HH Age of Darkness Anthology (many Spoilers!)

[Ahriman238]

Normally Connor's job, but he's taking a break right now and I don't htink I've seen him do any Heresy-book analysis, though there was a game one.

Age of Darkness is the newest HH book, a collection of short stories taking place in the seven years between the Drop Site Massacre and the Siege of Terra. The age of reason and elightenment is over, the age of darkness begins. I will comb back over for technical tidbits, right now I'm just putting up my initial reactions. Oddly, this group of short stories seems to do more to advance the plot then the last three books.

Rules of Engagement: Graham McNeil.

Unsuprisingly, McNeil opens with a tale of the Ultramarines. Specifically about the writing of the Codex Astartes and a series of wargames to test the new doctrines. It's set up so it is reveled only after they lose Macragge that the whole thing was a wargame, but there plenty of subtle and unsubtle hints, so not really a spoiler. Most interestingly, Guilliman was laying the groundwork for a Second Imperium based from Macragge in the event the Imperium fell. Guilliman believes his Father would understand, even if his fellow Primarches would not. He also flat out says that no book will ever be a substitute for inititive.
Amusing is the reactions of the characters to the new Thunderhawk gunship, mostly their scepticism that it will even fly. The Captain assures them the cheap, mass-produced Thunderhawk is only a stopgap measure due to war shortages. It won't be around long.

Liar's Due: James Swallow

A story of the Alpha Legion, and how a single human agent of the Legion is able to bring down a small Agri-world with a few faked astropathic messages. Not much to say, it was very well-written and shows that the Alpha Legion at least, is trying to look more powerful by seeding agents to spread miscommunication and bring down small worlds so it seems the Warmaster's forces are everywhere. Also, even in this insignifigant backwater, there is a space elevator for bearing grain into orbit.

Forgotten Sons: Nick Kyme

A Salamander and a wounded Ultramarine are enlisted as diplomats to a world on the fence, naturally there is more going on. Flashbacks show the Dropsite Massacre and the last known fate of Vulkan, striding forward to meet Perturabo in single combat, then the whole ridge went boom in an artillery barrage and that's the last any Salamander saw of him. Vulkan had a hammer here that doesn't match any of the known Artifacts of Vulkan, or the names of the rest. Horus' envoy stresses the brutality of the Imperium, explains the virus-bombing of Isstvan III on orders from the Emperor, as well as bringing up the devastation of Monarchia. Nice to see some consequences from that. New Xenos Species, shapeshifting vampires called lacrymoles.

The Last Remembrancer: John French

Horus sends a ship with the last and greatest of the remembrancers to Terra, just to give Rogal Dorn a kick in the teeth. Already uncomfortable with the extreme measures taken to staunch the Heresy, secrecy, the violation of rights, and the nascent Inquisition, Dorn is shown an old friend, the best of the Imperium, representing it's shining ideals- and must kill him in the name of expediancy and survival. This message, of lost innocence, that it doesn't matter if the Imperium lives, because it will not be the Imperium they fought for, and it can never go back to being that, struck a deep chord with me. Also, we see the "Half-heard" again as a proto-inquisitor in unadorned grey armor.

Rebirth: Chris Wright

A squad of Thousand Sons, seperated from their brothers before the Battle for Prospero, returns to the ruins of their homeworld, seeking their Primarch, their archives, and answers for what happened. But they find more than they bargained for. There's a good character piece here, I won't say for whom. And GW teases us by strongly implying (in a completly deniable way!) a connection between these Lost Sons and the Blood Ravens. Go figure.

The Face of Treachery: Gav Thorpe

Split perspective, World Eaters hunting the last survivors of the Loyalist fleet at Isstvan, and a Raven Guard late arrival working out what happened and trying to evacuate their brothers and Primarch. They succeed, but only because the Alpha Legion lets them go, sabotaging their own allies because Corax may still be useful...

Little Horus: Dan Abnett

Horus Anaximand struggles to replace the lost members of the Mournival, and lay his own ghosts to rest. Meanwhile war comes to another Imperal world, this one has a personal shield tech that lets their soldiers stand and trade fire with Astartes, at least until the SOns of Horus remember they have melee weapons and can cross large distances quickly.

