u/JustANewLeader

The Path of the Eldar trilogy is one that, I've noticed, gets both a lot of praise and flak in the 40k community, and yet still stand as some of the most critical pieces of Eldar fiction we have. So I decided to check them out.

Overall: I thought this was a decent trilogy of books. I have nothing really to fault with Gav's worldbuilding, lore and the character arcs he chose for his trio of protagonists: Korlandril the Warrior, Thirianna the Seer, and Aradryan the Outcast. The main thing that really drags down these books is the actual prose, as Gav is far too prone to telling rather than showing and writing boring fight scenes. If the exact same characters and plots were written but by a better wordsmith, I wonder if these books would have been better received.

• Path of the Warrior: I thought this was an overall solid 7/10 read, providing very good insight into how one becomes an Aspect Warrior and why they're so feared by Eldar society. Korlandril is also a well-constructed main character, if extremely flawed and tragic, and his mentor, the exarch Kenainath, is very compelling too. Unfortunately, the book ends very abruptly out of nowhere.
• Path of the Seer: this one I liked less. Again, the worldbuilding about the activities and importance of Seers in Eldar society is highly informative, but Thirianna is a less compelling character than Korlandril, although her arc is tied up decently well - the side cast is also not very interesting. Also, this book probably has the worst prose of the trilogy, it's just so wordy. 6/10, at best, closer to a 5/10.
• Path of the Outcast: this is just straight up a good book, 8/10. It feels the best written out of the trilogy and Aradryan probably has the most compelling and natural character development out of the trio - a true anti-hero who becomes addicted to freedom and carelessness after leaving his home, falling from grace only to come to his senses at the end. Also, some very cool Harlequins and Corsairs.

While these definitely aren't going into my first rank of 40k books, I had a good time and would encourage folks to read them for themselves and form their own opinions, rather than parrot the opinions of others online. After all, we all tread our own Path.

A Lesson in Iron, a short story by David Guymer, tells the story of an early-career Ferrus Manus taking the Fist of Iron into a warp rift (the story notes this is probably the first time a ship ever did this in Imperial history) and encountering a time-displaced Iron Hands cruiser from the future. While investigating the mysterious ship in person, though, Ferrus discovers the denizens of the warp (seen of course at the time as just weird xenos) for the first time:

>A cry split through the vox-unit, and Ferrus turned to see an immense xenos creature manifesting over Gabriel Santar. The legionary’s left arm was already gone, the evidence of a bite mark left in the bubbling ceramite of the screaming warrior’s shoulder. The creature roared and the whole ship seemed to vibrate to it, as though it served as nothing more than the vox- piece for something even larger, even deeper in the warp.

>The burnt electrical stench was powerful enough to taste.

>Answering cries retook the Legion vox-bands, the sudden eruption of bolter-fire lighting the abandoned bridge in flashes.

>In bursts of muzzle flare, Ferrus saw more of the xenoforms come. They crawled out of the bulkheads, running together, burning with pinkish flame, as if they had been drawn in from the outer hull and given gibbering, capering independence.

>Morn shredded one with bolter fire. It wobbled and cackled. Like shooting into a fire. Ferrus took two giant strides off the central dais and obliterated it with a single thunderclap-blow from Forgebreaker that simultaneously demolished a square metre of deck. It did not laugh at that. ‘Absurd life forms,’ he heard Xanthus mutter, as the two veterans assigned to their protection took defensive postures and began methodically carving the bridge into halves with bolter fire.

>On the other side of the platform, to Ferrus’ left, Santar was being dragged to his feet, the second legionary blazing into the inconstant behemoth that had taken his sergeant’s arm. Shrugging off the helping hands, Santar deactivated his gladius’ mag-sheath and hurled himself at the beast with a roar.

>The creature recoiled from the blade, suffering under its edge even as the concomitant bursts of bolter fire passed straight through it.

>But Ferrus had the prickling feeling that it was not the blade doing the damage. It was the man. Perhaps it was the unnatural conditions inside the rift, but even from afar Ferrus could feel Santar’s pummelling fury. It was like Medusan galefrost, and the relentless battering chill of it was slowly tearing the abomination apart.

>Morn, however, was being swamped. The Terran was positively incandescent, and it drew the creatures to him like a targeting hex.

>Ferrus bludgeoned another streaming entity midair. It blasted apart, soupy spatters of corrosive matter glowing as they rained over him, hissing as they ignited on his armour. Gripping the weapon tightly in both fists, he gave a clangourous cry. He was a god of war, born to fight, bred to win, and every superhuman sinew in him strained to do so now. But to what end? Santar had delivered a potent lesson in iron.

>Passion was a weapon borne by all who took the Gorgon’s blood, but it was logic and reason that could make it a tool.

>‘Ferrus Manus,’ he said, activating the Legion frequency that would be heard by every legionary aboard the cursed derelict, and on the Fist of Iron too. ‘Fighting withdrawal. Back to the gunships.’

>‘No!’ Morn panted, laying into the maelstrom of hungering xenos with bolter and power axe. ‘This... is a Legion... vessel. I will not... leave it... in the hands of these... things.’

>‘This vessel is a wreck,’ Ferrus replied, remaining on the wider frequency so that all could hear. ‘Honour be damned.’

Thought this was a pretty cool excerpt, and Ferrus's insight into how the rage of the Iron Hands is simultaneously a great asset and a liability against daemons is neat.

As we know, the origins of the Grey Knights lie in the Horus Heresy, when seven of the surviving Knights-Errant of Malcador plus the oddity that was Janus were selected to become the original Grand Masters of the chapter and hidden away on the moon of Titan.

Do the Grey Knights, then, still remember their origins as the Knights-Errant, and commemorate the likes of Nathaniel Garro and other Knights who weren't chosen to form the Grey Knights or died before they had the chance? Or have these men been forgotten to history?

For reference, in terms of Grey Knight-focused material I've only read David Annandale's two Castellan Crowe novels + the Sons of Titan anthology, and IIRC this isn't touched on there.

