Review: Imperial Armour 12: The Fall of Orpheus

Imperial Armour Volume 12: The Fall of Orpheus is Forge World’s latest offering in the series, covering said fall at the hands of the dastardly Necrons. It’s the first to feature our cyborganised chums, but the Death Korps of Krieg and the Minotaurs Chapter are here for some familiarity.
What I’m interested to see is if they’ve overcome the all too familiar editing errors that hamstrung the last IA outing…

Story and Background

In a departure from the last few IA books volume twelve, despite the title, isn’t the full story. The background is, in fact, merely the prelude to the campaign setting. See, the background charts the Orpheus sector all the way from its discovery pre-Heresy through to the Necron incursion, and then stops after the Necrons have flattened the Imperial forces. The campaign is designed to represent the war to reclaim the sector / save what’s left, so there is no fixed winner or loser as in books such as Vraks or Badab.
That said Alan Bligh’s introduction (itself a good read) indicates that there may be more to come from the sector, so who knows what end will be made canon.

Now, my biggest gripe of IA:11 (aside from the editing, or lack thereof) was that there wasn’t enough Eldar. This book does and doesn’t address that issue, but I was left overall happy with how it was balanced. It’s told as a history analysis, a textbook account interspersed with snippets of Inquisitorial insights to guide future generations so they may avoid the same fate. Because of that the Necrons themselves don’t appear in the flesh, as it were, until almost the end. The best comparison I can draw is the movie Predator – you don’t really see the Predator until very late, but its influence guides and shapes the story and actions of those it’s toying with.
We, as outside observers with the benefit of our meta knowledge, can see what all these portents and mysterious actions are shaping into, but the Imperial forces’ lack of action seems almost reasonable in the circumstances. The Necrons are always there, doing their Necron-y thing, but like all good horror monsters they have the good sense to do it off camera.

The Necrons themselves aren’t left as shadowy bogeymen, and there are a great number of insights into how the different courts interact with one another, the different methodologies behind their long sleeps, and even some tidbits about the origins of the Flayer Virus.
I’ve seen a few people comment that they’ve been looking forward to the rumoured return of the Red Harvest, and it is certainly back here with a bloody vengeance. The particular Necron dynasty in the book, the Maynarkh, are all touched by the Flayer if not all totally crazy, so whilst the Flayed Ones are of course doing their whole “it puts the lotion on the skin” thing the rest of them are given reason to participate, and it brings a degree of pathos to their actions in my eyes.

The Imperials get some loving, as would be expected ,with the Death Korps having the usual background blurb and some new bits thrown in to do with their names and organisation. The Minotaurs have their turbulent and shrouded history revealed a little more after the Badab books, but no conclusions are drawn (though there are plenty more implications).

There are no particularly amazing moments that I feel the need to gush about, but more importantly there are no brain-dead moments of editorial idiocy to cringe at. In fact I didn’t notice a single error in the entire book! There may well be some, but given the hack job they did to 11 and 8’s numerous missing rules, it’s a million percent improvement.
I found it an enthralling read, well planned and dripping with atmosphere. Like Badab I, Orpheus is also a great resource for background junkies. There are small details about the procedures for colonising planets (including edicts that can just up and move a population if the Imperium sees fit, or give them all over to the Mechanicus), politicking and inter departmento relations. Despite the growing doom it gives a view into how a sector runs day-to-day, with the disruption and tension pirate raids cause interspliced with the economic balancing required of the different worlds.

Mmmmmurder donut

There is not a lot of action when compared to other IA books, but the Death Korps get a few battles and are allowed to show off a bit, while the Minotaurs wreck some serious face. It’s never one-sided in the combat, or, if it is, it goes to the Necrons who annihilate the ever-loving-bejeezus out of a lot of stuff with contemptuous ease due to surprise or overwhelming numbers.
The story does contain a few links to the Badab books by virtue of the Minotaur’s presence, and has a few cameos, such as a brief appearance by the Grey Knights and a retro appearance of the 8th Necromunda “Spiders” regiment, which was pretty neat.


I would also be remiss if I failed to give special mention to the art. This is hands down the best looking Imperial Armour to date, and I personally think the best looking GW book since Rogue Trader days. The illustrations are beautiful, and rendering the character plates over a black background with deep, shadowed colours was the obvious, but totally correct choice. To put it simply this book sis just so evocative, there’s little besides total praise I can say.
Literally the only negative I can think with the art is that they a) didn’t make the Asterion Moloc art as a poster – it is phenominal, and b) they don’t show enough of the Necron minis in the book. Mind you that does mean the diorama shots of the Death Korps fighting through tunnels takes on a very Aliens feel with the shadowy half-seen or unseen foe. See – even the negative is a good point!

Rules, Armylists and Units

There are two complete army lists presented – the Necron Dark Harvest and Death Korps of Krieg Assault Brigade – while the Minotaurs are essentially a list of add-ons for the current line of Space Marine Codexes.

The Necron Dark Harvest list is, aside from the few unique Forge World units, close to identical to the Codex list. There are some minor force-org changes , and many units gains some minor wargear choices, but the biggest change is to the HQ units who, to tie in with the Dynasty’s flayer taint, all have special rules that can make them go crazy during the game. Additionally the list can be built to be very construct heavy, mainly due to the additional Forge World units present.
The list is geared as a high number aggressive attack force that can take a lot of casualties. No doubt many of the usual Necron uber-builds will work just as well, but then there is no need to use the list.
There are a couple of special characters to use as well. First is Dynasty’s most implacable and deadly warlord, Joan Collins:

With shoulder pads like that I'm surprised GW hasn't tried to sue her...

I mean Kutlakh the World Killer. He’s not overly remarkable, but unusual (for the Necrons) in that to befit the army he is built as a close combat monster.

The other is Toholk the Blinded, a Chronomancer and Arch-Cryptek. He is a buff-giver, doling out bonuses to his war machines and re-rolls to units he joins.  Of the two Toholk seems to be more useful to me from that point of view, but he’s nowhere near as tough to kill.

