Ultramarines Sicaran Tank

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Warhammer 30,000 - The Horus Heresy line continues to pump out cool plastic kits, which are significantly easier to work with than the previous resin versions.

Horus Heresy - Ultramarines

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Warhammer 30,000 – It’s pretty amazing that Horus Heresy is now in plastic, the kits are really nice and so much easier to work with than the resin versions (real or knock-off). I imagine I’m going to be putting many of these boxes together in the future but for right now this is a simple scheme that matches up with an existing Ultramarines force.

Book Review - Damnation of Pythos

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Horus Heresy – Ok I'm behind on reading the Horus Heresy books. Really I'm not behind, Black Library is just slow to publish them in a format I'm willing to buy and read. I refused to buy special editions and oversized paperbacks because they don't match the rest of my books. I also don't like to pay more then $11 for a book I'm going to read once. (Honestly there's only about 5 books in the series worth reading more than once in my opinion, not that the rest aren't good it's just that one time through is enough)

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Book Review – Angel Exterminatus and Betrayer

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Review – With the crazy cold snap and snow storm that hit Michigan this week I've been cooped up and trying to catch up my my blog posts.  I recently finished up the next two books that have been released as mass market paperbacks for the Hourus Heresy series. As a futile stand against the new larger format books I refuse to buy any of them until they are released as mass market paperbacks. Which means this review is probably way past the time when it would be relevant.

Anyway because I like talking about what I've read here's my review:

Angel Exterminatus is a really good read. I've always been a fan of the Emperor's Children and the books continue to show just how sick a depraved the third legion has become. Spoiler Alert: Fulgrim becomes a daemon prince in this one. I'm not sure I love the way it happened but the overall result was pretty sweet. Oddly enough the focus of this book was focused primarily on Perturbo the primarch of the Iron Warriors who suffers from more but-hurt feelings than the rest of his brothers and as such tries harder than any of them. It's funny that his personality type closely mimics those you run into at some game stores on a regular basis. In fact, my favorite scene in the book is the one which literally portrays the Iron Warriors as power-gamers a nice throw back to the old third edition Chaos Codex (mmm ... 9 obliterators).

Betrayer is also a great read penned by my favorite Black Library Author. Spolier Alert: Angron gets the same treatment in this book as Fulgrim did in the last. This book also showcases what a complete d-bag Lorgar is. I mean yes he's become a bigger bad-ass and he fights a Titan but he's still a weasely little bastard that is manipulating everyone to his whims. It's interesting the way the Horus Heresy novels have shown that it wasn't really Horus but Lorgar that started the Heresy and all the other Primarchs were manipulated by the Word Bearers. (I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a subtle jab at the religious zealots of our own time or not ... but you could read into it what you want or just enjoy the story).

In all there have been few of the Horus Heresy books that I haven't been able to enjoy (Unless it's written by James Swallow...in which case don't touch it with a ten foot poking stick) and so long as the keep releasing the smaller size paperbacks I'll keep reading these.

Book Review - Fear to Tread

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Warhammer 40K – Although I suppose it should be Warhamer 30K since this is a Horus Heresy book. Hmm ... where to start. Well, this is a Blood Angel book, written by James Swallow. I'm not a huge fan of either however, I am a fan of the Horus Heresy series and a completist so I have an unnatural compulsion to read and own all of these books. Which apparently is a problem I share with many other people, as the Black Library has taken to releasing special limited edition short novella for limited periods of time to grab more cash from those addicted to the Heresy. I have stayed strong and avoided these as I'm sure they will eventually be released in paperback  as part of an anthology (much like the audio dramas are coming out soon in the next book). Ah, and then they've decided to release these in hardcover first (like a real publisher to grab some extra revenue). Good for them I'm actually glad to see the Black Library having such success, as it means more good books (and a bunch of terrible ones, but lets stay positive).

Wow, that was quite the tangent. Anyway back to the review. The story finds Sanguinius and his entire legion sent to the far reaches of the galaxy to fight an alien menace as ordered by the Warmaster Horus. When they arrive a bunch of weird stuff starts happening (ala Event Horizon and Pandora) and the crew starts killing each other. As they go deeper into the system it gets crazier and crazier until the daemons reveal themselves as such and full scale conflict breaks out.

I like that this delves a little deeper into the Black Rage and shows that it has always been part of the flawed geneseed of the Blood Angels. Previous cannon texts have indicated that the Black Rage was a marine reliving Saguinius's final battle with Horus which never really sat right with me. If the geneseed came from before Saguinius died then how would it be tainted with what he experienced during that final battle? 

