Loremaster - Brothers of the Snake.

 

'The giant slammed the speeder to a rough halt that threw Antoni against the restraints. The prow mounted cannons unloosed again and blitzed the roadside. The gunfire's roar was extraordinary.

As soon as it ceased, there was a buzzing sound, as if a swarm of bees was billowing past them. She heard scraping, pinging impacts, sharp metal on metal.

The speeder was moving again, the vents of the ramjets vectored so wide that it was advancing sideways up the road, the giant keeping his side of the vehicle facing the storm of impacts. To shield her, she realised'.

*****

Welcome to the fourth installment of the Loremaster series.

This post deals with a part of one of my favourite books, Brothers of the Snake:

First published in 2007, Dan Abnett turns his hand to the Space Marines.

'When Baal Solock comes under attack from a mysterious alien race the citizens are paralyzed with fear. In desperation they use an ancient artefact to signal for help for the first time in over six hundred years. They are stunned when their cry for help is answered and even more amazed when they realize that only one Space Marine is sent to succeed where their armies have failed. Follow the exploits of Brother Sergeant Priad and Damocles Squad as they battle to preserve humanity against a number of enemies from the depraved Dark Eldar to a vast Ork Waaagh!'.

Now, although he had written short stories in the Inferno Magazine (what a product that was!), I don't think Dan Abnett had turned his hand to Marines on a full novel scale before this book.

A lot of his later marine tropes would be experimented with in this novel. Their lack of understanding of mortals at times, their larger then life standing within the Imperium as a whole, and several of the Imperium's institutions attitudes towards Marines for example.

This book however deal with the chapter called the 'Iron Snakes', an Ultramarines successor chapter who had only received a colour print in the "Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes" poster/sections of codexes. So he really had room to flesh them out and create a culture for them.

To this end, Dan Abnett went to the Ancient Greeks for inspiration and blended the Hellenic period of history with the fancy sci-fi gothic asthetic of 40k wonderfully in my opinion,

(Much better then Forge World did with the Minotaurs literally being Spartan Space Marines, but I digress).

The sections of the book in the chapter house, and later on when they go to full war with the Orks are great, but the most interesting parts I found were the first sections of the first undertaking.

Brother Priad (he's not a sergeant yet), is sent to Baal Solock after they call for help when an alien ship crashes and the survivors start murdering, skinning, torturing and flaying the surrounding communities.

The novel does a lot of things which 40k did well at this time period in its history. 

The summoning ritual is barely understood and the officer, miss Antoni, doesn't even think it will work.

The culture shock of the locals when Priad arrives and his equipment, even having a malfunction on his scanners due to radiation (some real world reference there).

The commanding presence of the Marine compared to the mortals of the world.

Dreams, dreams and portents play a massive part in the book, more on that later.

And lots more, however, when he journeys up country with Antoni and a guard dog named Princeps from the palace to confront the threat, this is where we start to see what Marines are meant to be:

'For many years afterwards, for the rest of her life in fact, Perdet Suiton Antoni often wondered how none of them had heard him coming. He was just there, suddenly. How could something that big move so fast and so silently, and appear without notice?

Between the moment the Primuls began to spring, and the moment they would have fallen upon her, the giant appeared and interposed himself between her and the foul, pouncing creatures. It was almost as if he has stopped time and edited himself into that particular frame of it.

What followed lasted about three seconds'.

Remember, Space Marines are between eight and ten feet tall, weigh nearly a ton in their full warplate, and are practically walking tanks compared to the humans around them.

Likewise the "Primuls", if you haven't figured out by now are the Dark Eldar, are stick thin and move twice as fast as mortal humans, so nothing to shirk at.

Yet the brick shithouse of a warrior sprints in and "appears" in the middle of combat moving that fast he can engage the Dark Eldar as they are mid-pounce:

'As he arrived, he was swinging his shield out, and smashed it flat into the nearest leaping Primul, shattering bones and deflecting the thing away. Wheeling, he hacked out with his sword, cutting clean through the neck and shoulder of the second, casting out a shower of dark red blood. 

The third had a ranged weapon of some kind, before it could fire, the giant whipped his right arm over and threw his sword like a Lance. It struck the Primul through the chest, lifting it off its feet with the force of the blow, and impaled it upon an olive trees trunk, where it hung with its feet dangling and twitching'.

If you take a count on your watch for three seconds, you realise how little time that actually is, and Priad kills all the enemies and makes it look easy. Keep in mind these are one of the biggest threats to humans because of their speed and technology. 

Yet with all that, Dan Abnett writes brilliantly showing you just how the Astartes should be thought of in the game universe.