New units are the Tomb Stalker, Tomb Sentinel, Acanthrites, mini pylons, Tesseract Ark and the Night Shroud Bomber.
The Sentry Pylons are heavy support units, also purchasable for the standard Codex, and come in batteries of 1-3. They are unique in that they don’t need crew and can deploy in a slightly dispersed formation.
They have three weapon choices, though only one can Skyfire/Intercept, but it’s got 120” range, so all good.

Tomb Stalkers haven’t changed much from the previous rules, but have a couple of options to bring them in line with the new Codex.
The variant model, the Tomb Sentinel is basically a Stalker with a short ranged no-save make a Str test or die blast weapon.

Tha Acanthrites are jump infantry with short range melta weapons and aren’t too shabby in close combat either.

The Tesseract Ark is essentially a gunboat. Heavy with moderate defences, but well armed. It hits very hard and, while it can take a punch, it's not as tough as a Monolith.

The Night Shroud’s rules look ok to me, and it is definitely a bomber, armed with twin-linked tesla destructors and five Death Spheres – str10, AP1, large blast, blinding, pinning bombs – and nothing else. It is tough with 4hp but only moderate armour.

The rules for the Gauss Pylon are also updated (the only Super Heavy in the book, actually), and the Tomb citadel has its rules introduced. The Tomb Citadel improves the shooting of a unit docked to the main building, gives a save to any unit on the citadel and can take a pair of gun turrets. It seems underpriced for what it does, as Necron forces castled up there would get a 3+ invulnerable and re-rolls to 1s on resurrection rolls.

The Minotaurs characters are Lord Asterion Moloch, Chaplain Ivanus Enkomi, Dreadnought Hecaton Aiakos and Vigilator-Sergeant Hamath Kraatos.

Asterion Moloch, like most Marine characters, is an unholy death-machine in combat, and is geared solely towards close combat. His profile and abilities are reminiscent of Lysander, though beefed up as befits a Chapter Master.

Enkomi, in addition to having one of the most metal mini in GW’s history:

Slaaaaaayeeerrrrr!!!!!

 is, amazingly, even more geared towards close combat than his glorious leader, buffing his squad into Rage filled Zealots.

Aiakos is a Contemptor dread with a special close combat attack.

Kraatos is, despite the name, not a(nother) hand to hand specialist, but the 2iC of the 9th company. He’s a devastator squad upgrade and carries a heavy bolter. Sorry, a sniper heavy bolter.

Most of the other units are updating some of the older units (Damoclese Rhino, Deathstorm Drop Pod, Sentry Gun) and including newer ones such as the Deimos Predators and Storm Eagles.



The Death Korps Assault Brigade list is, essentially, the Codex: Imperial Guard list with Forge World units subbed in.
They have the special character Marshal Karis Venner, who in keeping with the book’s theme, is a badass in melee. Yes, in IA12 even the Guard are hand to hand murder machines!
Otherwise the Death Korps, like the marines, are seeing a tidying up of older units (making the Hades less broken [it has to deep strike, as do units coming after so if the enemy blocks them they mishap]) and the inclusion of newer ones (Rapiers, Avenger).

As best I can tell every special rule is either cross-referenced or listed in the book, and I didn’t spot any particularly glaring oddities present in some of the more recent products. It seems the attention from the Horus Heresy series has made them pick up their game.



Campaign and other Rules

The Campaign is a pretty standard campaign set-up – multiple theatres, different battle types etc, with some limitations about assigning units to certain theatres making them unavailable in others, but nothing radically different from the last few books.
As mentioned above the campaign is less a reconstruction of the events in the book but a continuation of the war described. This is something I think Forge World would be better served by in some instances, so as to alleviate the debate of “the Imperium never wins” vs “they make the xenos suck and die too much” if nothing else.
The Zone Mortalis rules are also included here.

One notable thing I mentioned above is that there is only one Super Heavy in the book (the Gauss Pylon) and no Apocalypse formations – another sign Apoc is being updated soon?
One odd thing were the six pages of adverts in the back of the book for other IA tomes. Full colour ads for some of the newer releases. Given GW isn’t stocking FW in stores anymore it seems like a wasted effort to me as if you have this book you’re unlikely to be any more spurred to pick up a copy of IA Masterclass than you were ordering it from Forge World’s website.
Not a big deal, just… odd.


Summary and Scores

Overall a fantastic book. The army lists may not be divergent enough for everyone’s tastes, but then again they could be seen as not too divergent to be more widely acceptable. Even though the Necrons aren’t as visible as other xeno races in their books it felt they had a greater impact on the story, like the Tyranids in IA4.


Story and Background – 8/10. While you may think I’d give it higher I am aware that things like the methodology of a planet becoming an Imperial World isn’t something everyone is interested in, so the somewhat dryer text may be a bit dull for some folks. That said the story is skilfully crafted and the many asides and callouts are very characterful and enhance the book even more.

Art and Layout – 10/10. This is a gorgeous book that drips with atmosphere. Not much more to say than that.

Army Lists and Rules – 6/10. Again, a seemingly low score, but while well executed there is much of the same-old here. If you want new rules, or just to use one unit, this book will not hold a great deal of value for you. If you want rules that work, there will be no issues. On a positive units that have languished without a 6th ed update or have been long reviled are cleaned up and there is quite a host of special characters to choose from.

Extras – 7/10. The campaign fits the story, and is presented with a slight twist to the previous iterations. Zone Mortalis is a sensible addition and a great set of rules by themselves and a welcome inclusion.

Overall (not an average) – 9/10

Yep, I think it’s that good. Do keep in mind that I am basing this on a weighting towards the story and art over the rules as explained above. However if you’re a fan of 40k lore, this book is a great read.

Kickstarters: Good or Bad for the Hobby?

So, with Reaper’s Bones Kickstarter winding down with just over three million dollars pledged, there is certainly a great buzz about crowdsourcing for wargames. We’ve had a spate of companies large and small hopping on to produce new lines and there have been some fantastic (and not so fantastic) offerings.

But is it good for the hobby?