So I just finished reading the two Phoenix Lord books by Gav Thorpe: Asurmen - Hand of Asuryan and Jain Zar - The Storm of Silence. Now I've heard that Gav, despite being by far the most prevalent contributor to Eldar fiction in 40k, doesn't have a good rep on that front, but I went in without biases and man I was impressed, I had a great time!

To give a basic summary of what they're about: both are, of course, centred on the adventures of their eponymous Phoenix Lord, Asurmen's first then Jain Zar's. They are interesting as both of the main plots revolve around each PL contributing to stopping a future calamity that threatens the Eldar race, but in their own unique ways and with their own objectives. Simultaneously, each book also flashes back into their past, to show their origins and how they came to be legendary warriors of the Eldar.

Overall, there are strong points shared between both books:

• You can really tell Gav Thorpe is enthusiastic about Eldar lore. Both novels are packed full of details not just of how Eldar operate post-fall, both in the craftworlds and in Commorragh, but also pre-Fall, as we get some fantastic looks (especially in Asurmen's book) at how such a powerful society became decadent and corrupted. Asurmen's book also shows the utterly traumatic nature of the Fall and the devastating birth of Slaanesh, and it's magnificently done. In his book you even get to see a cute Eldar baby!
• Both Asurmen and Jain Zar are written well. Asurmen is a wise teacher and mentor and incredible warrior - but given his great age and fame, he is also harsh and not quite comprehending of mortal matters as he should be, which leads to interesting conflicts with the Eldar he's helping out, and it's telling he physically has to separate out part of his personality in order to stay himself. Meanwhile Jain Zar strides a good balance between being a cold and dispassionate champion of Morai-Heg, and a rage-filled warrior of Khaine (and is also quite sassy to boot). Both feel more understandable as a result of these books, but retain their majesty as Eldar heroes.
• The side characters are also well done, feeling believable and distinctly Eldar (not just humans with different names). I especially liked Dracon Maensith, a down-on-her-luck Drukhari that Jain Zar picks up in her book. Her journey is very satisfying.
• Both books are quite well plotted, showing how the Phoenix Lords aim to navigate the strands of fate. While it can be difficult to understand what's going on initially, the various plot threads come together well by the end - especially Jain Zar's, which had me sitting up and going 'oh wow THAT'S where it was all going'. Meanwhile, the flashbacks to the early days post-Fall are well integrated and meaningful, not just 'oh here's more cool lore' - they are great for character development purposes, as we see what made the Phoenix Lords they way they are. In particular, the flashback sequences in Jain Zar's book basically continue on directly from Asurmen's book, showing how he taught her everything in those dark post-Fall days and how he moulded her into what she is today.
• Lastly, and more minor, both books are actually quite funny at times, in a dry Eldar-esque way. It works well.

As you can see, lots of positives. But there are some negatives:

• The books themselves are not that long, which can be a downside for some people. Personally I thought they were just the right length, but YMMV.
• Gav's writing style is not exactly super elegant or sophisticated; there is a lot of telling instead of showing for both scene descriptions and character emotions/interactions, and he apparently doesn't know what a semi-colon is. Compared to other Black Library authors, people may find this lacking.
• This is much more of a flaw in Jain Zar's book, but at times it feels like side character Eldar are weirdly stupid and not seeing an obvious flaw in their plan and only identify it when the mighty Phoenix Lords stop by. The reason this stands out especially in Jain Zar's book is because one of the main characters is >!a young Eldrad Ulthran!< who apparently lacks some pretty major critical thinking skills. It works, in the end, but it can be immensely frustrating until then.
• Tt's clear that the books were leading into telling more adventures about the other Phoenix Lords, but those have sadly never materialised.

But even with those downsides, I really, really enjoyed these two books; they're full of passion and do a great job of painting the origins and lives of the greatest warriors of the Eldar race. I'd highly recommend them to any 40k fan.

From Chris Wraight's Iron Hands contribution to the Space Marine Battles series, we have this small scene of Arven Rauth, Iron Captain of Clan Raukaan, finding a mortally wounded guardsmen and doing what must be done:

>As Rauth swept his gaze across the floor of the chamber, he saw just how many of the mortals had paid for their zeal with death. Hundreds of bodies lay immobile in the chamber. The rough surface of the floor was viscous with a thick layer of mingled blood, sticky and glistening in the on-off light.

>The fighting had been savage. Appropriately savage.

>Ahead of him, one of the bodies moved slightly. Rauth’s helm visor zoomed in on it automatically, drawn by the gesture.

>He paused. All around him, his retinue stopped walking. All four behemoths stood silently, towering over the twisted field of corpses in silence.

>One of the mortal soldiers was still alive. Rauth’s armour sensors picked up his life-signal pulsing weakly. Moving cumbersomely in his heavy plate, he stooped over the stricken Guardsman, letting his helm’s augmenters pick out the man’s outline in the flickering gloom.

>A pair of eyes looked up at him from the floor. They were wide and red- rimmed. The man’s helmet visor had been shattered, exposing a blotchy, bloody face within. He breathed in shallow gasps, and pink foam collected at the edges of his swollen lips.

>For a moment, the two warriors looked at one another. Rauth saw the enormous chasm in the mortal soldier’s chest where a las-beam had punched through. He saw snapped ribs sticking up from a pulpy mass of charred muscle. He saw organs trembling within, glossy where the intermittent light flashed across them.

>Rauth looked at the flesh at the edge of the wound, noting how it tried to repair itself. Blood was already clotting, pooling like oil and coating the ragged fringes of the opening. The man’s heart laboured, pumping more blood around what remained of his body. It would not be enough – the injury was mortal.

>Still, though. The man was fighting.

>Rauth looked deep into the man’s eyes. For some reason he found himself unwilling to do what was necessary. He drew his gauntlet up and pressed a finger lightly against the man’s temple.