I love the little touch of him throwing the sword and pinning one to the tree.

'With his right hand free, the giant grabbed the heavy firearm which had been knocking at his hip on its long strap and shot the last Primul twice, in the face and chest. The double blow was so loud it made Antoni cry and cover her ears. The force of the shots tore the Primul apart, and slammed it's mangled body across the grove. It bounced sideways off the tree trunk and fell into the bracken.

Silence, except for the gurgle of leaking blood. The giant raised his firearm. He turned slowly into the trees, covering the area point by point.

"We-" Antoni began.

"Quiet!"

She shut up and the giant continued to circle, finally he lowered his weapon and moved to recover his blade.

The giant wrenched his sword free from the split tree trunk and let the pinned body flop limply to the ground'.

Aside from protecting Antoni and getting to the bottom of the threat, killing them all in the process. The book, as I mentioned, makes big use of dreams and unlocking what they mean.

The chief librarian of the chapter, The Great Petrok, remains with Priad's squad and later has a prophetic dream about Priad, along with a black dog. It takes a battle against Orks for the memory of Baal Solock to return to Priad in full and from there the book shifts to a recovery mission.

Priad dreaming and being stuck in a warp fugue and only able to offer slight insight into what they might face going forwards.

40k used to use these techniques all the time, one of the big draws for the universe was it's vagueness lorewise once you got outside of the Maine rulebook, and how mysticism and technology blend together.

Sadly the modern rote of 40k novels don't seem to use this technique to allow your imagination room to maneuver. Everything seems to be spelt out explicitly in what I've been reading, everything is explained more or less fully (unless it's an Alpha Legion novel). As things are being filled in more I feel that the universe is slightly loosing it's darkness.

It's like the writers have lost one of the classic writing techniques:

SHOW, DON'T TELL!

The book ends as the final battles have slowly drawn out to conclusion and it cuts back to Priad leaving Baal Solock for the second time after another one of Petrok's dreams:

'There was mist in the air. A watery sun fought with the clouds to be seen.

As he passed through the outermost gateway he turned as he heard a sound.

A black dog was following him, trotting eagerly at his heels.

He sighed and knelt, "Go home!"

The dog whined and dropped to its belly, looking up at him with doleful eyes.

Priad rose to his feet, "Go on home, Princeps", he said.

The black dog rose and turned. It ran back to the gateway and watched as Priad continued on his way. 

When he was almost out of sight, it barked twice.

Priad turned to look, but the dog had disappeared'.

The second time Priad visits the planet is about eighty years, local time, after his first visit when he exterminated the Dark Eldar.

He talks to Antoni, now local governess and an old woman leaning on a cane and asks about Princeps.

"Oh the dog, he died years ago" she replies to his question.

And yet he has the vision of Princeps as he is leaving the planet. 

Something comparing an old wardog leaving, maybe a future portent to Priads end?

Until next time, have nice day...

Loremaster - Storm of Iron, part 1.

 

'FORRIX SMASHED HIS power fist into the door, feeling the layered metal starting to give.

His warriors gathered behind him, impatient to kill their prey and begin refortifying this place. He slammed his fist against the door again  feeling the metal crumple beneath his assault.  He gripped the twisted metal and pulled, tearing the door from its mounting with a roar of triumph. Forrix pushed through the doorway to see a Magos in white robes and a one armed Guard officer standing beside him. The man fired his bolt pistol and Forrix grinned as he felt the ringing impacts against his armour.

He raised his own weapon and squeezed off a short burst taking the Magos between the shoulders, disintegrating his torso and blasting him clear in a welter of blood.

The Guard officer leapt and fumbled with the levers, vainly attempting to finish what the Magos had began. Forrix laughed at the man's efforts and shot him in the leg, toppling him with a scream of pain. He deactivated the energy field surrounding his fist and lifted the howling officer from the ground, hurling him to a waiting Terminator. 

Forrix realised they had cut it close and shot each wailing speaker to silence the alarms.

"Replace the rods. It will prevent the reactor from blowing"  he said to another Terminator,  and strode from the room.

Tor Christo had fallen.'

*****

This is the third Loremaster post, it's a little late because the summer period is not conducive to keeping ontop of hobby or blogposts at all.

School summer and family holidays, work in general and the heat this summer have all collided to crush any form of motivation and mojo I had going. As things head towards Autumn (not Fall, damn yanks), and things resume some form of normalcy (as close as it can get), around here, I'm hoping to get back into the swing of things and get posting more regularly again.

With that said...

This time on Loremaster we are dealing with some traitor lore, loyalists beware. This will be split into two parts because of the length of the segments we are discussing. 