The reason I’m asking this question is a comment from EldarGal on the BoLS lounge in regards to Dreadball by Mantic:

“17 miniatures for 80 is frankly absurd right when Reaper are offering 200+ for one hundred and Dark Vengeance will be coming out with 60 odd for a similar price. 33 or so for 150 isn't any better. The sculpts aren't that nice either. Even taking into account that this is a board game, Sedition Wars provided 51 lovely miniatures for 100.” 

 My reply was:
 

“I think you're being a little harsh here. Those other Kickstarters only reached that number of minis after they'd started and gotten a crapton of cash to enable the mass production - they initial mini to dollar ration was much lower. GW also already has the capital and business model to mass produce and potentially loss-lead on Dark Vengeance.” 

Lady EG responded that Sedition Wars came with more miniatures initially (50) and many others have also. I work in retail, so this reminded me of a common thing I call Gotthammer’s retail 101:

People are greedy cheapskates who won’t want to pay a cent more than they have to and expect perfection in response. 

If you’ve ever worked in retail you’ll no doubt agree. The reason I ask if crowdsourcing in the Kickstarter vein is a bad thing is that people might get used to getting high quality miniatures for 40 cents a piece. There are of course other factors in why some Kickstarters are better value than others:


- Pre-existing logistics

Reaper are already an international company, and their offerings are recasts using and already existing medium. They’re simply making moulds and producing these guys. With a locked in number of pre-orders it will be simply a matter of cutting moulds, ordering more plastic (bulk discount!) and shipping. It will be a lot of work, but the framework is already there.

 

 - New frontiers / business

Wreck-Age is a new startup. They don’t have the connections an existing company like Mantic or even Studio McVey have to get stuff made. Even comparing Sedition Wars to Dreadball, perhaps the McVeys know people in the games industry who can get them a good deal on the board pieces to save costs (this is pure speculation, but it’s Aly and Mike McVey – I’d do them a solid).

In one of the Order of the Stick Kickstarter ($1.125 million raised) posts creator Rich Burlew commented that pledge bonus items were delayed due to the initially contacted printer taking too long, and needing to find a new one. Long term business customers can often get better deals or, like Games Workshop, save even more money by doing everything in house.

 - Stars in their eyes

Aka thinking that Kickstarter is an unlimited trough of money to draw from. Reaper got three mill, surely people will have money to spare for me, right? In what I consider a disturbing, or perhaps just ill thought out, move a group has recently put up a bid for money to make an admittedly awesome sounding series of dioramas.

Now the highest levels do net you either a piece of the diorama itself ($650, limited to 15), or a painted mini/vehicle ($70/$160) so you’re either getting overcharged for their commission service or this is essentially a fancy advert for their painting service. The lower levels get a making of video and tutorials. Again, this gives me an uneasy feeling as many companies may be eying these funding options as a quick way to make cash. Or, as a commenter of HoP put it:

"So, they're making dioramas and asking money for it? Hmm. Are the dioramas being auctioned for charity or anything? It seems to be just one massive hobby project they want money for. That's fine but it feels like crowd funding has gotten a little out of control."

“Well, mighty Gotthammer,” I hear you ask, “that’s what they’re for aren’t they?”
Yes, yes they are loyal minion but I ask you this: what if Games Workshop decided it was going to release the next army book / codex through a Kickstarter campaign? Raise five million or Tau won’t get re-done. You no doubt scoffed at that – GW is a global company with a huge line, its own production facilities, distribution and so on.

Well… so’s Reaper. What's to stop GW from doing it that way?

Food for thought, certainly. I don’t much like the idea of a pre-existing, well established company relying on crowdsourcing for its basic operations (I consider Bones an expansion out of Reaper’s normal territory), but there may well be some thinking that that’s the way to go. There is only so much hobby money floating around and, going back to the original quote, people are looking for value for money. It's an awful big risk to put your company's future and your customer's goodwill when there are other more traditional, albeit less flashy, routes to go.

The company I work for is engaged in a seemingly never ending price war with its nearest competitor, driving prices of many items ‘down down’ (for you Australian readers). Problem comes when the prices go back up to normal, or are forced up by uncontrollable events.
As an example we recently had flooding and various other weather phenomena that have played havoc with local produce. For a brief while some items were ridiculously cheap – both through oversupply and artificial reasons. When this becomes untenable the price goes up, often tripling or more. To say some people are not happy is an understatement.

See, people like good things for cheap – I know I do. And they get used to getting things for cheap. Think the stereotypical ‘back in my day X only cost Y’ old guy rant and you’ll be on the right track. So sales of that item slow as it isn’t ‘good value’ anymore or is ‘too expensive’.


Now, imagine if you will all those minis you just got from your $100 pledge to Reaper (I don’t mean to keep using them, but they’re really good for illustrative purposes). Now imagine paying full price – even at the bones price they average around $1.80 or so – and you’ll be paying around $400 or so. Would you buy spend that much for those minis normally? I imagine Reaper is really hoping so as they’re going to be investing a lot of money in this line.

If it becomes ‘normal’ to get such good value for money with minis it does paint a rather dark future for small indie producers. Perhaps I’m being a bit melodramatic there, but in the world where minis cost $5 each (and some are as large as a Relic Knight) will people decide that a company like Hasslefree (or even Reaper themselves) isn’t ‘good value’ anymore?

I think the key is to always compare to 'normal' miniatures when looking at value for money, not other Kickstarters. Seeing the great discounts Reaper can offer with all that cash will make anyone look like rubbish next to them.

I do think Kickstarters and other crowdsourcing do have great potential – obviously given my shilling of some here over the days – but I do think people looking at diving in should weight up their options and not just assume they’ll have an instant winner. They’re all going strongly at the moment, but they’re also new and shiny and exciting. I’ve already seen talk of ‘pledge fatigue’ setting in, and then when this recent spate starts rolling in people are going to have mountains of minis to paint so might be put off even great deals when they come along.



But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check out Wreck-Age.

Review: Priests of Mars

Having just finished (New York Times bestselling author) Graham McNiell's latest Black Library offering Priests of Mars, I felt I should offer up my thoughts on the book.

It tells the tale of a nominally Adeptus Mechanicus expedition into uncharted space to find a long lost explorator fleet. I say nominally because not only is there the AdMech, but a Rogue Trader, some Imperial Guard, Space Marines (Black Templars) and some freshly pressed ships crew getting their slice of the pie.