>He waited a second longer. The man knew what was coming, and seemed to accept it. He stared straight back up at the Iron Hand, somehow maintaining eye contact, unable to speak, his fragile breathing growing just a little more urgent.

>Then Rauth pressed his finger home. The movement was gentle, like cracking an egg-shell. The mortal shuddered, then fell still. Blood pumped from his wounds, but sparse breaths no longer issued from his gaping mouth.

>Rauth withdrew his gauntlet and slowly stood up. His retinue made no movement.

>Nethata’s words came back to him then, like a ghost-echo on a faulty audio recording.

>You will remember that they are human. Like you used to be.

>It was hard to recall a time when Rauth’s existence had been anything like the fragile, bloody one led by the mortal Guardsmen he led into war. They were ephemeral, those men; like short-lived insects destined to breed, fight and die. By contrast, Rauth knew that he was functionally immortal for as long as his warrior skills proved equal to those he faced in battle. He would never feel his muscles atrophy, nor the grip on his weapon weaken. If a las-beam somehow penetrated a Space Marine’s primary heart then his posthuman physiology would compensate immediately. In Rauth’s case, the centuries-worth of bionic implants that riddled what remained of his mortal frame would keep him going, keep him fighting, keep him existing.

>Such had been the case for hundreds of years. Over the slow passage of time he’d only felt himself grow harder, colder, more unyielding.

>Did it matter, that he’d virtually forgotten what it was like to possess mortal frailties? Would it have made a difference to his strategy, had he been able to fully recall his old capacity for terror, for fear, for weakness?

>He remembered the words of Raukaan’s old Iron Father, the one who’d plucked him from the howling wastes of Medusa and started him off on the process that would slowly bleed away his humanity.

>In times ahead, he had said, your mortal mind will return to you like a ghost. It will whisper to you, telling you that you have become a monster. A thousand voices will tell you this. You will be tempted to believe those voices.

>Rauth lifted his gauntlet up and looked at it. The mortal’s blood glistened from his fingertip.

>They speak the truth, though you must not heed them. Some truths are ruinous, and some deceptions necessary.

>Rauth remembered how he’d felt when hearing the words for the first time. He’d not listened. He’d never listened, back in the days when his passions ran hot and his spirit raged against the symbols of authority.

>And what if they strike near the mark? What then? Some men, we believe, must become monsters so that all of humanity does not become so.

>Rauth found himself wishing then that Telach was close, and not closeted away with his three Codiciers in preparation for the main assault through the tunnels. He couldn’t confide in Khatir – the Iron Father was little more than a weapon.

>He cast his mechanical gaze across the bodies of those slain under his orders, and felt the ghost of the past whisper to him, just as he had been promised that it would. Its voice was comforting even as it mocked him.

>You have become a monster.

Although Shadowsword by Guy Haley is a Guard book, it has a good showing from the Black Templars - here, Champion Bastoigne shows us what the Emperor's Champion does best: dying in a cool way.

>The fight between Dib and the Champion was reaching its climax. The Black Templar’s armour smoked from a dozen rents. His blade slowed. With a triumphant screech, Dib fell upon him, all four swords plunging into the Champion. He covered the warrior in an obscene embrace, snake-like body coiling around the Black Templar.

>At this blow the membrane dividing the material realm from the warp pushed outwards and did not rebound. In this new extrusion, thousands of pairs of hungry eyes looked out into the universe.

>‘The way is open!’ screeched Dib triumphantly. ‘The way is–’ Dib made a clicking noise in his throat and arched backwards. The Black Sword burst from his spine, thick blue ichor running over his serpentine body. The sword ground round, opening the wound wide, then cut outwards, almost cleaving Dib in two. The daemon herald fell gurgling, and the Champion staggered free, his armour shattered and blood pooling around his feet.

>He raised his sword to the heavens and tilted back his head. ‘Emperor, hear me! I am Brother Bastoigne of the Black Templars! I have served you! I have served you! Witness me! No pity! No remorse! No fear!’ He reversed his sword and plunged it point first into the stone. Then he knelt. Head bowed in prayer and hands clasped around the hilt of the black sword, he died.

I think that the simplicity of that last paragraph really just encapsulates what the Black Templars are about: dying in some forgotten field, all in the name of their God-Emperor. As much as they are terrifying crusaders of the Imperium I found this quite sad.

Found this cheaky reference in this short story by Justin D Hill that I thought was a nice 'wink for the camera' moment:

>The second human thrall to be murdered was Elena Strut.

>She was a thin, pickled old hag, with long pinching fingers. In a thick accent, she proudly declared herself from Segmentum Solar. I saw her just hours before she was killed, just hours after Amit’s death.

>She was Picket’s Watch’s Master of Tomes and had a cell in the entrance to the scriptorium. I knew her well. Lockdown meant long hours confined within our cells and I liked to have something to read to pass the hours.

>Ever since I had learnt to read, I had found the company of a book made enforced solitude more bearable. I had become a keen student of a little-known military campaign that had been waged three hundred years earlier, led by a short-lived warmaster named Slaydo. It was a minor event in the scheme of things, but I found it satisfying for a matter of study, not least because many of the sources were contradictory, and these puzzles intrigued me.

>Elena found the book for me. It was bound in black leather. The spine was plain, but the front had been embossed with golden letters. It was hundreds of years old. The gold leaf had worn away and the pages had been heavily thumbed.

This is the second Sisters of Battle book by James Swallow, revolving around a force of Sisters fighting Necrons of the Sautekh dynasty on the world of Sanctuary 101. In this excerpt, Tegas, a tech-priest accompanying a small Sisters force that has infiltrated the Necron command complex, reflects on how the Necrons store their information:

>Already he was beginning to understand the first principles of how the necron network operated. With the correct quantum transmitter, it could be accessed from anywhere in the universe, instantaneously communicating through the entanglement phenomena of controlled quanta. Modification protocols inside Tegas’s internal systems were working on adapting one of his many communicator arrays to perform just that function. Already, he had gently sampled a few benign subroutines and chanced a low-level intrusion into the dormant sectors of the complex’s invisible grid. Soon, he would be ready to try something more pro-active.