Iron Within: Rob Sanders

A Loyalist Iron Warriors unit struggles to hold off their treacherous brethren and a Titan Legion. Their stronghold lasts a year and a day, and some survivors are drafted to improve the defenses of the Imperial Palace (with the Fists and the Warriors both working at it, how can it not be invincible?) These Warriors seem awful religious, calling their fallen brothers heretic, having a chaplain and relgious ceremonies etc. Little information about the Hrud, they use "entropic fields" to age objects rapidly.

[Bedlam]

New Xenos Species, shapeshifting vampires called lacrymoles.

The same species appears in the latest Deathwatch RPG supliment 'Mark of the Xenos' its not clear if its the same species or not their shapeshifters but no one is really sure they actually exist and their named after a ancient extinct species.

[Imperial Overlord]

The lacrymole aren't new. They've been around for years. The earliest mention that I've seen is the Inquisition skirmish game main book. They don't show up much, so it's an easy mistake to make.

[Black Admiral]

The Face of Treachery is tied in to the audionovel Raven's Flight, explaining how Praefector Valerius and Chapter Commander Branne ended up in a position to rescue Corax and the Raven Guard survivors of Istvaan V.

Incidentally, neat tech note from that: Raven Guard ships have cloaking devices.

[SpaceMarine93]

Remind me, Graham McNeil - is he a good writer or bad?

[Connor MacLeod]

Normally Connor's job, but he's taking a break right now and I don't htink I've seen him do any Heresy-book analysis, though there was a game one.

I'll get around to it eventually, but there's nothing that says its MY universe ot analyze specifically. Other people are free to do their own or put their own input out if they want. In fact, I prefer that.

[Ahriman238]

Ah, but you do it so very well, Connor.

[Lost Soal]

You missed one by the way.
Savage Weapons: Aaran Dembski-Bowden.
Lion El Johnson & Night Haunter are each at a stalemate for control of an out of the way sector when Haunter arranges a meeting between himself and Johnson, each with two attendants. Its primarily a character piece despite half the story being close combat battles, a testament to Bowden's ability, and we get to see the durability of the Primarchs which sees Haunter fighting Johnson to a stalemate, again, despite him having a six foot power sword shoved through his gut at the beginning of the fight.

[Ahriman238]

I'm still working on that last one, it's been slow reading.

[Ahriman238]

Alright, I've been putting this off long enough. My humble apologies for the necro, but I never got around to doing the more in-depth analysis I started the thread for. Already, I have given my views on how each story was written, though I reiterate that 'the Last Remembrancer' is awesome and probably worth the price of the book all by itself. Now it's time for the tech stuff.

Rules of Engagement: (Ultramarines) The precepts of the new Codex Astartes are tested in a series of wargames.

pg 13 we learn that the 'monstrous construction engines' of the Mechanicus can move truly massive amounts of earth and build impressive fortifications in just a few days. The AdMech apparently maintain a permanent presence on each planet of the Ultramar Sector. I never read the Ultramarines books, so I have no idea if this is new information or not. Regardless, it's out there now.

pg14:

He shivered as he passed beneath the shadow of one of the Mechanicum's construction engines. It towered over him, longer and wider than the Gallery of Swords on Macragge; and set the earth trembling with the low bass note of it's mighty engine core. It's enormus bulk was a dusty ochre colour (sic), studded with weapon mounts, striped with hazard chevrons and stamped with monochrome representations of the Cog Mechanicum.

Scale of the construction engines, which are apparently armed as well. Would be a lot more helpful if I knew roughly how big the Gallery of Swords is supposed to be, but they're certainly large. Large enough to shake the earth with the engines idling.

pg18:

Remus saw an entire squad of Ultramarines put down by two Dreadnoughts working in concert, and bellowed as his remaining heavy weapons team to take them out. A trio of missiles leapt towards the Dreadnoughts, and one fell silent as it was struck in the flank by two warheads. The second was dealt with moments later as a multi-melta scored a direct hit on it's sarcophagus.

A squad of Devastators destroys two Dreadnoughts. Oddly, the first Dreadnought goes down a whole lot easier than a Terminator will a bit later. I'd really like to know how they're simulating this. The ending suggests it was always the other Ultramarines in repainted armor, but they always used appropriate weapons and tactics, and I can't really see them sacrificing anything like what is lost during these games for an exercise. I'm just going to assume they mean 'simulated kill,' though.