So a rather motley crew.

Our main characters are the aforementioned Rogue Trader, who far from being a dashing rogue presents a more thoughtful, if rebellious at times, take on that archetype. His motivations are not entirely clear and may even put him at odds with his shipmates

He has a card playing, womanising, smart ass Han Solo-esque sidekick of course

They are bringing along a talented stelar cartographer whose work is vital to the missions success

 

Butt heads with serious company types

Meet a variety of crazy characters

And they all have the best summer ever

Not quite...

This is 40k after all (and the Eldar get a look in too).


Without getting into too much of the plot, this is the sort of book I hope to see more of from the Black Library. It is a book about the characters, rather than a book about things happening to characters. They drive almost the entire plot, from the inception of the expedition to the petty (and not so petty) power plays that form the bulk of the interaction.

My beef with some BL novels has been that they've shoehorned in combat almost as if they feel it's expected to have some explosions as, hey, it's 40k right? A Thousand Sons had that weird bit with the Psychneuein and Cain often will ahve random mooks to fight, but Priest of Mars has a few pages of fisticuffs in a duel, and a bit of combat towards the end, but the novel wouldn't be drastically thinner without it.

I like that the BL is progressing beyond the need to have combat be all we see in the 40k universe, as there are many other aspects worth exploring besides war, and what better way than a good novel? I think that A Thousand Sons, Mechanicum and Outcast Dead have been some of the best recieved novels (from what I've seen and heard) shows that the fanbase is prepared to accept these novels as well.

But I digress.


The expedition generally goes pretty smoothly, but they may really have someone unseen pulling their strings

The book itself maintains a great sense of tension throughout - getting towards the end there was a very real expectation that it was all just going to go horribly pear shaped and end up with everyone dying horribly, especially when they start the actual exploratoring

Of course I won't say what happens exactly, but the one fault of the book is that it feels like the ending is pretty strong sequel bait (or a setup for a new series even). While I wouldn't be opposed to this, and would very happily buy any continuation, I am somewhat wary.
As with Prometheus, Priests of Mars ends with just as many questions as answers. I'm not entirely opposed to this as everything, while not finalised, is settled. It is a matter of personal taste but I've been feeling very much over the tide of sequels and remakes in almost everything lately (movies are my other great love aside from books). It irritates me no end to pick up a book, look at the back and like the synopsis only to see it's book three of the whatever dodecadology, first of the whocares cycle.
I blame Isobelle Carmody for taking forever to write the rest of the Obernewtyn books, personally.

Where'd I leave that tangent picture..?

Eh, doctor looking skeptical will have to do.


So anyways, Priests of Mars is a great book, and has terrific insights into not only Mechanicus society and mindset (there's a wonderful discussion of it between the Rogue Trader and the cartographer on the subject), but a few other nuggets, most notable of which is comfirmation that Sororitas (at least Hospitallers) can get married and a link to the Horus Heresy (rather spoilery, highlight between the pics to read:

- the Kaban machine is still kicking around in some capacity

So get this book if you liked any of McNiell's recent offerings or have a hankering for the non-dakka side of the Imperium. Even if you don't get it, as it will likely change your opinion.

Final score: 9.5/10 lost 1/2 a point for the sequel bait - sorry Graham, I still love you!

Review: Wreck-Age minis

Pictured below are the first batch of Wreck-Age minis:

Click for much larger look

Now, I got these as part of my signing up to their kickstarter, so they didn't come packaged. That said, I got the earlier kickstarter exclusive mini in a nice clamshell:

When I got this guy I was honestly really surprised by the quality of packaging, especially for such a limited mini. It's also good to see there's nothing shorted on quality, something Matt and Anton of Hyacinth Games seem to be very focused on.

The minis themselves are gorgeous and packed with details, like they just stepped out of Fallout or Mad Max. If you look at the pics below you'll see little details such as stitches on their clothes and the carefully thought out layers of re-purposed gear they're wearing:

I've heard it said you can judge a mini line by the quality of its female sculpts, and Wreck-Age does not dissapoint. No over sexualisation (or any, really), and great proportions and a styling that fits with the theme and style rather than just being 'the girl mini' that often gets thrown in by some lines.
Hyacinth also seem to be making a 50/50 split between male and female figs at the moment, which very few companies do but is a growing trend [/tangent].

(Note: this guy was a limited edition mini for Adepticon 2012, so not a general release - the kickstarter exclusive is this guy with a riot shield. You shoulda backed the Kickstarter!)

 The models pictured above are exactly as they arrived to me - no clean up of flash or mould lines at all - straight out of the envelope onto the table. The only issue I have is with the slotta tab, namely that it's too deep for the bases:

An easily fixed issue, but a bit annoying. Now, the folks at Hyacinth Games were kind enough to send me enough bases of both the shown GW style and the lipped Privateer type, so perhaps that could be an issue. Yes, I could get up and check, but I'm in another room now and it doesn't bother me that much frankly.

Edit 24/5: Matt put in the comments below that the next batches will have smaller tabs, so this issue is a non-issue (perils of being an early adopter ;p)

Scale shot with other minis, click to embiggen:

L to R: Hasslefree, Sedition Wars, Wreck-Age, Infinity, G.O.T., Wreck-Age, EM4, GW

The best scale matches were with Hasslefree and Sedition Wars (whose ranges have a great variety of builds), with G.O.T. a close third. The EM4 Miniatures figure is fine height wise, but misses out with its more 'heroic' proportions. That said they'd work fine on the tabletop or mixed in together in a display.
The Infinity figure has the same proportions, but they are noticably taller, moreso than the slightly taller GOT. The Orc trooper is on the tall side, but most of the Infinity figs are noticably taller.
GW has GW proportions, so is obviously not a fit.

I'm really looking forward to seeing more of the range (especially that female No-Ghost), and will certainly post more about them when I get them.