>One of the subroutines was generously filling his redundant data-stacks with mapping data that showed the scope and design of the Obsidian Moon facility. He found it odd that the necrontyr did not keep all information under walls of heavy data-security, but then they were not like the Imperium. In the nation of the Emperor of Mankind, ignorance and fear were the core tools of rulership; and the best way for the Adeptus Terra to keep the people ignorant and fearful was to keep them unaware of even the most basic of truths. In many sectors of the Imperium, it was a capital crime for a common man to possess a star map without official sanction to do so. On some worlds, it was illegal even to read without a licence.

>But the necrontyr had no reason to keep their lower orders afraid and unaware. The roots of those things – of fear and the need to know – did not exist within their greater ranks. What the Imperium hoarded like gold was freely available among the necron species. Information abounded within their networks, uncountable near-infinite amounts of it there for the taking. Millions of years of data, and Tegas’s first impulse was to want it all.

>But that was impossible. Here he was, his memory stores colossal and robust by any definition, but even he was a cup attempting to hold an ocean.

Thought this was a cool bit of subtle world-building.

Just a little bit from Shadowsword by Guy Haley that I found quite amusing - the Guard can be creative with its weapons when it needs to be!

For reference, gleece is an alcohol native to the planet Paragon, which these men are from:

>They went into a newly built dugout roofed with a sheet of pressed plasteel scavenged from the battlefield. The rain drummed off it, running from the front to make a beaded current of black droplets over the firing slit. Jonas’ men crammed inside, raising the temperature with their body heat. Bannick shuddered gratefully at the slight increase in warmth.

>Jonas introduced his command squad to Colaron. ‘This is my ensign Bosarain, vox-operator Anderick,’ he said. ‘Lin is my medic. This is Killek, who I basically promoted to my squad so I could keep an eye on him, and this sorry looking dog is Micz.’ He pointed out a scarred, squash-nosed man hunched over a meltagun. ‘Probably the most dangerous man in the whole of the Four Hundred and Seventy-Seventh.’

>Micz gave an ironic salute.

>‘And Suliban, you already know.’

>The commissar dipped his head. Bannick returned the gesture, still on his guard. He introduced his own men. Shoam and Micz appraised each other a little too long for comfort.

>‘Now, Bosarain, about that gleece?’ said Jonas.

>‘Coming right up, sir,’ said Bosarain. He put a pan so large it must have been purloined from the mess in front of Micz, then he pulled out a bottle from his pack and held it up. ‘There’s only one left after this.’

>‘Put them both in.’

>‘You sure, Jonas?’

>‘Go ahead,’ said Jonas. ‘I’d rather go into battle knowing I’d drunk it than die regretting I hadn’t.’

>Bosarain pulled out another bottle and uncorked them together. The bitter-sweet smell of the gleece brought memories of home back to them all as it glugged into the pan.

>‘This is the tricky part. Micz?’

>Micz unfolded his arms from around his weapon, rested it on his knee, and pointed the slot end at the pan.

>‘What the–?’ said Meggen.

>‘I know what it looks like,’ said Jonas. ‘But he’s good at this.’

>‘You gotta get the setting right down,’ explained Micz, twisting knobs on the gun’s control panel. ‘Get it right and we get nice warm gleece.’

>‘Get it wrong and you’ll kill the lot of us! A fusion gun like that will turn us all to steam,’ said Bannick. He glanced at Suliban, but the commissar was looking impassively out at the downpour.

>Micz shrugged. ‘I better get it right then, hadn’t I?’

>Shoam crouched down, right by the pan.

>‘Here goes,’ said Micz.

>The meltagun gave off a faint hiss. A warm draught rose from the end of its slotted muzzle. Heat shimmer rippled the air between gun and liquor.

>‘Steady!’ said Jonas.

>‘Steady as she goes and no more, sir,’ said Micz. ‘That should do it.’ He released the trigger and set the melta down. The muzzle radiated a warmth that relaxed them all. With so many men packed into the tiny dugout and the melta giving off heat, steam rose from their uniforms, and the chill retreated from their limbs.

I've been reading Guy Haley's Imperial Guard stories about the Paragonian super-heavy tank formations and greatly enjoying them. Here's a little tidbit from a short story featuring the protagonist of Baneblade that I thought might interest the sub: lore on how Baneblade crews come together.

>Honoured Captain Hannick of the Paragonian 7th Super-Heavy Tank Company had called Bannick into his quarters after the fleet dropped from the warp a week out from Shen-Li. Bannick was surprised at how cramped Hannick’s billet was, not much bigger than his own. Rank bought few privileges.

>Hannick was distracted; he shuffled papers and needlessly tidied neat piles of items from one place to another as he enquired after the Lieutenant’s health. ‘And the men?’ he said.

>‘Permission to speak freely sir?’

>Hannick waved a hand at Bannick. The honoured captain was much governed by his emotions. At times he was prone to a brittle formality to hide the strength of his feelings; at others, when off guard or under certain pressures, an overly familiar sentimentality came over him. Today it was the latter. The CO was haggard, upset. Much like he had been on the rooftops of the surface city after the battle for Hive Meradon back on Kalidar. Today was a day Bannick could speak freely in safety.

>‘Permission granted. And do sit down, Bannick, we’re not on the parade ground.’

>‘Thank you, sir.’ Bannick pulled a lightweight chair out from Hannick’s desk. ‘They are mostly young and untried, Vaskigen excepted,’ said Bannick. Hannick glanced at him at that. Bannick was no seasoned Baneblade commander himself.

>‘Vaskigen is a good man. We’ll miss him on Artamen Ultrus.’

>‘I’m having some trouble getting them to integrate,’ Bannick continued. ‘I’ve three more Paragonian, but the rest are not from home.’ His voice caught ever so slightly on the word. ‘Two Atraxians seconded from the 18th Atraxian Super-Heavy Tank–’

>Hannick tossed a battered notebook onto his desk and sighed. ‘Yes, yes, good. You’ll need them, got experience.’ He sat on his bed and rubbed his face.