The first post deals with those paranoid, embittered siege specialists of the Great Crusade who fell to chaos and nearly won the heresy for Horus during the siege of Terra.

The Iron Warriors, besieging the world of Hydra Cordatus during the 'Storm of Iron.

 

"Storm of Iron is probably the most memorable black library book I’ve read so far. There have been other books that have been better, but storm of iron has two great bits in it that still stand out in my mind after at least ten years since I last read it.

Coincidentally, they are both my favourite and most frustrating things black library have ever published in a book.

Near the end of the book both my favourite bit and frustrating bits happen.

My favourite bit, happens when one of the iron warriors goes and punches a warhound titan on the foot making it fall over and putting it out of action. I still think of the Ed209 in the stairwell from robocop.

And the frustrating scene is where a Guardswoman who was captured earlier in the story, who has been maintaining the armour for a chaos marine merges with it. Which I thought was a great idea! 

Then you never see her again in any of the iron warriors books or others that cross over".

First published in 2002, Storm of Iron was a tie in novel for the worldwide Eye of Terror Campaign;

'ON THE NIGHTMARE battlefields of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, few foes spark more fear and dread than the Chaos Space Marines. Nurturing a hatred that is millennia-old, they attack without mercy, spreading terror and destruction in their wake. 

Now hell has come to Hydra Cordatus, for a massive force of terrifying Iron Warriors, brutal assault troops of Chaos, have invaded the planet and lain siege to its mighty Imperial citadel. But what prize could possibly be worth so much savage bloodshed and destruction and how long can the defenders possibly hold out?'.

Graham McNeill is part of that upper echelon of Black Library authors, part of the alumni with the other two previously mentioned in this series, Dan Abnett and Aaron Dembski-Bowden respectively. 

He has penned the huge encompassing Ultramarines series, as well as several Horus Heresy novels and various other Black library novels.

Storm of Iron was meant to be a stand alone book when it was written, instead it began a villainous series with Warsmith Honsou, and later his assault on Ultramar due to events in the Ultramarines novels. 

Later it tied into the Horus Heresy series by having the characters reference setting foot on Hydra Cordatus during the Heresy and being featured in one of the Iron Warriors novels of the series.

Storm of Iron is set upon the Imperial world of Hydra Cordatus, where the Iron Warriors lay siege to an Adeptus Mechanicus facility in order to gathering offerings to Abaddon the Despoiler, and for their Warsmith to ascend to Daemonhood. It follows the path of the siege from the opening assault on the spaceport, to the trenches dug towards the walls of the citadel and Daemonic siege engines wheeled into place.

There are forlorn assaults of prisoners, forced forwards by the Iron Warriors as a method of draining the enemies ammunition reserves, as well as blitz attacks by the Traitor Astartes themselves forcing breaches in the walls. 

All whilst focusing upon a select few characters, the main one being Honsou who is an Iron Warrior created after the Heresy and who is made from a mongrel mix of Geneseed from the Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists!

Kroegor, is another Iron Warrior, but one who is falling more and more into the clutches of the Blood God and spends a fair amount of time butchering people.

Forrix is a Terminator captain, who has been alive since the Horus Heresy and is apathetic towards anything, so much so that he has been passed over for elevation to Warsmith several times.

Larana Utorian, a lieutenant of the Jouran regiments defending the citadel, and a captured prisoner forced to work for the Iron Warriors.

'FORRIX WATCHED THE Warhound infront of them back off through the smoke, realising that it's shields must be down.

"Follow it! Go after it!" He bellowed. The titan was not just an enemy warmachine to him now, but a beast from the Olympian legends and he felt a burning, primal desire to slay it. He almost laughed aloud, emotions and desires once thought lost forever rushed to the surface of his mind like a drowning man clawing for oxygen.

A ringing impact slammed into the Land Raider, throwing him sideways and he knew they had been hit badly. Smoke and flames speeds into the crew compartment, and as he looked back Forrix saw a great hole torn in the side of the vehicle.

Through the ragged tear he could see the looming form of another Warhound Titan. It snarling face carved in an expression of fury and Forrix was again gripped by the desire to slay one of the beasts.'

Things build over the course of the siege, Forrix alternately hunting and retreating from the Titans, as yet more Titans join the battle, both Loyalist and Traitor alike.

Battles are mixed with tense, paranoid filled camp sections where the senior commanders of the Iron Warriors try to formulate plans for the siege and backstab each other in equal measure.

The part here which I really like is the description of Forrix's emotions rising up again, in the lore of the Iron Warriors, they suppressed their emotions through relentless attritional battles during the great crusade, becoming machine like and cold.

Their monotone war chant of "Iron within, Iron without" only adding to the emotionless automaton warrior trope they have.