The construction engine also falls back, and is revealed to move on treads. It has a 'fearsome array of defensive weaponry' but nothing specific.

pg22:

The World Eaters had dropped on Prandium after a punishing saturation bombardment that levelled most of it's great cities and set the world ablaze from pole to pole. In truth, there was little worth saving. Millions of people were dead, and the detonation of volatile munitions had polluted the atmosphere and seas for millenia to come.

Description of exterminatus. The only time I've really seen a number attached to 'how long will it take the planet to become viable again.' The results are discouraging. Millenia, plural, will be required at the very least.

One thing that is emphasied here is just how comprehensive the Codex really is. It really does take an Astartes to memorize, because there are more than a thousand detailed plans and hundreds of variations for each, depending on a vast array of factors, including terrain, weather, manpower, the opponent faced. The Codex is a serious attempt to write a plan for every possible military contingency, by a godlike Primarch. There's some catharsis for me in Guilliman admitting that it's not perfect, but several hundred scenarios are gamed, and the Ultras win them all by following the Codex. They beat every Legion (yes, I know, it's a wargame) except the Black Legion, led by 'Horus.'
The whole thing really reads as a validation for the Codex, even with the concession that it will never entirely replace inititive. Later, I'll get into how the ultras tailor their tactics to each opponent.

pg31-33:
Once again, the Thunderhawk is much maligned by the Ultras, who miss the solid and reliable Stormbird. Bit of a turnaround from the start of the HH series, where the Stormbirds were relics. They wonder if it can even fly, say they can spit through the hull, etc.
One thing of note is that there's no "master's mark" on the Thunderhawk. The Stormbirds are apparently made by skilled artisians, whereas the Thunderhawks are mass-produced using Servitors. There may be some interesting implications for the Imperial economy in this time. But, in the immediate sense, no one trusts a servitor-made aircraft.

also 33:

Remus linked his helmet's inloaders with the forward picters mounted in the gunship's prow,

I honestly did not know they could that. It's a fine idea though.

There is also a claim that their present opponents, the Salamanders, specialize in urban warfare, where the shorter ranges of their preferred weapons don't matter, and their ability to burn through any cover does. I've never heard of or thought of the Salamanders in that light, but it does make a certain degree of sense, provided you don't care about collateral damage, which always comes with city fighting and which Salamanders abhor.

34:

Thirty Warriors filled the interior of the Thunderhawk, a force capable of meeting most enemy forces with a high degree of certainty that they would destroy it. Yet it felt strange to Remus to be going into battle without fifty warriors at his back.

Carrying capacity for the Thunderhawk and Stormbird, respectively. Geez, the longer this goes on, the more a Stormbird sounds like a Master Crafted Thunderhawk. It's custom made by a master artisian, and does every thing a Thunderhawk does, only better.

pg 43:

each Terminator was a full head and shoulders taller than the Ultramarines the thick plates of their armor shrugging off bolter fire like light rain.

Terminator armor is more or less immune to bolter fire. This is known to us, but bears repeating so what follows will make sense. Also, they’re tall.

pg 44:

The enemy commander didn't come at them, instead turning his vast hammer on the walls of the courtyard in the lee of the Land Raider. One swing of the hammer put a man-sized hole in the wall. Masonry and steel reinforcement bars were smashed aside by the lethal weapon. Two more blows at the most would see the enemy commander break free of their suprise assualt.

Single blow from a Thunderhammer puts a "man-sized" hole in a stone wall with steel reinforcement. Two or three strikes needed to make it large enough for a Terminator to walk through. and the Ultras response...

pg 45-46:

The courtyard erupted in fire and flame as missile after missile tore down into the courtyard. Heavy Bolters raked back and forth, their fire brutally effective and lethally indiscriminate. A missile took the Salamander captain on the shoulder and the impact spun him around as another struck him full on the plastron. The force of the warheads drove him to his knees. Another missile streaked downwards, but the Salamander captain brought his shield up to block it. The deflected missile corkscrewed into the cortyard, where it exploded among a cluster of Ultramarines hunkering down behind what little cover remained. An unending storm of gunfire filled the courtyard, and Remus lost track of everything as the deafening cacophany of sound.

A squad of Devastors, from an elevated position are ordered to just fire everything they have in the hops of killing the Terminator Captain. Points to the armor, the guy takes two missiles, and still has the ability and presence of mind to deflect the third. I find it interesting that the storm shield deflected the missile, I would expect the powered item to destroy it entirely.

