I completed A Thousand Sons, by Graham McNeill a few weeks ago.
It was not my favorite of the Horus Heresy books, but it may have been one of the most informative. I'm withholding judgement on some of the characters' actions until its sister book is released detailing the opposing view point.
So, from a purely 1k Sons viewpoint, the book was a very well thought out progression of a loyal chapter with a horrible taint. It was interesting to discover all the knowledge that the 1k Sons held and just how they used it. I thoroughly enjoyed the human characters (as I usually do) and their slow understanding of just what is happening, an understanding that the Astartes just never seem to grasp with their feelings of infallibility.
One problem I had with the book was the jargon aspect, though that wasn't too bad. Sometimes it seems like Mr. McNeill learns a new word and severely over uses it. Heqa Staff? That was the most glaring one. It's used constantly.
Overall, however, though it started slow, it was a good read. I thoroughly enjoyed the characters of Magnus and Ahriman. I especially loved the imagery used on Magnus, like how he'd change colour and size depending on his mood.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Scrap Built Daemons (40k)
Looking at all my Daemons I've collected with my Chaos Marines through the years, I was saddened that I couldn't really use them anymore. Not really anyway, as I didn't have enough for a proper army. I have 20 Daemonettes (the really sweet metal ones with the tentacle hair), and 6 of the beautiful seekers, and then like 13 or so furies and a mass amount of Gibbering Hordes bases that I made for my Lost and the Damned army (now also defunct)... Well, on a whim I started pulling out all the more useless models in my boxes and grabbing all the scrap and crap I could find laying around and just started making daemons. The idea was that 1/2 the army was proper daemons, and 1/2 the army was daemons through different forms of possession.
There was no real rhyme or reason to my creations, just wherever inspiration led me, so, without further ado, here is my scrap built daemon army... cost me about $20.
Heralds of Tzeentch (with complete wysiwyg upgrades I might add, a challenge I gave myself):
Pink and Blue Horrors. They're supposed to represent puppet master daemons, so I wanted them to look whispey:
I made a lot.
Daemon Prince. A possessed Inquisitor. I was originally going to have the shadow eating a person mimicking the body eating the apple, but the person was too heavy... still haven't let the idea go yet tho...
Beasts of Nurgle:
Great Unclean One. This guy's actually supposed to represent a possessed landscape. His backside will be a hill under that tree, and of course weilding the obligatory barrel of toxic waste.
There was no real rhyme or reason to my creations, just wherever inspiration led me, so, without further ado, here is my scrap built daemon army... cost me about $20.
Heralds of Tzeentch (with complete wysiwyg upgrades I might add, a challenge I gave myself):
Pink and Blue Horrors. They're supposed to represent puppet master daemons, so I wanted them to look whispey:
I made a lot.
Daemon Prince. A possessed Inquisitor. I was originally going to have the shadow eating a person mimicking the body eating the apple, but the person was too heavy... still haven't let the idea go yet tho...
Beasts of Nurgle:
Great Unclean One. This guy's actually supposed to represent a possessed landscape. His backside will be a hill under that tree, and of course weilding the obligatory barrel of toxic waste.
Possessed Plague Bearers (plague zombies):
Screamers. I read in the daemon book how daemons can only retain a physical presence through force of will, and then later read that screamers really have no will of their own, so it struck me to make them very ethereal, like they don't quite exist:
A note on numbers: I didn't show all my daemons here, just a sample, but I am making them all in multiples of their god's numbers. There are 7 beasts, 9 screamers (with another 18 on the way), 14 Plague Bearers, etc etc.
Screamers. I read in the daemon book how daemons can only retain a physical presence through force of will, and then later read that screamers really have no will of their own, so it struck me to make them very ethereal, like they don't quite exist:
A note on numbers: I didn't show all my daemons here, just a sample, but I am making them all in multiples of their god's numbers. There are 7 beasts, 9 screamers (with another 18 on the way), 14 Plague Bearers, etc etc.
Stuff in the works: Fiends, Blood Crushers, Non-Possessed plague bearers.
Friday, August 13, 2010
1500pt starting Blood Angels
This is the start of my Blood Angels army. It's meant to represent the army's initial strike force. The Captain (Master of the Arsenal) of the 5th company (Daemonbanes) and the reclusiarch are interchangeable. Drop Pods are not ready for pictures, but there's two.
*a note on Death Company- In my own army I have decided to model and paint one Death Company model for each squad I complete. Each Death Company will be reminiscient of it's parent squad (though I haven't decided how to do this with terminators and scouts.. I fudged the first one).
Captain and Sanguinary Guard:
Tactical Squad:
Assault Squad:
Jump Packs (Vanguard and Assault):
Vanguard Veterans:
Scouts (WIP):
Reclusiarch (WIP):
Death Company:
Krylon Indoor/Outdoor Primer
Found this one after much experimentation, and I love it! Better than GW's at literally 1/5th of the price! I highly recommend trying it out!
Review: Dan Abnett's Titanicus
So I've just completed Titanicus. First I'd like to preface this by stating that Dan Abnett is, without a doubt, the best of the black library writers I've so far come across (granted none of them are literary geniuses or anything). That being said, Titanicus did not meet my expectations, low as they were. The title is very misleading, I feel.
Titans are one of those aspects of the 40k universe that has never REALLY held my interest, and the reason for that is the complete lack of interesting and in depth story behind them. I see myself as fairly fluff- savvy when it comes to 40k, but pretty much all the backstory I've read on titans is that they are AWESOME, literally.
I picked up Titanicus hoping to flesh them out, perhaps explaining WHY they are awesome, besides that they are really big.
I was disappointed, and there are three reasons for this.
The first reason is that the actual titan warfare (and I'm including all the support elements of titans in this) didn't actually occur until the 2nd third of the book, and then only took up like a quarter of those remaining 2/3rds. Honestly, the book should have been called "Mechanicus".
The second reason is, to a lesser extent, the same as the reason I abhorred Goto's eldar book. I'm reading the book, learning what Titan combat is like, and then in the last few chapters of the book, one of the characters comes out and plainly states that most Titan combat is nothing like what is being portrayed in the book. I mean.. what the hell?! On the plus side, and this is why the book was saved from the utter crapness that was Goto's book, The book, as previously stated, wasn't really about Titans anyway, and in addition, it's stated that though Titan combat is no longer as it is portrayed in the book, it is reminiscient of the titan combat of the Heresy.
Now I, as an accomplished reader, have blanket style issues with pretty much all of the BL writers. They all fall into the same categories, and if I must be honest, are much more annoying in the 40k world than in fantasy. I'll break these into some generic categories:
1. Fight scenes. Fight scenes do not translate into literature. Don't give me a blow by blow, it doesn't translate.
2. Jargon. I know you're writing towards a target audience, but come on. Who the heck knows what a cataphractii is? It would take about 2 seconds to explain that it's the mechanicus' artillery teams, but no. It makes it impossible for someone not in the know to actually read.
3. Heroics vs Background. Taking into account #2, obviously the book is being written for solely warhammer fanboys, why must writers map out giant glaring plot holes by having their characters do things so over the top amazing as a matter of course? The easiest example is any story with marines. Now I honestly don't mind when a squad of marines takes out and army of guardsmen all on their own. Marines are tough, like super hero tough. It's when a squad of marines, without flinching, takes out a few squads of chaos marines. I mean, storywise, chaos marines have been around for 10000 years! They shouldn't be easy to beat.
Now, I list Dan Abnett as my favorite BL author because he normally does not do such things. In his Ghosts books, the death toll is excessive, and the climax of one of them was taking out a single traitor marine.
The Titan combat broke all of them, most flippantly #3. They describe the traitor titans as morons that are easy to kill... yet while the Imperium still makes Titans, almost all of the chaos ones are the same ones that sided with Horus 10000 years ago. How then can the possibly be easy to kill off?
Now, past the negative stuff, Titanicus did have some good story in it. The very human heroes in the story were great and very descriptive of life in the 41st millenium. In addition, I feel I've learned a LOT about the workings of members of the mechanicum. They are very weird. Also learning the support systems of titans was interesting.
Overall, I'll give it a rating of "meh".
Titans are one of those aspects of the 40k universe that has never REALLY held my interest, and the reason for that is the complete lack of interesting and in depth story behind them. I see myself as fairly fluff- savvy when it comes to 40k, but pretty much all the backstory I've read on titans is that they are AWESOME, literally.
I picked up Titanicus hoping to flesh them out, perhaps explaining WHY they are awesome, besides that they are really big.
I was disappointed, and there are three reasons for this.
The first reason is that the actual titan warfare (and I'm including all the support elements of titans in this) didn't actually occur until the 2nd third of the book, and then only took up like a quarter of those remaining 2/3rds. Honestly, the book should have been called "Mechanicus".
The second reason is, to a lesser extent, the same as the reason I abhorred Goto's eldar book. I'm reading the book, learning what Titan combat is like, and then in the last few chapters of the book, one of the characters comes out and plainly states that most Titan combat is nothing like what is being portrayed in the book. I mean.. what the hell?! On the plus side, and this is why the book was saved from the utter crapness that was Goto's book, The book, as previously stated, wasn't really about Titans anyway, and in addition, it's stated that though Titan combat is no longer as it is portrayed in the book, it is reminiscient of the titan combat of the Heresy.
Now I, as an accomplished reader, have blanket style issues with pretty much all of the BL writers. They all fall into the same categories, and if I must be honest, are much more annoying in the 40k world than in fantasy. I'll break these into some generic categories:
1. Fight scenes. Fight scenes do not translate into literature. Don't give me a blow by blow, it doesn't translate.
2. Jargon. I know you're writing towards a target audience, but come on. Who the heck knows what a cataphractii is? It would take about 2 seconds to explain that it's the mechanicus' artillery teams, but no. It makes it impossible for someone not in the know to actually read.
3. Heroics vs Background. Taking into account #2, obviously the book is being written for solely warhammer fanboys, why must writers map out giant glaring plot holes by having their characters do things so over the top amazing as a matter of course? The easiest example is any story with marines. Now I honestly don't mind when a squad of marines takes out and army of guardsmen all on their own. Marines are tough, like super hero tough. It's when a squad of marines, without flinching, takes out a few squads of chaos marines. I mean, storywise, chaos marines have been around for 10000 years! They shouldn't be easy to beat.
Now, I list Dan Abnett as my favorite BL author because he normally does not do such things. In his Ghosts books, the death toll is excessive, and the climax of one of them was taking out a single traitor marine.
The Titan combat broke all of them, most flippantly #3. They describe the traitor titans as morons that are easy to kill... yet while the Imperium still makes Titans, almost all of the chaos ones are the same ones that sided with Horus 10000 years ago. How then can the possibly be easy to kill off?
Now, past the negative stuff, Titanicus did have some good story in it. The very human heroes in the story were great and very descriptive of life in the 41st millenium. In addition, I feel I've learned a LOT about the workings of members of the mechanicum. They are very weird. Also learning the support systems of titans was interesting.
Overall, I'll give it a rating of "meh".
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