, Massacre, a Night Lords vignette I also liked, and later on he takes us along on another section of Sevatar's journey.

My main complaint with the Night Lords stuff is that I'm already collecting enough legions and don't need to start taking a liking to them as well. Speaking of which, Matthew Farrer's Vorax made me want to buy more Mechanicum robots. I also enjoyed John French's Eagle's Talon, and Iron Corpses by David Annandale.

So yeah, this was an anthology with some pretty good stories in it.

Epic: Men of Iron

Advances in Computer technology have made possible the new science of Robotics, which was previously the realm of science fiction. Robotics concerns the design and building of machines capable of mimicking some modicum of human action. These machines can sense changes in their environment and take limited action based on this information. Robots are essentially computer-controlled machine tools that can be programmed to perform tasks such as welding car parts. They are especially useful for tasks that are monotonous, dangerous, or tiring, where they are often more productive than their human counterparts.

Last year, I fielded some Thallax Cohorts against the Imperial Fists, and they were spectacularly successful. As I've already painted some 28mm robots as well, I thought it was high time I got to their epic-scale versions.

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I was playing around with Legion Builder one day, and realized that I have something like 1 500 points of Knights that I've built for Titanicus, and I was seriously thinking about getting some more Cerastus Lancers after their excellent performance in our last game. So I could definitely field a Knight army in Legions.

This led me to look at the Bonded Cybernetica support formations for Knights, and I found that if I made a Retainer Cohort with the Vultarax Stratos-Automata, I could give my Lancers Outflank. What's more, the Vultaraxes looked pretty easy to build. So I started with them, and painted them in Auxilia Daedra colors.

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The other Vanguard choice in the box is the Vorax Battle-Automata. I thought I might add them to my Brethren of Iron, as they're a unit that could actually use a Cortex Controller to give them orders; on their own, they can only March or Charge, meaning they'll never get to fire their weapons.

There's two 32mm bases of Voraxes in the box, and they're impossibly fiddly to build. Here's my first complete one, and the bits of the next one laid out.

You can mix and match pairs of legs and arm weapons with the torsos, to create differences that are pretty much imperceptible on the tabletop.

Three Voraxes crowd a 32mm base, and the box makes two bases. I painted them in Word Bearers colors.

I mean I'm not gonna say this was the most annoying model I've ever built; I've had far worse experiences. But they've tended to involve resin or metal. This may be the fiddliest thing I've ever done in hard plastic, and again, because most of the details are indistinguishable on the tabletop, it isn't even worth it.

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So that was annoying. Luckily the two Domitar robots were much more fun to build.

I made them Word Bearers as well, because I thought the Domitars Perturabo has hanging around in Angel Exterminatus were cool.

The two Arlatax Battle-Automata are going to join my Titan Legion, so they're in Legio Venefica livery.

They're actually a conversion. For some reason, I can't stand the leaping-off-a-tactical-rock pose that James Workshop fell in love with in the 2010s or thereabouts, so I made the Arlataxes stand properly. It wasn't too hard to do.

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So, that's a bunch of 8mm robots! After the Voraxes, I have to admit I didn't have the stomach for the Castellax stands. I'll get to them later. All in all, though, I liked the robots, and I'm looking forward to trying them in the game.

Let's Read the Horus Heresy 28: War Without End

Slender tendrils of fragrant smoke drifted from fang-mouthed oil burners, filling the bed-chamber with a delicious mix of cinnamon and honeysuckle.

 - The Devine Adoratrice, Graham McNeill, in The Horus Heresy: War Without End

It's another anthology!

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Graham McNeill kicks things off with The Devine Adoratrice, a prequel to Vengeful Spirit, about Knight House Devine. I didn't like it any more than I did the Devine plotline in that novel.

There are two Dembski-Bowden stories here, Howl of the Hearthworld and Lord of the Red Sands, and the latter is why I got this collection. Howl of the Hearthworld, though, is about Space Wolves, and while it's well written, it still confirms what every other Space Wolf portrayal I've read also tells me: that they're deeply unpleasant, arrogant bullies. Most of the story is about a squad of Space Wolves being assholes to someone who did nothing to deserve it. By contrast, Lord of the Red Sands stokes my growing love for Angron and the World Eaters.

Other standout stories include James Swallow's Gunsight, a sequel to the excellent Nemesis, and Guy Haley's Twisted, also set on Horus's flagship. The rest of them are mostly all right, I guess?

To be honest, I don't really know how I feel about these anthologies. The good stories are good and I enjoy them. Even the mediocre ones are fine to read while commuting or such. But I don't really remember anything about them. Would I buy these if I wasn't doing this reading project? Probably not.