Anyway, after being in the middle of that, the Captain still climbs to his feet, but Remus is nearby and his helmet tells him which of the cracks and pits in the Terminator armor are thin enough for a bolter to penetrate. Another interesting capability.

[Black Admiral]

also 33:

Remus linked his helmet's inloaders with the forward picters mounted in the gunship's prow,

I honestly did not know they could that. It's a fine idea though.

Oh, that's not the end of the fun tactical systems in Astartes armour; Savage Scars shows that they can do the same thing wirelessly with another Space Marine's visor feeds, and there's all kinds of useful datalinking stuff in there

[Ahriman238]

also 33:

Remus linked his helmet's inloaders with the forward picters mounted in the gunship's prow,

I honestly did not know they could that. It's a fine idea though.

Oh, that's not the end of the fun tactical systems in Astartes armour; Savage Scars shows that they can do the same thing wirelessly with another Space Marine's visor feeds, and there's all kinds of useful datalinking stuff in there

Hurray for networking! Bringing humans and technology together to kill heretics and xenos scum!

[Ahriman238]

pg 48:
Remus recalls his childhood, selection, training, and the look of pride on his mother's face when she first saw him in blue battle-plate. He can recall his life before the chapter with perfect clarity, but it takes "extreme stimuli" to get him to feel any emotions associated with the memories.

pg 49:

In space, the Warmaster's fleets had battered through their picket lines, and flanking forces of stealthy ambush ships had appeared from nowhere to wreak havoc within the Ultramarine's precise battle lines.

Existence of stealth ships. This seems to be something the Imperium lost between the Heresy and the 41st Millenium, I cannot recall any such ships in BFG. Though Eldar and Dark Eldar ships can be pretty stealthy.

pg 51:
Landspeeders scouting ahead of an armored group cannot detect Ultramarine ambushers behind rock cover. It's said this would apply no matter how good their surveyors might be.

pg56:
The Fortress of Hera, fortress-monastery (though not called that, yet) of the Ultramarines. It's mighty, never-before breeched gates are... bronze? Perhaps they mean bronze-colored instead of actually made of bronze.

Story ends with their loss to the Sons of Horus, but of course he is Guilliman and all the Sons are Ultras in repainted armor. Remus is debriefed, and Guilliman tells him it was not his fault, that no doctrine can be perfect and the Codex is still a work in progress. Mind you, it still worked 90% of the time. Remus says that it was not a fair test, and if Guilliman had been on the blue side, they would have won. Guilliman replies that they had better hope he's there, when it comes time to face Horus then.

Okay, I need to hit the sack, but I promised to talk about the different tactics. Against the Death Guard, they fell back to a fortified position, held it for a while, then fell back to another fortified position. Always the point was to delay and bleed the Death Guard, they actively avoided any sort of decisive battle.
Against the World Eaters they also gave ground, appearing to fragment into smaller and smaller groups. Then, when the World Eaters had overextended themselves trying to close into melee, all the "splintered" groups linked up and the World Eaters were surrounded, and quickly killed off.
Against the Salamanders they used a decapitation strike, sending three squads to kill the enemy commander, while airlifting a massive number of Astartes in via the new Thunderhawks.
They tried just about everything against the Sons of Horus, off-panel, and failed. The two battles we see are an ambush in mountainous terrain well known to the Ultras, where they are quickly counter-ambushed, and the desperate last stand outside their fortress.

[Ahriman238]

Okay, now for Liar's Due, by James Swallow. A small community falls into paranoia and conflict, it can only be the work of the Alpha Legion. Not much meat to this one, but I'll take what it can give and be grateful.

pg 68:

Virger-Mos II was an agri-world, a breadbasket colony so far of the axis of the core Imperial worlds it was almost invisible; still, it was one of hundreds of similar planets that fed a hungry empire, and in that manner, perhaps it might be thought, to have some minor strategic value.

Description of the planet where the story is set. "Hundreds" of agri-worlds seems an awfully small number.

There were less than a million people living on the second planet's wind-burned surface, all of them working in service to farms in one way or another.

Not very populous, even for an agri-world.