All the miniatures above are available now, except the two exclusives obviously ;)

Review: Imperial Armour 11, the Doom of Mymeara

Imperial Armour Volume 11: The Doom of Mymeara is the latest addition to the IA series of books. It is the story of the invasion of the frozen Imperial world of Betalis III by a combined force of Craftworld Eldar and their Corsair brethren.

Story and Background

Like all Forge World books it is lavishly illustrated, opening with a six page full colour spread. The internal pictures are all beautifully done, and I’d say it is the best looking IA yet. The story telling is the standard after action report style of the series, and begins with the initial Corsair raids and the cat-and-mouse game between the Eldar and Imperial Guard forces as the raiders prodded and probed the seemingly random outposts before disappearing.
It soon comes to heated battle, and an Inquisitor arrives and sends a distress call to the nearby group of Space Wolves – Bran Redmaw’s great company. They arrive as the Eldar forces are on the verge of overwhelming the Imperials, and turn the tide, driving off the Xenos. But did they stop the aliens achieving their true goal..?

The story is well plotted and has plenty of twists and turns, with the Imperials giving a good showing even as they’re getting overwhelmed by the superior Eldar forces. There has been some mention of the Phantom Titans seeming underpowered against the Imperials, but to my reading is fine. The Phantom and its two Revenants are wailing on a Reaver and two Warhounds. They are driven off after the rest of the War Griffons show up – that would be five more titans of indeterminate classes, but either way I think it’s reasonable for the Phantom to retreat in the face of that.


This links in with the book’s worst aspect – it is edited terribly. I don’t mean Forge World’s usual brain-fart typos and messing up the rules, but it’s like in the rush to get it out for Christmas they didn’t have time to proof-read. For example:

“As the Nightwings, Phoenix and Vampires soared down, they were met with a tremendous firestorm of las shot and artillery shell. What heavy armour his command staff could muster, but he had not sent the young colonel into battle empty handed.”

What?

It’s like they just cut out the beginning of the sentence, or part of the paragraph. There are a couple of other instances of this sort of thing, as well as glaring typos. Some include:

- Units being Jet Pack Infantry as their base type, but you have to pay to buy them jet packs

- Duplicating a piece of wargear in a units listing

- A superfluous mention of 0-1 and 0-2 restictions

- Webway portal wargear rules included… but nobody in the Corsair list can take it…

Etc, etc…

Now, Talima Fox’s prose is fine, but very uneven – the second paragraph of the book contains a 42 word run on sentence, and the focus on the macro and micro changes often. By this I mean that we’ll be essentially hearing a character’s life story, and then the exact details of how a battle was fought, then back to century spanning events in the next line.
The aforementioned editing issues don’t help at all either (I’m pretty sure I saw an ‘utterly decimated’ in there, but I can’t find it again). One particular example that stuck out was hearing how the Eldar were mowing through the IG forces defending a mining facility, “but it was at the entrance to the mines that the worst atrocities were committed by the Eldar.” We then read about how the mining vehicles (and militia behind them) blocking the entrance were destroyed by Fire Dragons… and that’s it. No massacre of cowering civilians, no revelling in the destruction, nothing particularly worse than what had just been described really.

Ms Fox seems to have a thing for Fire Dragons, and I can't blame her.

Compared to other IA stories, Mymeara feels short. The shortness isn’t a bad thing, the story gets to the point and never drags on or re-hashes the same type of battle over and over. Each piece of combat is different to the last, or a continuation that adds to the story rather than repeats it. In tone, aside from a few story callout boxes, it is very much a historical account. There are no real ‘character moments’ in the story. Generals command and soldiers fight, but aside from a few moments with particular notable officers or commanders (such as Bran Redmaw himself) most characters go unnamed. Whether or not this is a bad thing would be up to personal taste.

My gut instinct is that for whatever reason they cut sections out of the prose at the last minute, and didn’t have time to do a final edit before rushing off to print. I mean Forge World is renowned for its lax editing standards, but this is bad. Now you’re probably thinking it’s a terrible book – but the truth is far from it if you’re able to look past the superficial errors and enjoy the story. The ending section, written as the aforementioned Inquisitors account of a battle, is especially well done and I found neither the Eldar nor Imperials to be portrayed as weaker or too out of character.

One thing that is done very well is scale. It is an unfortunate thing that Sci-Fi writers have no sense of scale, but Talima Fox avoids this pitfall. The crapsack mining world of Betallis III still has a population of over six million, and the combats include large volumes of superheavies and huge numbers of regular vehicles. One example is that over a hundred War Walkers and five Cobras were recovered by the Imperials after the fighting – that’s just the salvage, not units engaged.

Coming back to that macro/micro thing, the Eldar section isn’t as fleshed out as I’d like – for the first real information on Corsairs in a 40k book there wasn’t much to go on about how they do things. We probably could have done without 14 pages of pictures of Space Wolf troopers and vehicles and had a couple more pages on Corsair society in my opinion. Fortunately the various Rogue Trader books have good source material on the various Corsair groups found in the Expanse, but it is a lost opportunity.

A dozen pages of this is certainly better than information about the Corsairs!

The same can be said of the Eldar special characters – namely that in a society with no gender divisions (and canon 50/50 chance of a warrior being female) it is a bit of a disappointment that neither the new Phoenix Lord, nor any of their new troopers, are female – especially from a boutique company like Forge World (and it’s not an easy prospect to convert the Shadow Spectres either). Another oddity is that none of the photos showcase the Corsair kits – they appear in the background of one or two photos, but as the new shiny toys they don’t get much play.



Army Lists and Units

First up are the Cadian regiments and a description of their notable actions. They are led by General Myndoras Odon, supreme commander of the Guard defenders. He has his own description and comes with a command squad and rules wise is Creed lite, including a special ability “Careful Planner”.
Next up is a brief discussion of the Cadian forces. It’s a generic description of Cadian forces, which seems superfluous given most people buying an Imperial Armour book would be familiar with the regiments already.
After this comes rules for the Malcador Infernus, Praetor Assault Launcher and Crassus Transport. Rules are the same as in IA: Apocalypse 2.

The Elysians get a brief write up, explaining they were hitching a ride with the Legio Gryphonicus detachment so were diverted by circumstances rather than choice. Legio Gryphonicus have a short bit of blurb, noting that one of the Reaver’s machine spirits was especially skilled at fighting the Eldar, having fought them before.