Anyway if you can get through the first 2-3 chapters of the book the action picks up and it's a pretty fun read. Slaanesh and Khorne have teamed up to lure the Angels to become their chosen. The Word Bearers have set up the whole thing and there are Space Wolves around to police the Librarians. To fight the daemons and save Sangunius they must break the edict of the Emperor of mankind. 

Some of the authors from the Black Library just rub me the wrong way. It's not that there's anything wrong with their style, I just don't enjoy it and unfortunately James Swallow is one of those authors (Nick Kyme is the other). Something about the way they write just takes me forever to read, like I'm working to enjoy it.

If you're a hardcore fan of the Blood Angels or Daemons then this is a must read. If you like the Horus Heresy series and are a fan this is a must read. If you're neither of these you'd probably be better off passing on this book as it's one of the weaker stories so far.

Book Review – The Primarchs

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Warhammer 40,000 – I recently finished up the latest Horus Heresy novel, The Primarchs. This is an anthology by several writers each detailing one of the Primarchs of the original Space Marine Legions.

The first short story revolves around Fulgrim, Primarch of the Emperor's Children Legion. I've always liked the background of these deviant marines and as such was excited to read more about them. This story doesn't disappoint. Develing deeper into the depths of depravity these worshipers of Slaanesh have fallen into, the story focuses on whether Fulgrim is himself or possessed by a daemon. Overall it's a really good read and is far darker than most of the other books.

The second story is about the (yawn) Iron Hands Legion. I don't know if it's the legion or the author but this is a long drawn out tale that doesn't ever pick up steam. I've never liked the idea of the Iron Hands, flesh is weak we're robots nonsense; it seems far to one dimensional. Ages ago I read another novel about the chapter (note: Pre-Heresy they were legion, Post-Heresy loyalists are smaller chapters) and didn't get into it. Although it could just be the writing style, I can't get into Nick Kyme's work no matter how hard I try. Essentially the story focuses on the bull-headed nature of the Legion and how Manus Ferrus's need for glory drives him to get beheaded at the Hands of Fulgrim during the dropsite massacre. With most of the anthologies there are going to be some chaff, this is it.

The third tale focuses on the Dark Angels and Lion El'Johnson's paranoia. Seeing everyone as a possible traitor after his encounter with Konrad Cruse in an earlier short story, the primarch of the first legion makes his way to a secret Mechanicus lab to stop the Death Guard and Iron Hands from stealing some warp technology. I enjoyed this story as there was plenty of action, encounters with daemons and a little more background info on some of the named characters from the codexes.

The final story revolves around the Alpha Legion infiltrating themselves to route out a leak. So far I've really enjoyed any Heresy book they've been part of. While it can get confusing in the earlier books with everyone being refereed to as Alpharious and/or Omegon. This short actually give names to some of the other characters so it's an easier read.

Overall the anthology is worth a read, personally I'd skip the Iron Hands story but the others make up for it.

Book Review – Know No Fear

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Warhammer 40K – I just finished reading the two latest books from the Horus Heresy series. Deliverance Lost and Know No Fear. Both were excellent reads and continue the detailed exploration of the pivotal events that shaped the Warhammer 40K universe as we know it today.

Deliverance Lost explores the actions of Corax, primarch of the Raven Guard Legion after the dropsite massacre. While I enjoyed the book, it left me feeling a bit let down. Most of the other Legion specific books go into great detail about the practices and culture of the Legion. This book focused almost solely on Corax's single minded quest to rebuild his legion to get back into the fight.

While it was nice to have the two paragraphs from the Raven Guard Index Astrates covered in more detail, I still feel like the story falls into the trap of these are the sneaky marines that do hit and run, they don't talk about what goes on.

In my mind the the real stars of the show are the Alpha Legion, the villians of this tale. We get to see more of their inner working in this book and see what drives them. I don't want to go into to much detail to spoil the surprises and plot twists. 

Know No Fear details the attack on Cath by the Word Bearers Legion. This is my favorite book in the series so far. Dan Abnett does a great job refecting the confusion caused by the attack with his writing style. The snippets of information remind me of the news casts during the 9/11 attacks and make the book very hard to put down.

Rather then focusing on one character throughout as most of the other books have done, Know No Fear jumps around telling the tale from multiple viewpoints and focuing on the scale of the conflict. 

This book filled in the gaps for me on why GW's poster boy marines weren't directly involved in most of the Heresy background material. From what I can remember there was a small blurb or two about the Ultramarines being sent to the far reaches of the galaxy and unable to reach Terra. This book explains exactly why they couldn't make it, and hints at the beginings of the Codex Astrates.