Without quotes, I'll finish up. There are forty-four cities or towns on the planet, numbered rather than named. Zero-One is the capital and "spaceport" a flat area for ships to land that hasn't been used in decades, if that. Forty-Four is at the base of the space-elevator leading up to the Skyhook. Grain gets shipped up the elevator to the Skyhook, which contains docking berths for three starships, and quarters for the planet’s single Astropath. A telegraph wire connects the Skyhook to Virger-Mos because:

Some peculiarity of the mineral-laced soil played havoc with vox-transmitters, meaning that communications were solely sent and received by telegraphic cables strung across the landscape, and here, up the side of the Skyhook. Without a wire, the towns on Virger-Mos II were reduced to using message riders or heliographs.

Imperial preference for low-tech solutions shows itself. If the vox won’t work, telegraph. Well, they do transmit voice, so it’s probably something closer to a landline telephone.

Pg73: Not important in any technical sense, but I missed it the first time and it amuses me that the Alpha Legion agent here goes by the name ‘Mendacs,’ a homophone of ‘mendax.’ Which is Latin for ‘liar.’ It’s a nice touch, and subtler than some 40K authors could manage.

Pgs 78-79:

The train of empty cargo capsules passed through the ultraviolet anti-bacteria field and out of the throat of the Skyhook.

Across the yard the other, empty pods ground to a sudden halt as they moved beneath the unblinking eye of a terahertz-wave scanner. An alert horn hooted twice and the train shunted sideways, all six capsules opening automatically. Chem-nozzles on spidery manipulator arms unfolded from the ceiling and began to probe the interiors of the capsules, coughing spurts of caustic foam into the darkened corners. The sensor had detected something inside one of the pods and initiated a pest-control subroutine. It wasn’t unknown for creatures from other biospheres to make their way through the loading/unloading process, and off-world vermin had the potential to wreck a colony’s entire ecosystem.

Decontamination protocols for cargo pods returning from the Skyhook. Nice to see they’re taking this seriously.
If memory serves, T-rays are the band between infrared and microwaves. Some airports use T-ray security scanners, since they penetrate cloth and plastic and flesh really well, but give a hard return on metals. That would seem to make an odd choice in a scanner for living things, but I’m sure there’s plenty I don’t know on the subject, so I don’t feel comfortable just dismissing this as ‘science-y buzzwords.’

The nozzles found their target and bracketed it with bursts of hot liquid; but the life-form inside walked through the boiling rain and clambered out onto the floor of the depot. The automated system was not programmed for anything like intelligent behavior from a xenos pest, and so did nothing as the man doffed the plastoid oversuit that had protected him from the chill, folding it away into a case on his back.

Mendacs’ insertion. Also, how to get past the decontamination/pest control systems. I’m a little disappointed there’s no protocol for a creature escaping the decon system. They were doing so well with this setup.

Pg87:

He spent another hour moving around the suite by lamp-light with an auspex in his hand, letting the device sniff the air for electromagnetic waves, thermal patterns, or anything else that might indicate the presence of a listening-device.

Auspex used to sweep for bugs. A little about capability, the auspex utilizes both EM and thermal detection. But we already knew that.

Pg88:

The valises’ innards were a suite of advanced microelectronics and crystallographic matrices; it was capable of many functions: vox communication, variable range narrow/broadcast, frequency jamming, countermeasures, simulation, data-parsing and more.

The machine Mendacs uses to fake news broadcasts, having recorded a previous one so he oculd use this device to mimic it. This machine is apparently very rare, and illegal in the Imperium, but it’s not made clear why this is so. It's capabilities are not extraordinary in any way I can see.

Pg89:

The laslock rifle he held was over a hundred and forty years old, bequeathed to the Prael family by a great-great-grandmother who had served with honour (sic) in the Imperial Army.

Apparently there was an Imperial Army and a Great Crusade 140 years prior to this story, two years after the Drop Site Massacre. A timeline of the Great Crusade is the series’ biggest pains, with several books contradicting each other about how long it lasted and where certain points were. But the 140 years is what was used in the first few books, and the First Heretic, as well as here, so I’m planning on running with it.

Pgs107-108:

Mendacs cocked his head, watching the play of a nimbus of green-orange light that enveloped the woman, the radiance issuing from an iron box the size of a man’s torso. The stasis generator had performed it’s function perfectly. Mendacs didn’t understand the technology by which the device worked, knowing only that it could cast an envelope over a limited area, and within that barrier the passage of time slowed to a crawl. He had been on Virger-Mos II for almost two solar months, yet for the woman, only seconds would have passed. From her viewpoint, he would never have left.

Stasis technology. Pretty self-explanatory.