The Imperials continue with Bran Redmaw’s Great Company coming next. One point of contention I’ve noticed is that the Space Wolves are noted as a 2nd founding Chapter. It reads to me that this is meant to mean that as a Chapter they came from the 2nd founding, the Space Wolves Legion being noted as their predecessor. Regardless, it’s still a weird way of writing it.

He even gets a model before the Farseer.

The Great Company gets a lengthy write up, and the aforementioned 14 pages of pictorials.
Game play wise they aren’t any different from the regular Space Wolves, but their master certainly is. Skarvald the Troll-faced did a great write up on his rules for those interested. Story wise he’s constantly struggling against the Curse of the Wolfen, but no insight into the curse is given – it just is.


The Eldar section begins with Craftworld Mymeara, telling of their struggle to survive and the intercession of Phoenix Lord Irillyth that saved them. One interesting tidbit is that each craftword came from a single Eldar planet, so they already had separate identities from one another before the fall, explaining the different ‘personalities’ of the factions. There’s more to the Mymeara Craftworld, but that would be spoiling the story.

Alaitoc is also present, an ally of Mymeara, and has their own background section. It is odd, as half of it is dedicated to an account of defeating a Hivefleet Behemoth splinter (that macro/micro thing again), which felt too much like copying Iyandens shtick.


The Shadow Spectres and their Phoenix Lord come first unit-wise, and have undergone a few revisions since the beta rules. They’ve got an invulnerable save that varies dependant on enemy range and the Prism Rifle rules have been tweaked a little. That said the Exarch lost his ability to fire separately from the Ghostlight, so taking a Haywire Launcher does… something to the shot (rules for the Prism Blaster are included).

The combined range, rather than being 12”+12” per extra model firing is now 18”+6” per two firing models (rounding odd numbers down) in the squad. That seems overly complicated to me, as you need two to shoot 24” (as in the beta), but four to shoot 30” where four would fire 48” in the beta.
One big improvement is moving them from the clogged Heavy Support section to the Fast Attack slot. Phoenix Lord Irillyth is what you’d expect – standard statline and beefed up version of his aspect’s gear.

The second special character is Farseer Bel-Annath, supreme seer of Mymeara. He’s a combat focussed Farseer, having previously served as an Autarch after a life on the path of the warrior after a stint as an outcast. He confers Stubborn to nearby units and can optionally modify his army’s FOC, dropping two Troops in exchange for a fourth Heavy Support.

Background wise he and Irillyth have a really weird timeline. Bel-Annath was born “long after the fall”, and was a young seer when Irillyth was last seen on Mymeara. He didn’t become a seer until the second half of his life. Yet the Shadow Spectre aspect is said to have fallen into memory for all save Mymeara due to Irillyth’s disappearance. But if Irillyth was last seen by a living Eldar not noted to be especially long lived, how did everyone forget the Aspect?

Alaitoc only contacted Mymeara after Irillyth departed, and the Phoenix Lord came to the Craftworld in what seems not especially long after the fall. So either Irillyth spent nearly 10,000 years chilling on Mymeara (no wonder his shrines were abandoned…), or the timeline is seriously messed up here. Editing, people, editing…


The Corsair background is, as mentioned previously, sadly brief. The entire section for a previously unseen but oft-mentioned faction is shorter than the Space Wolve’s pictorial section (can you tell I think it was too long?). The text is only a little over a page long once you take out the pictures. Nothing about how the bands are organised, where they are supplied from, what they do with their fallen or how they prevent falling to evil. Only a brief mention of Craftworlders occasionally taking on Corsair groups they feel are too close to their dark kin.


Corsair Army List

The army list itself is very good, once you get past all the bone-headed errors plaguing it (see earlier list). You can even take a Gyrinx! The basic Corsair weapon is either the Lasblaster or Shuriken Pistol and CC weapon.


HQ

Corsair Prince (or Princess) - a cross between an Autarch and a Archon, they can be well kitted out for combat (ranged or close) and allow non-deep-striking units to do so anyway. They also get a free orbital bombardment type weapon, with three variants to choose from.
The Prince (or Princess) can take a retinue of Bladesworn Corsairs. They come equipped for close combat, but can be given more ranged/special weapons.

Void Dreamer – the Warlock equivalent. They come with three psychic powers by default, a reasonable shooting attack, a defensive power against psykers or daemons, and a morale re-roll ability. They’re nice and cheap.


Elites

Voidstorm Squad – Elite Corsairs, they come with jet packs as default, and can take more special weapons.

Harlequins – as per Codex: Coneheads, may take a Corsair Venom transport.

Craftworld Outcasts – One Codex Eldar fast attack or Elites choice. I think this is meant to be 0-1 but, despite the preamble on the subject, such a clear note is missing.

Dark Eldar Kabalite Warriors – from Codex Dark Eldar.


Troops

Corsair Squad – BS 4 Guardians, they can take Shuriken Catapults if you don’t like shooting things, or Shuriken Pistols is you like dying in close combat. They can also take Jet Packs, and min-max horribly: Five guys with Jet Packs, an Eldar Missile Launcher and Fusion Gun runs you 100 points. The Jet Packs come at a flat rate, so it is more pricey to do it this way.
They also have grenades and can take a squad leader upgrade, who can be given a fusion pistol and power weapon.
Jet Packless squads can take a Corsair Venom if they number five or less, or a Falcon if they number six or less… despite a Corsiar Falcon carrying ten. Dammit Forge World!

Wasp War Walkers – Changing slightly from their beta rules, they’ve gone up 10 points but can move as Jet Pack infantry normally now. Additionally after using their special Jump Jet move (now 12”, done in lieu of shooting after normal movement) they may no longer assault or make their Jet Pack move. You can’t have more Wasp Squadrons than Corsair Squads.
Overall I think they are great units, and the Jet Pack movement more than makes up for the lack of 24” jump.

Corsair Jetbikes – BS 4 Craftworld Jetbikes, whose unit leader can be given a fusion pistol and power weapon.