>‘That’s it sir, they have no experience,’ said Bannick. ‘They were new recruits to their own company, nothing more. And then there’re the others. A scrawny little fellow who speaks no standard gothic, I’ve no idea what regiment they dug him up from.’

>‘A Bosovar. Bosovo’s a feral world,’ said Hannick. ‘Not ideal.’

>‘Sir?’

>‘A raising of theirs joined the fleet at Mold Quartus. They’re little more than savages. I argued against his selection hard, for what it’s worth.’

>‘And then there’s the Savlar,’ said Bannick slowly.

>‘Yes,’ said Hannick bluntly.

>‘He and Meggen are not getting along.’

>‘The Savlar...’ Hannick glanced at a crew manifest on his desk. ‘Shoam? You worked with him before?’

>‘Yes, at the mine action in the desert on Kalidar, before the final push. He accompanied us on the scouting run. Look, I have no issue with him–’ That was a lie; Bannick’s prejudices against the Savlar ran as deep as everyone else’s, ‘–but the rest of the crew don’t trust him. I...’ he paused. I don’t think I do either.’

>Hannick puffed out his cheeks and ran his hand over hair that was uncharacteristically greasy; he did not look well. ‘I’m not going to drench this in gleece to make it more palatable. You’re going to have to make it work,’ said Hannick. ‘You know how the tech-priests interfere with crew allocation. We cannot pick and choose. Their numeromancy, the rituals and the rest – they insist on it. They insist the machines make their own choices.’

>Bannick nodded. His own appointment had been the result of one such interference by the Machine Cult. ‘Sir.’

>‘Who are we to second-guess the Omnissiah? The methods have worked well.’ Hannick forced brightness into his voice, but it could not outshine his weariness. ‘They’ll all have something, these new recruits. Your job is to find out exactly what it is, and make it work for you, and for Cortein’s Honour. This is part of what it means to be an Honoured Lieutenant. Do you understand me?’

>‘Yes sir.’

Just a small bit from this Deathwatch/White Scars novel by Justin D Hill that I'm currently reading, but this has to be one of the most ridiculously over-the-top Space Marine feats I've ever read:

>It took nearly a week for the Valete to drift towards the target, power systems barely functioning. Now, at last Kill Team Zeal’s Corvus Blackstars were within range of Proth.

>Moaz Khileni was going in first. A bandolier of jammers slung about his chest, he crouched in shadows as the Corvus lifted off from the landing bay, the fuselage rattling as it passed through the airlock and out into the vacuum of space.

>Only when he felt the craft rattle as it slipped into the high atmosphere did he stand. His mission was to disable the listening stations that covered the planet. He had to move carefully to avoid banging his jump pack on the roof of the craft.

>‘Approaching the southern pole,’ the Dark Angel, Cadmus, said.

>There was a hiss of wind as the rear landing ramp lowered. Moaz stepped forwards to the edge of the opening and looked down. They were flying above the equatorial range, where the landscape was brown and dusty. It soon gave way to tundra and the brilliant ice fields of the polar regions. From this high the sky was distinctly curved, a blue nimbus ringing the horizon.

>Moaz had seen many battlefields and planets in his eighty-four years. Most of them had started off like this: the view of an unknown world seen from the open doorway of a Stormraven or Thunderhawk. Entering from high orbit with nothing but a jump pack was what the Raven Guard excelled at. It was what they were made for. To strike from the sky, when most enemies looked towards the land for their foes.

>Moaz stepped to the edge and felt the ramp shudder beneath his power-armoured footsteps. The emptiness seemed to suck at him, to beg him to step forwards and embrace it. They were passing into night now, the land below turning dark until all that was left was the blue nimbus and the shadowed mass of the planet.

>‘We’re approaching drop zone,’ Cadmus voxed.

>There was no answer. Moaz had already embraced the void and was falling head first into the night.

>Moaz accelerated to thousands of yards per second. At a height of two miles he began to reach atmosphere and the temperature readings in his suit climbed. Friction began to heat his power armour. The black paint started to burn. Black on black, it did not matter. That is why we wear the black, one of his Scout masters had told him when he was learning the ways of the Raven Guard.

>As he fell he stabilised his fall until his arms and legs were flung back, like the barbs of a black arrow. In the earth, he could make out the dry beds of ancient river systems. The meandering channels ended in the vast white salt pans. His enhanced vision searched for a suitable canyon and found one within moments. Three hundred feet deep, funnelling out into a dry river bed.

>From a height of one mile, the gap towards which he was falling was nothing but a black line. It grew slowly at first. He was falling at a hundred yards a second. Seventeen seconds until impact.

>He altered his body shape as effortlessly as a raven would adjust a tail feather and he started to veer towards the gap. He changed direction again, lining up with the narrow mouth of the canyon, always adjusting, altering, aligning.

>He counted down the seconds to impact. Five, four, three. The canyon was only four yards wide. Moaz wobbled as it rushed towards him, filling his vision.

>Moaz overloaded his retros, blasting back against his momentum. He hit a projecting rock and pulverised it, then bounced twice more before landing so hard his chin hit his knees. His vision went dark for a moment as the blood drained from his cranium, his muscles tensing in response, both hearts slowing momentarily as amber readings flashed inside his helmet and he forced blood up and around his body.

>An unaugmented human would have died from organ failure at the shock of that deceleration. Moaz Khileni shook himself and rose slowly. He checked his readings, got his bearings within seconds and started towards his first target.

>It was only twenty miles distant. He slipped out of the canyon mouth. He was a shadow.

Lots of famous Ultramarines show up in the Uriel Ventris series by Graham McNeill, among them Severus Agemman, then and still now First Captain of the chapter. This is a rare short story that focuses significantly on him, in the wake of nearly getting killed by the daemon prince M'Kar during said being's invasion of Ultramar, as he purges a genestealer-infested space hulk:

>The lord of the broods loosed a bellow that shook the walls of the chamber, and Agemman met its alien gaze. Its eyes were ancient, marbled orbs the size of his fist, and Agemman saw the silence between the galaxies in their empty, soulless voids. He felt sudden, agonising pressure within his skull, the presence of something invasive and hideously alien pressing against the surface of his mind.

>And in that instant of connection he was once again in Castra Tanagra as the daemon lord towered above him, its warp-sheathed claws poised to end his life. He felt the numbing horror of that moment again, paralysed by knowing there was absolutely nothing he could do to save himself.

>Fear was alien to Severus Agemman, but the psychic scarring of the instant he had faced death was all too real. The hive lord’s inhumanly powerful mind dredged deeply and amplified that pain and horror a thousandfold.

>A hulking tyrannic warrior charged him, but Agemman lowered his powerfist and relaxed his trigger finger. The beast screeched in triumph and fibrous whips of muscle tendon lashed from cavities in its exoskeletal structure. They entangled his arms and pulled him off-balance. With him pulled in close, the beast vomited a spray of bio-plasmic fluids onto his helmet. Agemman’s vision fogged with static.

>The corrosive slime ate into his helm’s grille and Agemman gagged at its foulness. The neuroglottis at the back of his throat rebelled at the stench, somewhere between a greenskin midden and necrotic flesh.

>Mantis-blade arms scythed towards his head. A black-bladed sword intercepted them and a return stroke clove the creature’s forelimbs from its body.

>‘Fight it, Severus!’ yelled Carthalo, and Agemman felt the blistering heat radiating from the Librarian’s psychic hood.

>He felt the hive lord’s fury as its hold was broken, and let out a shuddering breath as the nightmare of Castra Tanagra bled from his thoughts like a sickness.

>Carthalo thrust his gauntlet at Agemman’s attacker. A blaze of blue fire shrieked from his splayed fingers, instantly searing the meat from the creature’s unnatural skeleton.

>Agemman could barely see. The bio-acid had dissolved most of the front of his helmet. He ripped it clear, and the heat and stench of the cavern struck him like a physical assault. Memory made his chest a knot of agony where the organic scraps of his heart and lungs meshed with his internal augmetics.

>Sergeant Tirusus’s squad formed a wedge around him as Carthalo swept the torrent of his psychic fire over the alien host. That fire burned hotter and brighter than any natural blaze and the creatures shrieked as the Librarian burned a path towards the hive lord.

>‘Are you wounded, brother-captain?’ asked Sergeant Tirusus.

>Agemman shook his head, swallowing back a bilious mouthful of revulsion. Without the insulation of his helmet, the foulness of this alien nest was almost too much to bear.

>‘I am not,’ he said, masking his horror at the lingering trace of the hive lord’s mind by spitting on the molten bones of the beast Carthalo had slain.

>Tirusus nodded and Agemman was grateful he turned away.

>The first captain’s transhuman body was mighty, but the daemon lord’s claws had cut him to the quick of his life. Not even the combined skill of the Chapter’s masters of the Forge and apothecarion could undo such mortal hurts entirely.

In general the Salamanders and the Marines Malevolent, both made popular through Nick Kyme's stories, are not best of friends. However, as Nicke shows in this short story in the Deathwatch anthology, featuring Ar'gan the Salamander and Vortan the Marine Malevolent, sometimes rapport can bloom even between the unlikeliest of partners:

>Ar’gan disengaged. Poison was turning his limbs to lead, stealing away his vitality and endurance, replacing it with agony. He took it. He was a son of Vulkan, fire-born. It would take more than alien venom to stop him.

>The edges of the gunship looked blurred as he turned. He could no longer run. It was a half-limp, half-stagger.

>Shrieking, avian noises behind him told Ar’gan he needed to be faster.

>‘Vortan.’ His voice did not sound like his own as opened up the feed. A few minutes and his organs would counteract the poison, dilute it, neutralise it. He didn’t have one minute. ‘Vortan...’ They were almost upon him. Engaging them was suicide. His Lyman’s implant picked out eight distinct tonal arrangements. And that was just the first wave.

>The feed crackled in his ear.

>‘Get down!’

>Three metres from the gunship, Ar’gan hit the dirt.

>Overhead, the air was lit by muzzle fire.

>Through a haze of slowly fading poison, Ar’gan saw the Marine Malevolent braced on the roof of the gunship. He carried an autocannon, one hand on the grip at the top of the stock, holding it like a scythe; the other on its trigger. He dampened the recoil by jamming the butt into his stomach. His armour’s servos did the rest, steadying his aim.

>Eight kroot vanished in the metal storm.

>Ar’gan was dragging himself up to his knees, thumbing the release clamp off a grenade from his weapons belt. He rolled it behind him, hard so it would travel, then pitched into the gunship.

>A few seconds later, Vortan swung in beside him. The auto-cannon was gone, empty and discarded on the roof. He had Polino’s bolter instead.

>The captain was lying in the hold along with Festaron. Both were of equal use now.

>‘Holding out on us, brother?’ he asked as the tangle-web grenade exploded behind Ar’gan, filling a five-metre wide area with deadly razor-wire.

>‘Only for emergency,’ the Salamander replied. ‘I didn’t think it was worth wasting on collapsing that chasm.’

>Vortan laughed. It sounded like metal scraping metal.

>‘Got one of those for me?’ Ar’gan pointed to the bolter. Sensation was returning, his body’s advanced immune systems finally counteracting the poison.

>The Marine Malevolent shook his head. ‘Only half a clip, anyway. Not enough to kill all of them.‘

>'Fortune I kept hold of this then.’ Ar’gan brandished the fire-axe.

>‘You’ll have to tell me one day how you came upon that brutal weapon.’

>Outside, the horde had recovered from their blooding and was advancing. High pitched war-cries echoed from several directions, colliding in a deafening welter of noise that told the Space Marines they were surrounded.

>‘One day.’

>Ar’gan glanced at the various points of ingress around the gunship.

>‘The hold has only three access points,’ he observed.

>‘I can probably watch the roof and left side,’ said Vortan, racking the bolter’s slide.

>‘Then the right side is mine.’ Ar’gan swung the fire-axe in a languid arc to relieve some of the stiffness in his shoulder from the proboscis wound. ‘Bet you’re wishing we’d have left the others now, eh?’

>‘No,’ said Vortan. ‘I like it better that we’ll all die together.’ He smiled. It was like a dagger slit across his mouth. ‘Seems some of your compassion is rubbing off on me.’

>Ar’gan met the Marine Malevolent’s gaze across the length of the hold. ‘I doubt that. Any last words, brother? A benediction perhaps, before we go before the Throne?’

>Vortan tapped the bolter’s stock, ‘This,’ he said, then nodding to the Salamander’s fire-axe, ‘and that are the only words we need now. Kill as many as you can.’

>‘Would you like to wager on the outcome?’ Ar’gan asked.

>More grating laughter from the Marine Malevolent cut through the cacophony from the kroot. ‘Bolter versus blade? Very well.’

>‘Good hunting,’ said Ar’gan.

>Vortan didn’t respond, and went to guard the left side of the fuselage.

Found this bit which I thought was pretty grimdark. Broden, a Deathwatch Kill-Team leader, is talking with the pilot of his Thunderhawk and musing about how such men and women are found:

>Broden addressed Tarval again. ‘Time to drop site?’

>‘One minute forty seconds, m’lord,’ reported the Thunderhawk pilot.

>‘Be ready. We’re about to take a lot of heat from the ground. I want all weapons systems brought to bear.’

>‘Always ready, m’lord. They made me that way.’

>Broden grunted. At first, he’d been offended that a Thunderhawk, especially the one assigned to carry him, was to be piloted by a non-Adeptus Astartes. Outside the Deathwatch, it was unheard of. To the Ordo Xenos, however, Space Marine assets were too important to leave in a cockpit when they were most needed on the ground. The ordo instead recruited decorated veterans from the Imperial Navy, luring them in with the promise of unparalleled aircraft, technological resources, honour and glory. With a price, of course. Those that accepted were modified. They became... What? Man-machines, Broden supposed. Like servitors in some ways, but not quite. They became the living brains of their aircraft, fused with them permanently, the airframe becoming their body, responding to their thoughts the way his power armour responded to his.

>He still wasn’t sure he approved, but he had seen the results. He could not doubt their effectiveness.

Lovely stuff.

Ian St Martin is an author who hasn't written a huge amount for BL, but this short story, which you can find in the Deathwatch anthology, is really good - it's told from the PoV of the Mortifactor Adoni, young and inexperienced, who returns to Posul as the sole survivor of a Deathwatch Kill Team which also boasted a much older and more experienced Mortifactor. Now Chapter Master Magyar and Chaplain Astador (familiar names to those old hands who have read Warriors of Ultramar) lead the rites of remembrance in a very Mortifactor way:

>‘We are born into darkness,’ Astador stands before the altar at the sepulchre’s centre, his incarnadine armour ochre in the torchlight gloom of the massive circular chamber. Bleached skulls of conquered foes cover the walls, staring down without eyes. The square ziggurat of the altar sits beneath a crystal dome ceiling. Posul hangs over us in the void beyond.

>I stand with the three Mortifactors companies on the Basilica Mortis. There are fewer than two hundred. Leviathan took much of the Chapter, and crusades since have bled us further of warriors we can no longer replace.

>‘In the endless night of Posul, there was only death. Lives began, and ended, in the bloodletting of our tribes.’ Astador’s voice is the only sound beyond the thrum of active power armour. Every brother stands armed and armoured. A Mortifactor does not draw breath without a weapon in his hand.

>Sobor’s skull sits upon the altar. Every campaign, honour and triumph is etched into it in blunt Posulan script. Beside it lies his sword, polished to an ebon sheen. ‘Until the Ultimum Bellator came. The Emperor’s illumination offered us ascension above the savagery of our birth. For millennia we have defended His realms, for without Him none would know meaning in death.

>‘The most precious gift one can give is that which they deny themselves. For all His might, He who reigns over a million worlds from Terra, has given us something He can never possess.’ He anoints Sobor’s skull in oil, placing it in an iron bowl.

>‘Death. For all He has sacrificed, He can never give fully of Himself. We can, and so we must. He has given His life to us, and so we die in His place. Blasphemy is not acknowledging we surpass the Emperor in this way,’ Astador shakes his head. ‘Blasphemy is recognising a gift and wasting it.

>‘Sobor was among the greatest of our brotherhood. He has accepted the Emperor’s precious gift, shedding his life in His stead. The shadows grow darker for his absence. Those who remain must burn brighter in defence of His realms.’ He holds Sobor’s sword over the skull.

>‘Who among you shall do so?’

>‘I shall,’ says Magyar. He runs his palm down the shattered blade, clenching his fist to rain a trickle of blood over the skull.

>‘I will,’ says Althanax, bearer of the Chapter banner. He repeats the act, as does everyone, until Sobor’s skull sits submerged in oil and kindred blood.

>‘With each of the fallen, our flames must burn brighter,’ Astador takes up a blazing torch. ‘We must give light, and endure burning.’ He lowers the torch, and sets the blood alight.

>The blood burns away in coils of greasy smoke, filling the cavern with a scent like battle. I watch the flames consume the blood, until only the skull remains. Astador raises it in his hand for all to see.

>‘We are born in darkness. May we be the Emperor’s light until we join the dead.’

>‘Until we join the dead,’ repeats the assembly. Heads bow, and fists touch chests in salute. Quiet descends, each warrior in prayer and contemplation.

I've come to quite like the Mortifactors, they're a very interesting chapter.

Thus far, I have read a decent amount of material by David Annandale - Apostle, the two Castellan Crowe books, the Sons of Titan anthology, The Unburdened for 30k stuff.

This guy has to be one of the most madly inconsistent, variable writers I have ever seen. Because on the one hand, Castellan Crowe is one of the most wooden, Mary Sue-ish main characters I've ever read a PoV from, and in general he doesn't seem very good at doing Grey Knight PoVs beyond them just being stalwart, pragmatic battle psykers. The usual criticism of Space Marine books where people complain about Brother Genericus only talking about duty and honour would hit close to home here. He's not the most engaging writer of action, either, and his sentence structures are too short and choppy. Apostle also had the sense of being too rushed.

But on the other hand, he does fantastic mortal PoVs (in fact every time the Grey Knights aren't PoV characters in his stories, they seem 100% cooler), he does a great job of demonstrating the insidious, bizarre and yet at times strangely logical nature of Chaos, and he has a flair for writing some absolutely insane set-pieces that really tap into the over-the-top nature of 40k (the walking cathedral in Warden of the Blade and the paper explosions in Apostle are up there). Plus, when he really puts his mind to it, he can make space marine PoVs effective - the steady spiral into insanity of the Word Bearer chaplain Kurtha Sedd in The Unburdened is incredible - and he can write a decent plot in general.

On the whole, I do like David's work more than dislike him, but it's very frustrating that within the span of a single book he can vary so much between some of the best writing I've ever read for 40k and generic bolter porn even for the standards of Space Marine books. I've heard that he's more of a horror writer anyway - maybe more of his strengths will show there.

What do you guys think of David?

I have been reading David Annandale's Grey Knights stuff and it's given me more appreciation for the chapter - pure of purpose, strong of resolve, but always willing to do the most terrible things to protect the Imperium. I think that this excerpt, in which Garran Crowe decides to stiffen the backs of the citizens of a world caught in the Great Rift, illustrates that well:

>Crowe turned from them. He advanced to the lectern. It was built for mortal speakers, and barely reached his waist. It served his purpose all the better by further emphasising how puny and fragile the lords of Skoria were beside the Grey Knights. Crowe opened a vox link to the pulpit. The delegation had imagined he would speak to the people of Skoria, and so he would.

>In the unholy light of the warp, the sanctity of the strike force was visible. A cold, white, psychic nimbus surrounded each of the Grey Knights. They shone with the iron of angered faith.

>‘What are you?’ Crowe thundered to the masses. ‘Do you call yourselves faithful to the Emperor? Do you?’

>He paused. He would have an answer. These people would know they were being judged, and there could be no retreat into silence.

>‘We do!’ someone shouted.

>‘We do,’ said the cardinal. He scuttled forward as if he meant to touch the hem of Crowe’s cloak. Crowe turned his head with a sharp jerk, the point of his visor aimed down at the little man. The cardinal recoiled as if stabbed. The rest of the crowd took up the cry. ‘We do!’ It was still a wail, just as desperate as before, a plea that he believe them and forgive.

>Crowe was not in a mood to do either. ‘Your words mean nothing,’ he said. ‘Your actions prove them to be empty. Your faith is in your actions. Where is it? What are you? Will you hide in your burrows when the enemy comes? Faith is not faith that crumbles when tested. You imagined that we came to save you. We did not. We fight the abomination. We fight for the Emperor and the Imperium. If you do not fight, there is no salvation. You will earn your place at the Emperor’s side, or you will find your deserved oblivion.’ He raised his right hand, blade and wrist-mounted storm bolter pointing to the unholy sky. ‘I am the right hand of the Emperor!’ he roared, and in his anger he burned with terrible light. Then he lowered his voice to a frozen, implacable hiss. ‘And I would know what you will do.’

>There was a moment of terrified silence. Then new shouts began. ‘We will fight!’ ‘We stand with the Emperor!’ ‘Our lives for the Imperium!’

>‘We will fight! We will fight! We will fight!’

>The cries were as desperate as ever, but the need had changed. Now it was the need of the people to convince Crowe that they were still faithful. It was also genuine. The citizens of Skoria had looked upon the light of the Grey Knights, and knew that the Ruinous Powers were not supreme.

>On a private vox channel, Drake said, ‘They do not understand that none of them will survive.’

>‘I think some might,’ Crowe said. ‘But you’re right. Most don’t. What matters is that they will die in the Emperor’s light.’

The Marines Malevolent are a surprisingly venerable chapter that dates from M32, according to the one source that names their origins (White Dwarf 249). However, we don't know anything more than that - nevertheless I thought I'd do a bit of theory crafting.

We know when the 2nd Founding happens: shortly after the end of the Heresy. We also know that Rogal Dorn was around to order the 3rd Founding, and therefore it likely happened at some stage in late M31, maybe very early M32. Then, the 4th Founding occurs after the devastating War of the Beast in around 546.M32 - however, the Marines Malevolent are not counted amongst the chapters we explicitly know to be 4th Founding (Halo Brethren, Sable Swords, Tome Keepers).

We then have a gap in the records as we don't know the dates of the 5th, 6th and 7th Foundings, although we do know that the 8th Founding happens around the middle of M34 thanks to Imperial Armour's Badab War books (the Mantis Warriors are an 8th Founding chapter). So that gives us a gap of around 2000 years in which the three undated foundings could have taken place.

We know that 'a founding' takes place around early M34, according to Deathwatch: Rites of Battle, and that another happened around 831.M33, according to the 6th edition core rulebook. It seems likely that the early M34 Founding was the 7th Founding, and the late M33 one was the 6th Founding. This means that we are only dubious about the rough timing of the 5th Founding, other than that it probably happened somewhere in between the mid-M32 to late-M33 gap.

This makes it seem likely to me that the Marines Malevolent are a chapter of the 4th or 5th Founding. Personally, I incline more towards a 4th Founding chapter, as it seems more likely to me that such a brutal and merciless chapter would be born out of an Imperium that had survived the War of the Beast, especially an Imperium ruled by a dictator like Drakan Vangorich.

What do people think?