[Manus Celer Dei]

The lacrymole aren't new. They've been around for years. The earliest mention that I've seen is the Inquisition skirmish game main book. They don't show up much, so it's an easy mistake to make.

As far as I know this is the first time that they've actually shown up in any fiction other than the one-page blurb in the Inquisitor book. Every other mention I've seen of them was just background fluff in rulebooks. Pretty cool to actually see them in action.

Remind me, Graham McNeil - is he a good writer or bad?

For what it's worth he's one of my favourite BL authors at the moment (along with Demski-Bowden and Abnett), though for some people he's a bit hit-and-miss.

[Ahriman238]

And on to Forgotten Sons. Nick Kyme is a relative newcomer to the Black Library, but he wrote the two (of a planned three) Salamander books that I really enjoyed.

It's a story about two Astartes, idealistic Heka'tan of the Salamanders, one of the few survivors of the Drop Site Massacre, and Arcadese of the Ultramarines, who was in a coma for all the time between Ullanor and the start of the Heresy. Since Heka'tan is the first Soace Marine to ever get PTSD and Arcaded is more machine than man, they get drafted as diplomats. That will end well, I'm sure.

Pg 116

He tore the door off its hinges, closing his eyes as the flame swept out and over him. They burned out quickly, devouring the oxygen. Heka’tan stayed anchored in place until it was done, a light tingling on his skin the only lasting reminder of the fire’s touch.

Fire resistant Salamander is fire resistant. Who knew?

Pg 119

She had once been an artisan, but since the Edict of Dissolution her role as a remembrancer was a memory long dead. War had come to the Galaxy, and Persephia’s talents were put to the forge, like the rest of the human race.
No one wanted to remember anymore.

First mention I’m aware of for the Edict of Dissolution, which dissolved the remembrancers and set them to work as armorsmiths, weaponers, or simply as infantrymen. The Imperium most empathetically does not want this new war recorded. Amusing, in how many Space Marines expressed a desire at the serie's begining that the remembrancers at least 'grab a gun and make themselves useful.'

Pg 123-124

The tanks were still maneuvering into position when the Son of N’bel fell upon the line of iron, bending it to his will. A gleaming figure surged into the Iron Warriors, distant but still magnificent. Vulkan and the Pyre Guard slammed into the betrayers with unrelenting vengeance. The primarch’s hammer smashed a bloody wedge into the throng, slow to react to the flank attack.
Far below, Heka’tan found it hard to keep track of his father, but saw enough to know iron helms were sundered, and chestplates crushed against his wrath. A spit of flame drove the traitors back up the hill, colliding with the advancing armor. Vulkan’s gauntlet enveloped them in a conflagration so intense that power armor was no defense against it.
He reached the first of the battle-tanks, a Demolisher that the primarch lifted with his bare hands and turned over. A second he punched through the hull with his hammer, wrenching out the crew within before the Pyre Guard, his retinue and inner circle warriors, followed up with grenades. The back of the tank blew out in a plume of fire, smoke and shrapnel.
‘Perturabo!’ The voice shook the very ridgeline, as deep and forbidding as a Nocturean lava-chasm. Vulkan was enraged, battering tanks aside like children’s toys. He was not the most gifted swordsman, nor was he a great strategist, or a psyker of any note, but his strength and fortitude… In that the Eighteenth Primarch was unrivalled.
Had Ferrus Manus lived there might be some cause for debate, but with the Iron Hand’s primarch’s head lying separate from his body in the shrinking snow, the point was now moot.
The low whine of a missile barrage cutting through the air at speed answered Vulkan and he looked to the heavens.
Heka’tan followed his primarch’s gaze a second later and saw the danger too late.
Fury lit up the ridgeline, ripping tanks and bodies the same, tossing Salamanders and Iron Warriors indiscriminately. The backwash boiled down the hill in a fiery bloom, thundering into Heka’tan just as Vulkan was obliterated from his sight. Then the world faded, darkening in every sense until-

Vulkan’s last stand. The last anyone saw of him. As usual, the primarchs are awesome beyond description so very vague phrases of their awesomeness are repeated over and over. Then again, he was at the very least able to grab one end of a tank and flip it over. I’m still not quite sure why Vulkan’s elite would hurl grenades into a tank after he already tore it open and yanked the crew out.
No one knows for sure if Vulkan died that day, but if he did it took a substantial artillery strike to take him out.