Dedicated Transports

Corsair Falcon – BS 4 Falcon, transport capacity ten.


Corsair Venom – Much like the Dark Eldar version, but with Craftworld guns.


Fast Attack

Hornet Squadron – as per IA:A2

Nightwing – a fast skimmer/flyer, it is not much changed from previous version, but gains “zAerial Assault” [sic]. Dammit Forge World!

Night Spinner – same as in White dwarf



Heavy Support

Phoenix Bomber – yes, you read that right. It’s hella expensive (just under a base Land Raider), but can rain unholy destruction upon your foes. It’s only AV10 though, so you’ve got to hope those holo-fields hold up.

Warp Hunter – as per IA:A2

Fire Storm – A pretty good ranged platform with the Fire Storm Scatter Laser’s 60” range (And twin-linking).


Overall I think it’s a great, characterful list hampered by stupid errors (such as the falcon issue and lack of webway buying ability.


The Eldar Engines of Destruction section details all the Eldar vehicles, Codex and Forge World, though does not contain rules for a couple of them (Wave Serpent, regular War Walker and Wraithlord). Everything else is detailed here, including the Wraithseer and Lynx. The Phantom gains the close combat weapon option, and Warlock Titans are mentioned.


Lastly comes the obligatory missions and Apocalypse Formations. These are all standard fare, with the missions as characterful as usual, and the formations taking advantage of the latest Forge World releases save the Space Wolves, which requires 2-4 Land Raiders.



Overall the book is a rough, or perhaps cracked diamond – it had great potential, but several missteps (poor editing, uneven flow of narrative, overdosing on Space Marines against the Eldar) keep it from achieving its full potential.

It may seem I’m harping on against the Space Wolves here, but given they only play a very small part in the story and we’ve just had two volumes of All Marines – All The Time (and this is the first appearance of the Eldar) it was a great disappointment that it was so Imperial-centric. Yes, it’s called Imperial Armour, but there are players who don’t play Imperial forces, or who would like to know more about the various Xenos races.

This is a very similar complaint to my thoughts on IA:8, Armour of Gork (or possibly Mork). The Space Marines could have been easily excised from the story and replaced with Karskin, Valhallans, or anyone really and it wouldn’t have altered the story too much.

Story and Background – 8/10 for concept, 6/10 for execution. Now, I’m not slamming Talima Fox here as much as it might seem. Most of the issues should have been picked up before going to print as they’re silly, avoidable errors for the most part. Her writing and concepts were good, with the only eyebrow raising moment being a bit involving a group of Wraithguard and Space Wolves which, given GW’s propensity to have one side dominate, was a welcome change.

I’d happily read another book by her, but I’d be crossing my fingers that she’d be getting more (or better) editorial guidance. For the record I’m of the opinion that writers usually make terrible self-editors, especially if they don’t have a good long break between draft and review. I know if I don’t leave something a while I’ll miss glaring mistakes in my own writing.


Layout / Graphics – 9/10. A very pretty book, it only lost a point for lack of art of the Corsairs. The only Eldar character page is for a Dire Avenger. It would have been good to see more of these forces as they play a large role in the story and haven’t been featured before.


Army Lists and Units - 7/10, would have been higher if not for stupid mistakes. The Corsairs list would be great, save the errors riddling it. As it stands it’s still a good list, and would work well in low points games nicely.


Extras – 7/10, good, but nothing exciting.


Overall – 7.5 / 10

I’m only giving it slightly higher than IA8 as I enjoyed the story more, even if the better plot was let down by worse editing. And, honestly, if I wasn’t a huge IA/FW fangirl and this was my first IA book, I’d be at least calling them up asking WTF (which I might do anyway)?

This all makes me feel that the book was rushed to make Christmas – there are too many obvious mistakes and Forge World’s constant “it’ll be out soon” message just makes me think they hit a deadline and either were forced to put the book out or decided ‘sod it’, and went to print regardless. Neither option is particularly good.

Still, the book, like IA8 for Orks, is a great resource for Eldar players and definitely worth a look if possible.

Reviews: Outcast Dead, Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Hive of the Dead, Aurelian, Snuff

Real life, by way of jury duty, has gotten in the way of late - but it did afford me time to get some reading done.

The Outcast Dead, by Graham McNiell.

This book is a must buy for fans of the Heresy series, and fans of 40k lore. Some of the important things it lays out include the exact timeline of the Isstvaan attacks in relation to Magnus' stuffing around, and a lot of vital background on the workings of the formative Imperium.

Following Astropath Kai Zulane as he comes to grips with a terrible secret that could dictate the course of war (or end it entirely), the story shows how the ideals of the Imperial Truth are often at odds with the actions of its most trusted guardians.
The Outcast Dead themselves are a group of marines stationed on Terra, belonging to the mysterious Crusader Host. McNiell does his trademark 'refer obliquely to something and wait to explain it in another book' trick here, but it's not especially intrusive or distracting to the narrative.

Possibly the best part of the book, for me at least, is making the Emperor more human. In most of his appearances, especially in the early books (and the awful Last Church [ironically also by McNiell]) The Emperor was often portrayed as either excessively God-like, with everyone falling to their knees and weeping, or as a jerkface (who has the face of a jerk). This also extended to the Primarchs to a lesser degree.
The obvious problem with this is that he becomes either unrelatable or unlikable, not to mention the plot hole of 'why is there political strife on Terra when the Emperor just needs to show up and bling out and everyone falls before him weeping (always with the weeping)?' This is the problem of having to tell the really important stuff - ie Horus' fall - first, when it would have been better served to get a handle on the universe 30k style and then get to the good stuff. But that wouldn't sell books as much though. It's like when a new miniature line releases all the important characters first, and they end up looking really bad compared to later sculpts.

But I digress.

Having the Emperor shown in a sympathetic light makes it seem more tragic, and isn't the whole story meant to be bad for humanity? I'd love to quote some of the Emperor's best lines, but they're pretty spoilerific, so I'll abstain.

The book isn't without its faults, the fight between a World Eater and a Custodes is often highlighted, as is the Death Guard's resistance to injury, but they're fairly minor and easily overshadowed by the positives.