They are described as being their emotions deep down as they became more and more resentful of their assigned duties and orders, this small section of him regaining something of that is an interesting thought whilst reading.

Forrix seems to soften towards the 'half-breed' Honsou, maybe an effect of the above, but reverts to the cold Iron Warriors mindset when the hunt for the Warhound begins in earnest.

'His powerful strides had taken him to the top of the breach when a deafening roar erupted from beyond the crest and the rocks before him exploded, huge chunks of rockcrete blasted to powder by shell impacts. 

The beast of legend was before him, not just one but two of the agile scout Titans darted back and forth in the gap between the citadel's inner and outer walls. The Warhounds loped like caged beasts, pausing every now and then to spray the breach with murderous fire.

Forrix's heart sank.'

This begins the hunt for the Warhound as Forrix looses twenty something Terminators to one of the Titan's as they crest and try to force the breach, and realises that they can't close with their prey just yet, but more importantly they cannot take and hold the breach with that opposing firepower.

He becomes more determined then ever to slay the beast and spends the next section of the battle stalking it until he can pounce.

'Forrix watched the beast stagger as a shell from a Vindicator burst against its leg. The Warhound lurched, they had it now, backed into a corner.

"It is time for a reckoning, beast! He yelled as he crashed forwards.

The pilot's compartment swung low, the green of its eyes locking with Forrix and he laughed, knowing that the beast's life was forfeit.

Forrix clambered onto it's massive foot and hammered his powerfist into the ankle joint again and again.

He held on for dear life as the joint sheared off in an explosion and the Warhound toppled. Shadowed forms struggled weakly within as Forrix emptied his combi-bolter into the Warhound's bridge, slaughtering the crew.'

This is a great description of what would actually be the best way to disable a walker. You'd get in close and try to disable the legs/feet as quickly as possible (I am assuming, as these things don't actually exist...yet, this is 38,000 years in the future!).

When you look at the size different (and price!) of the miniatures which are described, it seems daft that a Terminator Armoured Lord could take out a Titan in close combat, but it's actually the most 40k thing that you could do thinking about it.

This is a world where there are spaceships which can rain bombardments from orbit and soldiers still charge at each other with swords instead of shooting each other!

As fun as it is seeing the beast come crashing down, things don't all go Forrix's way...

'With the beast slain, smoke and dust momentarily clouded his vision. As it cleared he felt his pleasure at the kill drain from him as he found himself staring into the baleful eyes of the second Warhound.

"No!" Hissed Forrix.

It's weapons whined, building power to fire, Forrix had the briefest sensation of pain and frustration before the Defensor Fidei's guns destroyed him.'

After all that work, he is ultimately undone because he forgot about the second Titan and was enjoying the moment of killing the first Warhound.

It's kind of an anticlimax as you start to really like the character and how he has been built up so far through the novel, only to have him wiped from existence a couple of lines later.

A veteran of over ten thousand years, having fought in the great crusade, through the heresy and the long war thereafter, and he is killed because he takes the time to savour the kill!

Ironic no?

I'll detail the other half of the prompt about the Guardswoman in part 2, as this post was getting a little long in the tooth already.

Until next time, have nice day...

Loremaster - The Death of Sigismund.

'HE BURNED WITH life. It seared through his veins. The righteousness of his cause haloed him, bathing him in a Corona of a faith that was wholly unreligious, but faith nevertheless. I stared up at him beyond the ranks of his huscarls, those warriors who we would learn in later wars were called Sword Brethren, and I realised then just how it was that Sigismund still lived even after all this time. He had survived for a thousand years because he refused to die. He hated us too much to sleep in his grave with his duty undone.

"So you have returned." He spoke to all of us, his voice ancient but I cracked. "I never doubted you would".'

*****

The second post in the Loremaster series sees a different tale under scrutiny. This time we are looking at a very specific portion of a novel, and what is labeled as the "true end to the great crusade".

This is the Death of Sigismund, the Emperor's Champion of Terra, first of the Templar Brethren, and finest duelist amongst the Legiones Astartes.

'So ordinarily, I would add a guest paragraph here describing why they picked this lore segment and what they like about it. Unfortunately, for this post the person I had asked let me down, so rather than hold off as the post was ready, I decided to post it anyway as it's part of the series.'

First published in 2017, Black legion is the second novel of the Black Legion Series;

'EZEKYKE ABADDON AND his warlords strive to bind the newborn Black Legion together under threat of destruction. Now Khayon, as Abaddon's most-trusted assassin, is tasked with ending the threat of Thagus Daravek, the self-proclaimed Lord of Hosts - a rival to Ezekyle's final fate. Fighting the vile whispers of the Dark God's within his mind, Abaddon turns a fevered gaze back to the Imperium, where his destiny awaits. Yet the Emperor's Champion and his Black Templars stand guard at the gates of hell, and Sigismund has waited centuries to face Abaddon in battle.'

Aaron Dembski-Bowden erupted into the Black Library upper echelon of authors with his fantastic Night Lords trilogy* which really paved a trail for better then middling Chaos Marine novels. As a lot of the other stuff was just chaff, seeming to be based upon how stupid GW makes the Chaos forces in their own background box-outs and Codex writing.

The Black Legion Series, which he started but seems to have neglected as he's been pulled into finished the Horus Heresy and Siege of Terra novels off, follows the formation of the titular legion in the far off days of the Legion Wars inside the Eye of Terror.

Having been driven back into the warp storm following the defeat, the traitor legions turned upon one another and for a few centuries piratically raided each others holdings within the eye with no loyalty other than to themselves.

The series follows the main character Iskandar Khayon, and is told from his point of view, relaying the deeds and events which birthed the greatest threat to the Imperium to Inquisitorial Captors in a memoir form.

The first book, The Talon of Horus, details the search for Abaddon and the Vengeful Spirit, Horus' Flagship.

This second book, Black Legion, details the first forays out of the Eye, and the start of the first Black Crusade. Waiting for them are the Black Templars and Sigismund himself, personally speaking this segment is the highlight of a rather underwhelming book overall.

'SIGISMUND REMAINED MOTIONLESS  and said, with infinite patience, "You keep speaking Ezekyle. Do I look as though I am listening?"

"No pity, no remorse, no fear," Abaddon said with a smile.

He did not wait for a reply. He held out his hand for his sword. Zaidu moved forwards, picking it up and placing it in Abaddon's hand before backing away.

Sigismund mirrors the gesture in reverse, handing the sword of the High Marshals to one of his huscarls. Sigismund drew the Black Sword in its place, raising it to salute Abaddon with the same cold formality he had displayed unceasingly this far.

Sigismund would be faster in his ornate power armour, but there was no way of knowing how much age had slowed him.'

You have to admire Sigismund here. He knows that he is going to die, but will not shirk from his duty as the Emperor's Champion and seeks to duel the traitor champions.

Abaddon as the arch-traitor was clearly in his sights during the siege of Terra, but circumstances denied the duel, so here they finally meet.

AND SIGISMUND'S AGE did show. It slowed him, the finest duellist to ever wear ceramite, to a pace that was no faster then Abaddon in his hulking Terminator plate. 

Abaddon and Sigismund's blades met for the first time, a skidding clash that sprayed sparks across both warriors. I thought it might have been the signal for both sides to charge, yet there was no such uproar.

Their crashing blades brought a storm's light to the place of austere darkness, and still the gathered warriors on both sides stood in awes silence across the devastated chamber.

I found the signs of Sigismund's age unconscionably tragic - a fact that Ezekyle later mocked me for. He remarked that I should have paid more heed to the fact that the Black Knight, at a thousand years of age, could still have stood toe to toe and matched blade with any warrior. Age had slowed him to a level with the rest of us.'

I love the last line in the passage above, utmost respect from Abaddon himself, who was under no illusions that he could have, and very nearly did, die in the duel.

The whole piece is written so well, ADB could have waxed on about how badass Sigismund is after his heroics during the Heresy and the Siege of Terra, instead he writes a respectful, fitting end to a characters legacy which stays completely within the bounds of what he was. It's written in such a way that you get sucked in and forget the rest of the book, or what else is happening during this duel.

The Black Legion and Black Templars fleets are grinding into one another at this point in the story, the void war raging all around. Yet all the focus is down upon this one chamber inside the Templars command ship as the greatest champions of their age fight one another.

'THE BLACK KNIGHT, fallen and ripped apart. His Sword Brethren gone or dead.

Here at the last he looked every one of his years, with time's lines cracking his face. He looked upwards at the chamber's ornate ceiling, his eyes lifted as if in reverence to the Master of Mankind upon His throne of gold.

Sigismund's hand trembled, still seeking his fallen sword.

"No", Abaddon murmured with brotherly gentleness, through the running of his blood and the heaving of his chest. "No. It's over. Sleep now".

The knight's fingertips scraped at the hilt of his blade. So very close, yet he lacked the strength to move even that far.'

Later on Abaddon remarks that "He just wouldn't die!" And Sigismund is clearly showing that here, still reaching for his sword as a warrior should, whilst he has strength he plans on killing his foe.

I love how respectful Abaddon is, even though these are hated enemies**.

The final section of the novel concludes Sigismund's story and described the Black Legion's official declaration of war upon the Imperium.

Again this is a solemn piece of writing which really captures the essence of the characters, not the "hurr, durr, we chaos have tentacles" bits which GW focuses on in their codexes.

'SIGISMUND WAS CHOSEN for the responsibility. It felt right that he should carry out words back to the Imperium, back to the Throne-world itself.

One of the Black Templars ships served as Sigismund's mausoleum.

I was one of the four warriors who carried him there, a pallbearer for our first Imperial foe. We laid him upon the command throne in readiness.

Abaddon handed me Sigismund's favoured blade - the Black Sword and bade me carve out declaration along the length of the blade.

Once it was done we lay the cooling blade upon Sigismund's corpse and closed his hands around the hilt. No effort was made to hide the wound that had slain him, not to mask the mangled ceramite of bloodstained tabard. The knight-king's chin was bathed in blood - Abaddon wiped the worst of it from the old warriors beard with a care that would astonish any Imperial witness.

With three words we delivered our message and declaration of war. Words that encapsulated all that we had been, and all that we had become.

   'We are returned.'

It is such a respectful end to Sigismund's story,. Story which has ran throughout the Horus Heresy series, seen him censured by his Primarch, promoted to be the first Emperor's Champion, duel and defeat most of the traitor commanders who were not Primarch's.

Sigismund is a beloved character in the setting, no matter what anyone says, and seeing the main antagonists of the setting giving him a proper state funeral (almost) in a dignified manor to deliver their declaration of the long war is such a different take on things I think it works beautifully.

You're expecting them to desecrate Sigismund and use him for some sort of ritual as they probably would if this was in a codex. But the sheer lack of drama in this piece is actually refreshing and a nice change from the norm.

This has been the second post of this series, and I ask if you want to participate, leave me a comment on the post and I'll detail what I ask for involvement from readers.

Until next time, have nice day...

(Italicized sections of text are quoted from the novel).

*I read the Night Lords trilogy, as well as the Emperor's Gift (also by ADB) and quickly found that he had become my favourite Black Library author. He seems to weave a more grounded take on these otherwise alien characters, (come on, Astartes are as relatable to humans as we are to our pets). 

One thing which keeps getting quoted as part of the reason for the various Primarch's falling to chaos is that the Emperor made them "too human", with a human's foils and flaws.

ADB managed to write this into his characters and you really seem to feel things like Hyperion's inexperience and the shame in the Emperor's Gift. Or Lheorvine Ukris' rage taking over him at times from the Butcher's Nails eating into his brain in these novels.

* True he does have the Black Sword buried to the hilt through his chest at this point, but you can still be respectful of an enemy without needing life threatening accessories.

Loremaster - Necropolis.

 'GAUNT WAS SHAKING, and breathing hard. He'd lost his cap somewhere, his jacket was torn and he was spattered with blood. Something flickered behind him and he wheeled, his blade flashing as it made contact. A tall, black figure lurched backwards. It was thin but powerful, and much taller than him, dressed in glossy black armour and a hooded cape. The visage under the hood was feral and non-human, like the snarling skull of a great wolfhound with the skin scraped off. It clutched a sabre bladed power sword in its gloved hands. The cold blue energies of his own power sword clashed against the sparking, blood red fires of the Darkwatcher's weapon.'

*****

The first post in the Loremaster series was set in motion the other day. I asked for peoples favourite lore/stories from the GW universes and I was going to begin with my own choice, but I was sent this piece and it happens to be from one of my favourite books and one of my favourite novel series Black Library have produced;

"So, the Sabbat Worlds Crusades. 

I was always a big fan of the Tanith books, and the much wider universe they inhabit. I know the guard are often portrayed as mindless and human-wave style armies but the whole Sabbat Background really, for me, showed the guard how I imagined them to be. I always think humanity couldn’t survive if the guard were that useless, but in the Tanith books, they are professional soldiers, drawn from a thousand different places and backgrounds. 

I really love the little touches - the regiments that get a quick mention. The monstrous aliens that the guard find a way to overcome and general “real” feel of it all. I can’t really think of any major changes I’d make. I’d love it to be fleshed out abit more, but I suppose the fact you don’t know every single detail is half the appeal.

My favourite though is definitely Necropolis, I love the urban fighting environment in that book and the fact that you really feel the ghosts are up against it in that one".

First published in the year 2000, Necropolis is the third book in the Gaunts Ghosts series;

'ON THE SHATTERED world of Verghast, Gaunt and his Ghosts find themselves embroiled within an ancient and deadly civil was as a mighty huve-city is besieged by an unrelenting foe. When treachery from within brings the city's defences crashing down, rivalry and corruption threaten to bring the Tanith Ghosts to the brink of defeat. Imperial Commissar Ibram Gaunt must find new allies and new Ghosts if he is to save Vervunhive from the deadliest threat of all - the dread legions of Chaos.'

Gaunts Ghosts, what a series and what a gateway for many into Warhammer 40k, it's about the only series which has run concurrently with 40k since the Black Library started, and it still producing stories.

The series follows the so called "Gaunts Ghosts", a regiment of stealth/light infantry in the Imperial Guard led by the Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt, who has battles with higher command as often as with the Archenemy of Mankind. Taking place during the Sabbat World Crusade, the books recount the Imperial push to reclaim an area of space originally conquered by Saint Sabbat, and subsequently overtaken by a professional Chaos force from the Sanguinary World's. Again, the Chaos forces, and there are a lot of them, are depicted as being a lot more of a professional fighting force then the game background normally projects them. Using equivalent tactics and equipment as the Imperial guard, often they are traitor guard units or officers who have been corrupted and trained the chaos forces.

The ghosts started off with short stories in the old "Inferno" magazine, way back about twenty five years ago*, as one of the first commissioned pieces of writing to begin to flesh out the universe of 40k. A lot of Imperial Guard slang and nomenclature came from these novels, likewise, some of my favourite parts of the series take part away from the battlefield, when Dan Abnett started to introduce the Regiment Train, with the vendors, families and other "hangers on" a regiment gathers over time.

Back onto Necropolis though, and as the fighting in the hive gets fiercer and fiercer, betrayal strikes and the defences are brought crashing down, allowing the besieging chaos forces to forces several breaches in the city walls and true city fighting to take over the last third of the book, this is when the Ghosts are really up against the wall, troopers are dying every couple of pages, guerilla fighters are launching counter attacks on the invaders, a lot of these characters are introduced and become the new wave of Ghost's after this novel.

During this, one of my favourite sections takes place (and it doesn't even involve the regiment!);

'THE TANKS WERE closing now, hammering the station, blowing sections of the overhead track down. Sheets of fire leapt through the terminus hall.

 "Throne of Earth" Soric gasped, pointing.

Mustard-drab battle tanks, moving at full power across the rubble scarps, some of them bursting through sections of wall, were thundering forward from the west. They were firing freely, with huge accuracy, maintaing a cycle rate of fire that the Zoican armour, turning to the flank to greet them, couldn't even begin to match.

Neither Bulwar or Soric had ever seen a mass armour charge before, certainly not one undertaken by a crack Imperial tank brigade like the Narmenians. They opened their mouths in awe, and nothing but wild cheers came out.'

After a desperate few passages with Soric and his guerilla fighters hiding from the assaulting tanks, Grizmund and the Narmenian armour charge forth in grand style. In the coming pages you get a feel for the presence of the tanks thundering past, really inspirational the first time you read it and want to recreate something like that**.

Influential in the extreme, there are fifteen books in the main series, two or three compilation books, a series of short stories, a novel set at the beginning of the regiment, a background book detailing the Sabbat World's, and two novels set during the same was penned by Dan Abnett, Double Eagle and Titanicus respectively. There are now also books branching off covering the Iron Snakes during the crusade and the Saint herself, as well as one about the Ghosts main antagonist loyalist regiment, the Colonel Blue Bloods.

By anyone's standard thats a lot of words about a fictional regiment in a sci-fi planet hopping war!

This has been the first post of this series, and I ask if you want to participate, leave me a comment on the post and I'll detail what I ask for involvement from readers.

Until next time, have nice day...

(Italicized sections of text are quoted from the novel).

*Fuck me!

** The reality hits and you realise you'd need a 28mm scale ruined city the size of a tennis court, and all the terrain and miniatures to recreate...let's not talk about how much that would cost.

Loremaster - a series about our favourite stories.

 

The Gritstone walls before you seem imposing and dark, your footsteps echo along the hallway ahead as you make you way forwards. Blinking and dancing in the dark is the warmth of a candle, the light thrown into stark straight lines by the door slightly ajar.

Hinges creak as you open the heavy wooden door, breaking the quiet inside. A lush carpet on the floor hushes your footsteps, candles light the room all around, warming it and making it comfortable. A high backed chair sits in the midst of bookcases all around the outer walls, rolling ladders attached to reach the highest shelves.

As you look around, your gaze is drawn to one book in particular, an old favourite. Judging by the cracks on the leather spine, this book has been opened many times and drawn you back ever since that first time.

With the book in hand you make your way to the chair to read a favourite story again...

*****

Greetings gentle reader, 

This post marks the start of something different for the blog, something I hope will be a somewhat regular recurring thing.

As before when I asked people why they take part in the hobby this is another of those, thanks to Chris for the idea for the series.

There are stories attached to this hobby. Not the "did you see" or "I won that game so easily" type stories.

No I'm talking about the stories of the world's which our hobby inhabits. The places, characters, battles, struggles, loves, losses, and everything that goes along with that.

From Codex histories, to Box-outs in various rulebooks, they've always been there from the very beginning of Games Workshops more professionally produced products*.

Black Library published novels and series's all based in GW's worlds and the authors have often done more to advance the richness of the world's they write in then the actual games designers who created the setting.

But it's not just Games Workshop who do this, obviously they set the standard, and a lot of other companies picked up on the format and wrote lore for their world's to similar depth**.

Privateer Press*** did a wonderful job creating the Iron Kingdoms and fleshing out the nation's from what started out simply as a Steampunk module for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5, the original Witchfire Trilogy. From there they worked forwards (well backwards to create history) and make a brilliantly unique, rich, steampunk world**** which has lots of lore tied to it.

Historical games often add short sections of fiction based off of first-hand accounts, but I always feel that these are not ideal, when you can pick up a memoir if the conflict is within living memory, either by soldiers of the time telling their experiences, or books like those written by Max Hastings who compile a unit's history through multiple interviews. The most famous of this type is obviously Band of Brothers by Stephen Ambrose*****.

Then there is some of the brilliant historical fiction books by authors such as Bernard Cornwell, Simon Scarrow and others.

I'm a massive Bernard Cornwell fan with both the Sharpe and Uthred series's propagating my bookshelves, but The Eagle series above by Simon Scarrow is another highly recommended set.

Stories drive what we do, whether it is to research for a particular unit or uniform, delving into real and fictional battles without having to put life and limb on the line.

"Research"

By doing so we can create a force from a particular conflict or even recreate battles from a particular conflict, whilst several historical conflicts fire the imagination, I've never felt the real pull to get involved as such, attempts have been made but never stuck. Things which have stuck with me over the years though are the fictional conflicts we've read about, one which I keep meaning to have a look at recreating (but keep getting distracted from) is the Battle for Macragge. Tyranids invading the Ultramarines home planet, the second company defending Cold Steel Ridge to buy time, a last stand of the first company defending the planetary defence network to the last man, the third and seventh companies retaking the bunker complex and the desperate space battles in orbit visible to the defenders on the surface...so much to draw from.

Likewise we can loose ourselves within a single character over a long running series, like Sharpe in the Napoleonic Wars or Gotrek Gurnisson in the Gotrek and Felix series. We can build a force around a particular character from a favourite novel and add to their narrative ourselves, or recreate parts of the story to see how things might have changed had this happened instead...

The artwork for the Sharpe TV series "Equipment of the 95th".

Speaking of, 95th is a semi-RPG/Wargame I've been meaning to look into, by Two Hour Wargames I believe.

The purpose of this exercise is going to be looking at some of my friends favourite snippets of the lore, I'm going to ask them for a couple of paragraphs about why they like the lore they picked and what, if anything, they would maybe change about it.

I'm not asking them for a full rundown of the particular piece, as I'll add a summary of what's going on, as well as my own thoughts on the lore after I research it myself (provided I can mind******).

So I'll kick off this Loremaster series with my own choice in a post in the next few days and see where we go from there.

Until next time, have nice day...

* I'm talking from Warhammer Fantasy 3rd edition and Rogue Trader onwards when the books started to look something like the prototype form of what we know today. Not the earlier versions which were much like the original D&D little brown books...

** GW created the template and other people ran with it, then GW started to mess things up with their much much more corporate image diluting the strength of their writing for more mass market appeal.

*** Another company which has had its troubles and lost its way in terms of their products.

**** Which they went and ruined after the company went into meltdown and they got rid of most of the original creators. 

"Writers you're fired, get out".

"Well what do we do now?".

"I don't know I'm just a money-man".

"Let's just add demons and halloween into the world, who cares about being unique anymore".

***** I have read most of Ambrose's publishing and also watched Band of Brothers and The Pacific series, all of which I enjoyed. Maybe it's just British pride, but I always loved the Pegasus Bridge book a lot more then Band of Brothers.

****** Provided I can. Whilst I have a fair amount of gear, my library and collection isn't inexhaustible, there are obviously things I will be missing and can't get ahold of. 

And I am NOT even going to entertain anything related to Iron Warriors creating new marines from Daemon women...go and be all edgy and stuff elsewhere, this isn't the place for that shit!