Pg 125

‘Greetings, travelers.’ The speaker was a mustachioed clave-noble. He towered over the visitors in a bespoke rigger, an exo-skeletal frame of bronze that added a meter to his height and bulked out his limbs with its chassis. Weapon mounts, ordinarily positioned at either shoulder and below the abdominals, were absent, a concession that this was to be a peaceful engagement. Likewise, the noble’s three marshals wore only ceremonial flash-sabers – no barb-whips, no rotor-threshers or other hand-held cannon.

The locals of Bastion are a proud warrior people, they submitted without question to the Iron Warriors who first conquered them in the name of the Imperium because they recognized the superior power of the Astartes and the respect the Iron Warriors were willing to treat them with. This shows itself in the security contingent wearing a crude but effective form of power armor, which, hey, lets him look down on a Space Marine. I’m not sure what barb-whips and rotor-threshers are, but they don’t sound like a lot of fun.
Again, I hope the exo-skeleton is bronze-colored and not literally made of bronze.

Pg 128

A naturally occurring thermo-nuclear resource provided light and heat, heavily shielded and stockpiled in underground silos that ran throughout Bastion like arteries. Cullis was the capital and the prime-clave.

Naturally occurring thermo-nuclear resource?

Pg 143

It also meant she wasn’t pressed into the service of the Imperial Army or sent into the manufactorums to make shells and bombs. She heard about the conditions in those places, of the relentless overseers that turned men and women into the blood-gruel of the Imperial war machine. Gone was the era of hope, of glorious conquest she’d longed to be a part of – in its place reigned an age of darkness instead.

Fate of most of the remembrancers. First title drop of the book (besides the opening page spiel) and it’s no coincidence that this happens while describing the Imperium actiong more like the Imperium we all know and love.

Pg 147

Arcadese’s injuries had not fully healed; they would never fully heal. His bionics gave him motion, but at a cost in pain. No human could bear it. For a Legionary such as the Ultramarine it left him debilitated.

Some of the limits to Imperial medicine. We aren’t told much about Arcadese’s wounds, but that they very nearly killed him, he was in a coma for forty years or so afterwards (a timeline of the Great Crusade and the Heresy remains troublesome) and his many bionic parts are still not enough to make him battle-worthy. Still, a Space Marine is a resilient creature.
The diplomat from Horus tries to pin the virus-bombing of Isstvan III on the Emperor’s orders, while claiming that the loyalists betrayed there were plotting against their primarch, and that the remembrancers Horus massacred were unfortunate collateral damage. Yet, I love that he also brings up the destruction of Monarchia and Prospero. Since ordinary citizens would not know too much of what precisely happened and why. Even with context, those are hard actions to defend, and I enjoy that the Imperium is seeing some negative consequences from these acts, even if it’s just more propaganda for Horus.

Pg 170

The lacrymole needed to taste their prey to absorb them, before they could copy them biologically. To emulate one almost perfectly, it meant this alien had somehow bested and consumed the biological matter of one of the Emperor’s lions. Such a thing didn’t seem possible.

The lacrymole puts up a pretty good fight, but it’s clear that its strong suit is using its shapeshifting and guile to kill opponents. It assumes the appearance and crudely imitates the fighting style of a Custodian during their battle, and also pulls a bone blade form its side at one point. We see a limit here, that it must consume a genetic sample of the creature it would imitate.
It’s unclear to what extent the lacrymole was working with the Chaos forces. Its first act was to shoot down the Imperial delegations Stormbird, it’s second to try and snipe Horus’ representative. Which may have been a clever scheme to frame the Imperials and drive the planet to Horus, except that the Iron Warriors were already going to destroy the planet and the lacrymole, whether their confederate or not, knew that they were doing it. Which makes the whole affair seem rather pointless.
Also, the lacrymole wouldn’t necessarily have to defeat a Custodian to consume a genetic sample. For instance, after the Dropsite Massacre there were, what, seven? Custodial corpses on or around Isstvan in varying states of dismemberment?

Pg 175

From the shuttlehold, Arcadese looked down upon the ruination of a world. Cooking off in the wake of the incendiaries, Bastion’s thermo-nuclear stockpiles were tearing the planet apart.
Long chains of fire stitched the world’s surface like its seams had been unpicked and were slowly being burned apart. Continents cracked and mountains sank. The oceans boiled to gas and the cities were consumed. Billions would look to the artificial nuclear sunrise, their retinas seared away in seconds, the skin of their bodies flaking like parchment only to become ash on the wind. And even that was ephemeral, torn apart and scattered to oblivion by the blast wave that followed.

One reason it may be a bad idea to keep a naturally occurring thermo-nuclear resource stockpiled underneath every major city. I don’t think it actually works that way, though. Oh, and as a consequence of this, Horus gains many worlds fearing retribution, whereas when the Emperor destroys worlds people bitch and consider joining the other side. Sometimes there really is no justice.

[NecronLord]

Honour doesn't require a [sic] it's just the British spelling.

[2000AD]

Haven't previous books and materials confirmed that Vulkan survived Istvaan? That made the Salamander's story a bit off for me, with the Salamander dude lamenting over his 'last stand'.

[Black Admiral]

Actually, no. It has to my knowledge never been confirmed whether Vulkan survived the dropsite massacre, and both Fulgrim and Raven's Flight imply he didn't.

[Elheru Aran]

As BA says, it's never been confirmed. The Salamanders in the 'present day' think he's still kicking around, but it's not beyond probability for a HH-era Salamander to be assuming he's dead; the mythology hasn't had time to kick in yet. Same thing with Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan, really, only a little harder to swallow in the face of current evidence.

That does bring up a question, I wonder if the Black Library is going to publish any books about the post-Heresy era...? Granted, that's not as exciting-- just the Imperium rebuilding-- but you could still have some epic stuff going on with, for example, the reclamation of Mars, the Ultramarines hunting down the Alpha Legion and Fulgrim, etc... and maybe, just maybe, we'll see what actually happened when Russ and the Khan disappeared, damnit!

[J Ryan]

As BA says, it's never been confirmed. The Salamanders in the 'present day' think he's still kicking around, but it's not beyond probability for a HH-era Salamander to be assuming he's dead; the mythology hasn't had time to kick in yet. Same thing with Leman Russ and Jaghatai Khan, really, only a little harder to swallow in the face of current evidence.

That does bring up a question, I wonder if the Black Library is going to publish any books about the post-Heresy era...? Granted, that's not as exciting-- just the Imperium rebuilding-- but you could still have some epic stuff going on with, for example, the reclamation of Mars, the Ultramarines hunting down the Alpha Legion and Fulgrim, etc... and maybe, just maybe, we'll see what actually happened when Russ and the Khan disappeared, damnit!

Battle of the Fang is set in M32 and is all about the Thousand Sons getting some pay back on the Space Wolves. Set post Russ disappearing though, but still well worth a read.

[Elheru Aran]

Huh, M32? I always thought it was something like M36 or M38-- definitely not that early in the Imperium's history.

If I can find it at the bookstore AND have money handy, that might just be a purchase I'll make. Please tell me they've given up the gimp-suit Abnett culture by then, though?

[J Ryan]

Huh, M32? I always thought it was something like M36 or M38-- definitely not that early in the Imperium's history.

If I can find it at the bookstore AND have money handy, that might just be a purchase I'll make. Please tell me they've given up the gimp-suit Abnett culture by then, though?

No mention of it whatsoever IIRC.

[Black Admiral]

They're partway between the setup shown in Prospero Burns (and, I have to say, I rather like Abnett's take on the Wolves) and that of the Bill King/Lee Lightener Space Wolf novels. Battle of the Fang is incidentally the best by miles of the Space Marine Battles novels so far (and Bjorn is about eleven different kinds of awesome).

[Ahriman238]

Honour doesn't require a [sic] it's just the British spelling.

I know, but I don't use the British spelling, so it feels odd to me. Plus that was a while ago. In this latest post I tried at one point to write 'meter' as 'metre' but my computer wouldn't stop auto-correcting it.

Haven't previous books and materials confirmed that Vulkan survived Istvaan? That made the Salamander's story a bit off for me, with the Salamander dude lamenting over his 'last stand'.

Nope. He disappeared at Isstvan, in the sense that no saw him since the missiles hit. Like all the First Founding chapters whose primarchs aren't confirmed KIA, the Salamanders have legends about how Vulkan will one day return to lead them.
Heka'tan 'the Salamander dude' was actually lamenting not being there for his primarch, and not knowing if he was alive or dead. He even says he envies the Iron Hands, their Primarch is dead, which is terrible, but at least they're sure he's dead.