9/10

Eisenhorn and Ravenor Ombnibii, by Dan Abnett.

Six books, so I'll just be covering them all briefly. The Eisenhorn series tells the tale of Gregor Eisenhorn, and his pursuit of various enemies of mankind. A first person narrative it follows Eisenhorns' thoughts and has quite a bit of internal monologuing and reflection. This is one of the book's strong points as you certainly get a feel for the Inquisitor's mindset.

Ravenor, however, switches between first person of the eponymous Inquisitor and third person for his team of loyal minions. I found this a superior method to the wholly first person: as the books are essentially crime novels having the crime stretched out over three novels left the first person feeling a little thin - there's only so much reflection a man can do.

One of the things that really dissapointed me in the seires was that the Inquisitors, supposedly super smart and cunning held the idiot ball far too often.

There were a couple of times I wanted to sceam at them "how are you in the slightest bit surprised by this!" One example is Ravenor, despite having extremely good reason to suspect he's got a psyker on board and that they may be extremely dangerous, completely fails to monitor them in any meaningful way. And when one of his minions brings news of possibly prescient dreams to him, he doesn't seem particularly interested.
Their minions are equally culpable sometimes, not bringing up their colleagues acting strangely when there's a daemonic entity on the loose etc.

Derp.

Second thing is that Eisenhorn's supposedly unbreakable custom battle cant is laughably easy to descipher. Obviously this is for ease of reading, but I think it would have been better served to be formatted differently, such as how Mechanicus speach is ++marked out on the page++ or the like.

Still, the books are a most excellent, given I read all six in two days, so if you haven't read them definately pick them up.

Eisenhorn: 7.5/10


Ravenor: 8/10

Hive of the Dead gamebook, by Christian Dunn.

For those who don't know, a gamebook is basically a choose-your-own-adventure with dice for when you run into monsters.

Hive of the Dead is a simple tale, where YOU are the hero ('you' is always written in capitals in these things). A Guardsman afflicted with amnesia in a hive filled with plague zombies, you have to escape with your life.

I'm a big fan of gamebooks, so rather than reviewing the plot (which is almost always paper thin), I'll be discussing the construction and assembly of the book. Like the Fighting Fantasy series, Hive of the Dead is 400 paragraphs long, where each paragraph is part of the descision tree. This is a good length, and Dunn has a great mechanic where there is the occasional non-linear loop.
What I mean is where you have a choice early on to either: pick up a gun, look at a map, or use a radio, many gamebooks would have you do one then continue, or return to the original choice paragraph. What Dunn has done is to have each choice branch off, so you get different results depending in what order you do things.

For example if you look at the map and then the radio, when you go to pick up the gun a zombie attacks before you can grab it. But if you pick up the gun first a zombie will attack when you look at the map etc.

On the flipside the story is very linear and rather short. One of the biggest issues I have is that for each combat there is a 'turn to xx' if you lose. Each combat does have its own entertaining description of your death but they are, frankly, unneccessary and the paragraphs would have been better spent on their being more stuff to do.
As I said the story is quite linear, and there are a few false choices, where aside from a little flavour text change there is no real difference to the gameplay or events.

The writing, however, is generally good and written in a frequently tongue in cheek manner ("to disagree politely, turn to xx - to disagree impolitely and attack them, turn to xx). It does have the odd flat spot in the text, but its not too terrible.

The combat system itself is quite unweildy, being a stripped down version of 40k in some ways, and being overly fiddly for my tastes. There are damage multipliers, initiative, ranges and all sorts of things (and an advanced rules section). When 99% of the enemies are identical plague zombies, it is a bit ridiculous and is overengineered in my opinion.

For the Black Library's first gamebook it holds up well against the early Fighting Fantasy books (and isn't as insanely hard or frustrating), but the later books in the series show that BL has a great oportunity ahead of it. I'll definately be buying the next one.

7/10

 

Aurellion, Gold edition, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

The book that broke Black Library, and got us all free shipping. The book itself is essentially Inferno 40k, with a Daemon in place of Virgil. It gives reason for Lorgar's fall, as well as detailing the manipulations of chaos to make it happen.

But was it worth $70, or was the silver enough? I had a chance to look at both versions, and I'm not so sure the gold was worth the extra moulah. For the extra $35 you got some art, a signature and a placeholder. I mean I love a good exclusive, but the asking price is possibly a bit much, given the silver was so extensively cheaper. One odd thing was that the front of the dust jacket for the gold was tucked in to the back, so it covered the whole book - yet the silver didn't do this. One off oddity, or some strange thing that just made reading the book a little bit more inconvenient? Eh, either way it was a good read and an interesting, though not essential, piece of lore.

6.5/10 - this is based on the Gold, including relative worth of price. The silver could add a point.

Snuff, by Terry Pratchett.


The latest in Pratchett's Discworld series, Snuff is the story of Sam Vime's holiday to the country. It's a little bit Jane Austin, a little bit Midsomer Murders and a lot of fun.

Vimes is easily my favourite of the Discworld protagonists (just ahead of Moist), and Pratchett does not fail to deliver. There is humour aplenty, and a great mystery afoot with strange doings a'transpirin in the village (tis a local village, for local people). Here we discover the workings of one of the few traditional fantasy races not yet seen on the Disc - goblins. As can be expected from Pratchett they aren't what you'd expect, and there is no clear good versus evil except for Vimes versus crime, but that's to be expected.

The only potential downside for a new reader is that there isn't a great deal of time explaining the fairly extensive background (Vetinarii, the clacks, Old Stoneface etc), but the story is carried by the very real feeling characters and great dialogue so even if you don't know what's going on you'll certainly get the idea.

As I mentioned above about the Eisenhorn/Ravenor idiot ball situation, there is none of that here - it is a detective story at its core, and is constructed as such. Vimes investigates, he thinks and ponders, and when he does something stupid that gave his enemy an advantage he thinks 'argh, I've done something stupid that has given my enemy an advantage' rather than it being ignored. This is the book (and Pratchett's) great strength - the characters really feel like real people, and it is very easy to get deep into the story.

10/10


So that's what's been eating up my time lately... well, that and: