Shadow Wars Armageddon Game Report.

Scout Sergeant Apollyon lowered his mag-nocs, checked his chronometer and scowled. The enemy were late, this wasn't part of the the plan. He activated his long range vox.
'Base, this is Apollyon, confirm time of estimated enemy contact'
The vox in his ear cracked and hissed. Communications had proven to be problematic of late, following a number of pitched battles his squad had been pushed further into the depths of Hive Acheron, the tall structures and haphazard myriad radiations had plagued any signals from base, he adjusted his vox settings and strained to listen for any reply. Though squeals of static he discerned a response.
'Apollyon, Base. Tim... ... ... mated Xenos contact confirmed. La... .....rts have the greenskins within 500 metres...... .... position. They should ...... right ... you. Hol..  ...sition.'
'Base, Apollyon, confirmed .'
He shut off the vox and scowled again, to his right were Orosius and Zakian. Both of them swept their area in front of them with their bolters. A glance from Zakian was all he needed to confirm they too had not sighted the greenskins. He thumbed his vox again, choosing the short range setting this time.
'Aryius. talk to me, any sighting of the greenskin filth?' as he spoke he raised his mag-nocs, peering into the darkness through the devices enhanced optics, even his superhuman senses couldn't detect any Ork activity..
Nothing here Sergeant, this, isn't right, the Orks aren't subtle, they don't hide, we should be able to SMELL them from here. 
They will come brother, the Ork are a force of nature, they are relentless and formidable but they are predictable, you, Caeon and Nikaeon need to continue your vigilance'
Aye sergeant, we'll see them from up here, The Emperor protects'
Apollyon looked up at the snipers position in nearby building, in such an elevated and concealed position the field of fire they were afforded would leave the orks no chance, whenever they chose to appear. The practicals were in place and the theoreticals were covered.
That he does brother, that he does, he murmured.

Boss Snikbang! eased himself over the corroded pipe, carefully placing his booted feet down onto a dry patch of flooring so as not to cause any unnecessary noise. He had managed to get far enough into the Hive interior zones that he could see the winking lights of the 'oomie perimeter defences through the gloom ahead. Around him he was sure his boys were getting into position, good lads the lot of them. It wasn't just their stealth skills that marked them out but their spanking shiny boots and the way they threw a crisp salute whenever he uttered an order. Proper Blood Axes. 

Boss Snikbang! studied what was ahead. The dense jumble of coolant pipes that he and the boys had crossed to get this far were opening out and he could see streets separating a collection of walkways and bulkier machinery. He went to give the signal to advance, three light taps on the pipe in front of him.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Snikbang froze. His jaw hanging open. He was a tough boy and could punch the head right of a 'oomie if he needed to but he had tried to be gentle when giving the signal.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Now that was odd. He hadn't even hit the pipe that time. Snikbang! looked around to see if he could figure out who was making that racket. He threw a nervous glance towards the'oomie compound in case one of them squishy zoggers heard the noise and came to investigate. 

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

That had come from his right, or left, Snikbang! never bothered to learn the terms. His axe hand or his lobbing hand was how he remembered them, got to have a system his old drill sergeant had said. He looked in the direction denoted by his lobbing hand, out in the open, strolling along without a care in the world was a spanna boy. He held a fancy looking shoota in one hand and a gleaming hammer in the other. The hammer looked new. As Snikbang! watched the spanna boy was looking at a large piece of machinery. He prodded it with his foot, licked it, had  a think about the taste then whacked it three times with his hammer.

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

What the zog?! Before Snikbang could get up to go smack the spanna boy with his own hammer he heard another commotion coming from his axe hand side. He heard whooping and something else, a ululating rumble of sound that echoed off the pipes creating a sound like nervous thunder. Then a group of odd looking lads burst out into the open. Madboys! They were shaking their fists at the sky and hollering at some unseen foe, only stopping to bend over and let rip with some of the loudest flatulation he'd ever heard towards the 'oomies' outpost.

The 'oomies! Snikbang! looked over towards where the lights were blinking. He could hear something else, the ring of booted feet on walkways. Squinting he made out a bunch of the smaller beakie type 'oomies taking up firing positions and aiming out towards the madboys and the spanna boy with the hammer. 
"Zog me." grumbled Snikbang! That had torn it. He stood up and whacked his choppa on a nearby pipe, sounding the charge order. His lads emerged from cover and as one they began a march towards the 'oomie's position. He'd have to do it the old orky way. 

Right, following on from my review of Shadow Wars we decided to get a few games in, we were requested to do a write up for it so here we go!

I've already played one game (a four way battle with Genestealer Cult Orks and Chaos Marines that I had managed to prevail in with only a head wound to my Sergeant. (causing him to suffer from frenzy). The promethium I had gained (just one poxy barrel) had enabled me to get a Heavy Bolter for my Scout Gunner. One of my bolter scouts had been chosen to advance in the last game and had got the skill Hipshooter, he could run and shoot - albeit with a minus 1 to hit.

Lee on the other hand, had a fresh mob. Now, unlike Necromunda there do not appear to be any rules for underdogs, meaning that if a fresh kill team goes up against a more advanced one they will be at a major disadvantage and won't even get a bonus to experience at the end. Time will tell if this proves to be a problem but with no experience per se in the game anyway it seems that it will be something that is difficult to resolve.

So, Roll Call! (It's worth noting that Lee in typical Lee fashion had names and behaviours for ALL his Orks before the game started whilst I was still referring to Bolter dude with Helmet and Heavy Bolter guy. Suitably shamed I have now named all my Kill Team members.

Scout Squad Apollyon:

• Sgt Apollyon (Head Wound - Frenzy)
• Scout Trooper Orosian - Bolter
• Scout Trooper Nakius - Bolter - Hipshooter
• Scout Trooper Aeryius - Sniper Rifle - Toxic Rounds and Reload
• Scout Trooper Caeon - Sniper Rifle - Reload
• Scout Gunner Nikaeon - Heavy Bolter

The Sneaky Boom Bangs! (all armed with a shiv and squighide armour 6+)

• Nob Snikbang! (The exclamation mark is important, he insists on it) - big choppa, stikk bomb and kombi-shoota
• Klank, Spanna boy - slugga and big shoota
• 4 Blood Axe Boys all armed with a slugga and choppa - Stretch, Skrabble, Whao and Steddy Baz
• 4 Yoofs all armed with a slugga and choppa - Wobblz, Hatz, Squelch and Happy Zug

We rolled for sides, Lee won and chose his and got first turn, we were just playing a straight up fight so it would be till one team bottled. We completely forgot to roll on the conditions table though. Lee deployed right at the front of his deployment zone, a very agressive stance from the greenskins. I on the other hand, set up my Snipers and Heavy Bolter in elevated positions and the remainder of my Scouts in the bunker. Perfect tactical positioning. The only thing I would need to be careful of was Sgt Apollyon charging off into trouble due to his frenzy.

Orks are made for twatting stuff up close so that was my plan hence deploying forward. I had plenty of boys so made sure my yoofs were front and centre. Snikbang and one of his lads set up on the right flank whilst the rest of the boyz made themselves conspicuous.

Orks Turn 1:

I got to go first so did the only sensible thing and ran everyone forward. Most went straight for cover and Snikbang! sneakily sidled over to hunker down behind some cargo containers, whistling nonchalantly as he went.

Scouts Turn 1:

There was no reason at all for my Scouts to move. Well out of charge range I didn't need to worry about my Sergeant's frenzy either. Therefore I stood my ground and opened fire:

Orosius fired at one of Lee's Yoofs - Happy Zug, happy he might be but he was pinned by fire, though I failed to wound.

Nakius took down Stretch with his bolter but promptly ran out of ammo. That was a problem, it was early in the game and he had no reload or other weapons. Worse still, he was my guy with Hipshooter, though I had no plans to run round the battlefield at present. Still the Ork falling to the ground face down was enough to unnerve Lee's Spanner Boy Klank and the cowardly Greenskin promptly scarpered to the nearest cover. Steddy Baz stuck around though, seemingly unbothered by his fellow's fate. Lee had named his Orks well it seemed.

Aeryius sighted down his Sniper Rifle and took down Wobbles, the Ork slumping to the floor in a pool of blood. Down but not out. Sgt Apollyon and Nikaeon went into Overwatch, waiting for a target to present itself.

Orks Turn 2:

Klank had scarpered like a right git but it didn't take long for him to come back to his senses. Actually, he had dropped his poncy new hammer and was going back to retrieve it. Squelch, dancing to and fro, hopping from foot to foot noticed that the open door of the Ferratonic Furnace looked like a porta-drops and dashed in to relieve himself. So as to make thing a bit interesting we decided that this was potentially hazardous so decided to roll for what happened, agreeing on a table of events prior to rolling the dice.

• 1: Falls in - removed from game
• 2-3: Constipated - roll next turn
• 4+: Took a wrong turn and has appeared on top of the Furnace and able to move normally. This would save him a good deal of movement.

(I readily agreed to this, these sort of things add so much fun to games and are one of the reasons that Lee and I have remained such firm adversaries over the years. Lee plays Ork very well (I'm not an Ork person) and already his Kill Team was proving full of character.)

Rolling turned up a six! A confused Squelch appeared on top of the furnace. Still needing to go he wondered around looking for another spot to relieve himself which coincidentally took him towards the Scout's positions.

Snikbang!poked his head out from around the side of the corner and promptly ducked back again as five heavy bolter shots impacted on the side of his cover, Nikaeon's overwatch had failed to hit him, phew. Waiting for a moment to make sure no further fire was coming his way Snikbang! let rip with his kombi-shoota. Two sustained fire dice gave him enough shots to pin Nikaeon behind cover but not much else.

This wasn't the only patient scout, Apollyon pinned Whap who thought he was in more cover than he turned out to be. That's two Orks on the floor but more still mobile.

Scout turn 2:

With my only Objective being to get rid of Lee I still had no reason to move. Sadly this meant Lee was rather running a gauntlet. I couldn't feel too sorry for him though, sympathy for the Xenos is heresy.

Apollyon took careful aim and pinned Waap again before Orosian took him Out Of Action with disciplined Bolter Fire. Lee would be taking Bottle Tests from here on.

Caeon managed to pin Boss Snikbag! This was a good thing, the large Ork posed quite a threat. I'd rather he was down but stalling him flat on his back was better than nothing.

Aeryius spotted Squelch on top of the walkway in the gloom. A clear shot, a quick exhale as he pulled the trigger and Squelch was down, stumbling from the walkway and nearly landing on Hatz below. Thankfully Hatz dodged just in time, though he scarpered anyway. Squlech on the other hand was immensely fortunate and landed on his head. Suffering only one wound which Lee managed to save on a six no less! Aeryius had hit on a six but thankfully passed his ammo test.

Nikaeon recovered from being Pinned, he couldn't go into Overwatch, I'd have to hope he could escape Lee's attention for a turn. Nakius meanwhile glared impotently through the sights of his empty bolter.

Ork Turn 3:

Bottle tests on leadership seven. Passed this turn, the muffled swearing coming from the direction of Snikbang! enough to convince the boys to stay in the fight. Hatz wasn't having any of it though and failed to rally from last turn and ran into cover.

Klank, as well as testing his new hammer on any and every solid surface had also brought along his newly kustomised big shoota. He opened up on Orosian but in typically Orky fashion missed with all of his shots.

The madboy yoofs were rather enjoying writhing on the ground so stayed there but none of the boys was squishy so they stuck around. Boss Snikbang! got up to show the lads what they should be doing.



Scouts Turn 4:

Nikaeon went back on Overwatch, that Boss was bound to make a break for it at some point and the Heavy Bolter was my best chance of putting him down for good. Apollyon lead by example and took out Shank with a perfect Bolt Pistol Shot.  Thus far his frenzy hadn't been a problem though it must be noted we're assuming that they were M4 where they are actually M5! Ridiculous!

Aryius scored a flesh wound on Klank, passing another Ammo test in the process.

Ork Turn 4:

Cowardly lot them beakies, not that any of them had them beakie helmets. What a swoz. The boys passed their bottle test and stayed in the fight for another turn. Snikbang! burst from cover, pegging it towards the tower opposite that would lead to the entrenched snipers and Nikaeon. He was forced to run a gauntlet of overwatch fire, Nikaeon having to pass an initiative test in order to overcome his surprise at Snikbang!'s sudden appearance and succeeding. Even with a -2 to hit he scored a wound. Snikbang! had two to begin with so didn't get knocked down though he skidded into cover and stayed there, pinned for the rest of the turn.

Steady Baz had methodically worked his way to the top of the centre section walkway, not bothered by all the bullets and bolts whizzing by his head. He took a shot at the scout with the fanciest looking armour, pinning Sgt Apollyon. Steady Baz passed his ammo check, that Stormboy training serving him well with a well oiled and maintainted slugga.

Despite this most of my Orks were doing nothing due to being pinned or hurt. Wobblz went out of action with a large burst of flatulence before lying still. His memory lingering as a green cloud that followed the breeze coming from the nearby ventilation ducts. Squelch's desperate need overcame his common sense and he recovered to a flesh wound as he looked around for that secluded spot where he could do his business in peace.

Scout Turn 5:

The game was turning in the Scout's favour but Lee still had a few Orks that could cause me problems. Apollyon passed his initiative test to recover from Pinning early but rushed his shot at Happy Zug and missed. I was actually lucky that Apollyon had been pinned or the Frenzy would have made him charge, a lucky escape for myself and the Yoof.

Zug's luck ran out though as Orosian put him down though with another impressive display of shooting. He had an ammo check but unlike Nakius passed it no problem. Nakius was probably hoping for the Orks to get close enough so he could use his bolter as a club, Reloads were high on my shopping list after this game.

Speaking of Ammo Checks Aeryius took Hatz Out of Action with yet another 6 to hit, passing a third Ammo Roll in a row (on an 11 no less). Sniper elite indeed!

Not to be outdone Caeon downed Klank, Nikaeon went back on Overwatch with his Heavy Bolter in an end to a decisive turn for the Scouts. Very few Orks were left standing now.

Ork Turn 6:

"Wots wrong with ya?! You Orks or is ya grots? Get stuck in!" To the boys credit, or sheer lack of common sense, they didn't bottle again.

Unfortunately there were not many Orks who could actually affect what was happening. Steady Baz maintained his cool and shot at Orosian but missed. That was it, everyone else was pinned or down and none of them snapped out of it in the recovery phase.

Scout turn 6:

Sadly the only target for the Scouts on top of the Bunker was the prone form of Happy Zug, still the Codex Astartes says never give a sucker an even break (or something like that) and Apollyon and Orosian dutifully riddled the greenskins body with boltershells. Annoyingly though they couldn't do anymore than score another Down result.

Therefore it was up to Aeryius to show them how it was done yet again, Steady Baz was his target this time with yet another hit roll of 6. A toxic round took Baz out of the game and this time round I finally failed an ammo check, on a double 1 no less! Had it been one of those shoddy Ork weapons it would have exploded, Imperial equipment is far from shoddy though and Aeryius just used his reload.

This just left Nikaeon and Caeon, both of whom went on Overwatch.

Orks turn 7:

The lads, all absorbed in their own suffering did not notice that they really should make a run for it and stayed on for yet another turn.

Squelch had caught sight of the bunker and moved towards it, there had to be a lav in there somewhere! He took a shot at the occupants but missed. He was a bit exposed.

Over on the left Boss Snikbang! had recovered and made a run towards the scouts but was cut down by Nikaeon's heavy bolter. Back at camp the number of scouts who had fired at Snikbang grew by lots in the re-telling (the highest number any Ork knows how to count to).

All that writhing was hard work and both Klank and Stretch decided they had better things to be doing and went Out of Action.

Scout turn 7:

Much as I hate to say it Squelch was the only available target. For my entire Team. It was literally a shooting gallery. Still, Hate the Alien, Kill the Alien and all that. My Scout's Drill Instructors had clearly drummed the Codex into them well as my Kill Team opened up on Squelch.

First Nikaeon downed him with a burst of heavy bolter fire. Apollyon did the same with his bolt pistol. Caeon did the same, as did Orosian, Aeryius inconceivably once again hit on a 6 passing his ammo check. Even with Toxic Rounds he couldn't take Squlech (or what was left of him) out of action. Poor Squelch.

Lee gamely passed another Bottle check but had no Orks standing. At the end of the Turn Boss Snikbang! went out of action and Lee conceded, with only two downed Yoofs left on the battlefield.

Post game action.

Kill team Apollyon had suffered zero injuries, Lee, not so lucky.

Both Lee's Orks left on the battledfield went OOA. Worse was to come as Squelch and Whap were captured (better than dead I suppose)

See, what happened with Squelch was that he'd managed to crawl into the sewer and float away from the battle. Later he was seen floating amongst the effluent but after calling him a few times Squelch had refused to stop floating face down so the boys left him to it. He eventually got caught in a grate that prevents large bodies being sucked into the waste purification facility and was picked up by a patrol.

Steady Baz suffered a head wound. Frenzy for him.
Happy Zug would miss the next game and now hated Orosian
Strech Scored against the Odds! He gained Infiltrate which was very handy (Lee was using the Blood Axe Skill table.)

Sadly none of Lee's other Orks were eligible for advancement. (Yoofs only get mission completed marks.)

The Scouts scored two promethium and I just had to choose Aeryius to advance. Four hits on a six multiple notches on his rifle? There could be no other. He picked up the Hipshooter skill, a Sniper Rifle isn't a heavy weapon so he could now run and gun! Albeit at a minus 1 to hit.

In the Re-arm phase Lee replaced one of his Orks, I chose to buy reloads and Photovisors. The reloads were a necessity the way I was rolling and the Photovisors would reduce the enemies cover by 1.

Our next game was already decided! A Rescue mission!

We'll be back soon, will Lee manage to rescue Squelch and Whap? Does he really want to? (They were a bit crap) Find out in the next game report, coming soon!

Hobby Diary 11/12/16

An interesting week for me, I'm now up to six frigates for my UCM and more or less have my colour scheme nailed at this point. It's still not perfect and it's not what I had envisioned by any means but overall it's about as good as I'm going to get and I'm looking forward to getting the fleet done at an increased pace right now.

There has been so much vitriol levelled at Dropzone Commander recently. Disgruntled backers are something that I am certainly used to having backed my fair share of Kickstarters some of which have gone spectacularly awry, but this is a level of toxicity that frankly makes me ashamed to be a part of the community. Let's remember that this campaign, although running late, (I am still awaiting one of my pledges after all) finished barely a year ago. That's a brand new range and game produced and (mostly) delivered in a year. I'm sorry, but in comparison to many Kickstarters that is damn miraculous. Still, it must be said that Hawk have NOT covered themselves in glory here, their organisation and communication has been sub par and as with so many companies it seems that they have woefully underestimated the shipping process. Really six months was a VERY optimistic timescale and it is no surprise they didn't meet that target.

All that said, I would like the game to succeed and look forward to facing Lee in orbital combat sometime soon. Though I don't think he has done much with his fleet, I think he has been focusing very much on Heresy stuff recently.

Which I should be really, and I can assure you that that time IS coming, I have made some progress on my Contemptor but a road bump or two has somewhat curtailed my progress.

The Contemptor was looking really good, Though I am still but the most novice of airbrush users I have to say I am incredibly impressed by the way that  you can build up layers of  paint, both as a time saver and for the finish you end up with it just cant be beat. I'd added some Ultramarine Blue Vallejo Air, improvised some highlights and I was feeling pretty good about the way it was looking.

Until I compared it to the captain that I had already done. Upon comparison the Contemptor was SEVERAL shades lighter, far too many to get away with. I had two options, either lighten up the Captain or darken the Contemptor.

Anyone who has seen my painting (hell the picture of the UCM frigates enough is illustration enough) will know that my 'style' as it were is NOT bright and colourful. No, I tend to paint things very dark, sometimes I think too dark. So I opted to try to bring the Contemptor down a bit. It was the wrong decision. I tried to add a heavy wash of Drakenhoff Nightshade to bring it in line with the Captain a bit more. However, it collected and pooled and overall ruined the nice clean finish I had. Damn and Bugger. I tried to fix it by adding a mid tone and blending the colours a little but it didn't really work. That is the main reason the Contemptor is not finished yet. A shame, I had got it looking really quite nice, I particularly liked the Gold Trim. I'll be doing some heavy weathering to it to hide my painting sins and mistakes.

So with the Contemptor put to one side for now I did what I should have done all along, tried to lighten up the captain.

Really all it involved was trying to bring it up to the Ultramarine Blue through a number of midtones, I was at least partially successful, it's another one of those where I'm just going to leave it before I make it any worse, It's in the it''ll do' category. They at least look like they belong to the same army now. I'll look to get the Contemptor finished and then compare them again, providing I can live with the results I'll be in the position to proceed full steam ahead with the Ultramarines.

So overall this week I'm fairly happy with my progress, I have never been the fastest or most proficient of painters but as long as I am painting something it's gotta be worthwhile right? Christmas is just round the corner but my main plan is to get a cruiser and three more frigates done for the UCM as they are half done already and to get the Contemptor done as well. On the side I have the Silver Tower stuff undercoated and ready to be worked on. I have made a start on some Screamers but I'm mainly going to focus on the stuff actually being used in the game at the moment.

Speaking of games I played some Silver Tower with my Girlfriend. We already had one amulet piece so the choice of challenge was up to us and we got our arses handed to us as we chose one of the harder ones (can't remember which one). Next time round we played a different one and succeeded in securing another amulet piece. I really hope  that GW do an expansion to the game at some point, the base game will only last so long.

The other game we have been playing a lot of is Formula D. I do intend to do a full review of the game for the Conclave at some point but I will say it's a lot of fun. I'm grateful to Wil Wheaton's Tabletop for making me aware of it's existence. Vroom Vroom!

So what has Lee been up to then?

Well Allen is absolutely correct with his comment that I have been concentrating on my Heresy stuff and here are the results, two more completed units! So far this month I have completed the plastic Contemptor from the Calth box and a Rhino to transport my Tactical Veteran squad, or as is more likely once more units are painted, my Heavy Flamer unit.

I've gone heavy on the blasphemous script as I don't want these guys getting mistaken for Blood Angels! How embarrassing. With the Contemptor I had considered adding horns above the head but decided against it once I added the missile launcher. As mentioned before my Word Bearers are lacking in heavy weaponry in their infantry selections in my army as the majority are close combat oriented so I have maximised the amount of fire power I can get out of this model.

I could have replaced the close combat weapon with another gun but I like my dreads to be able to punch back in a fight and the two units I am currently working on, a Deredeo and Leviathan, both lack close combat weaponry so leaving this one gives me a walker with flexibility. Plus I want to see mine and Allen's Contemptor's go head to head at some point without me being at a disadvantage. Of course I could always sic a Mahra Ghal on it but that is overkill.

The Rhino is a Deimos pattern with some Word Bearer brass etched icons attached. I didn't do very much to this. I could have really chaos-ified it but I have been giving that a bit of thought and decided not to.

-

During the Heresy the Word Bearers were beginning their journey along the dark path. Only the highest ranking and most devout legionaries were manifesting real signs of change. Therefore I will be adding more chaos iconography to the officers and elites and keeping the additions to the line troopers more subtle. I hope that way to show a transition throughout my army. 

Although I also intent to use these models as Chaos Space Marines in 40k I didn't want to just be using Chaos Marines for Heresy games. Still, with the new Legions Codex that has just been release my Word Bearers will be pulling double duty.

Now for the bad news. I broke my airbrush. I was just cleaning it, nothing too rough but when reattaching the fine end nozzle I turned a bit too much and it broke off. This has put a dent in my plans to get on with my Scourge fleet however I have found some £10 airbrushes in China so will be picking one (or two) up after Xmas to get back on track. Till next time.

Conclave of Har Book Review: Roboute Gulliman - Lord of Ultramar

Of all the Horus Heresy novels, one of the most reviled seems to be Damnation of Pythos. David Annandale's Horus Heresy debut is widely regarded to be one of the poorer books in the series and I don't think it features in too many readers top ten lists. Myself, I felt rather more charitably toward it. Though i would by no means call it a classic I felt that the author explored some fascinating elements of the Imperial Truth and some parts of the book were very good indeed. To check out that review click here.

So when i saw that he had penned the first entry in the new Primarchs series i didn't really feel strongly about it either way, I certainly wasn't dissuaded from picking up Roboute Gulliman Lord of Ultramar whilst killing a bit of time in my local Games Workshop.

The book is in the same mould as the recent Beast Arises series, a hardback reduced length novel, more than the novellas they have previously been releasing but far less than a full title. In fact at 180 pages its pretty much half length. The standard is nice though and you do feel that it is a high quality product. The spine design is excellent and paper quality is much above the recent 40k Legends series, even if the cover art seems a bit off. Still, they'll look good on the shelf.

A quick glance though the pages showed 9 chapters in total so I wasn't expecting an epic by any means, but i was looking forward to a Primarch heavy narrative that would fill in a few of the gaps presented by the Heresy, there was a lot of potential here that i was hoping would be explored.

The story deals with the eradication of an Ork infestation on a former imperial world. Thus it becomes immediately clear that this is a pre Heresy tale. Indeed it would appear that the Great Crusade is not all that old as frequent references to Gulliman's days (although sadly no more than references) of rule and triumph over depot kings in Macragge are made. However, Gulliman is already wary of lessons learned from those days, he knows that the Astartes are created for war and has already taken steps to remould his legion and eliminate the more aggressive elements from his Legion.  To preserve rather than destroy to save rather than obliterate.

To this end the 'destroyers' (featured in the Horus Heresy rulebooks but nowhere else as of yet as far as I know) have been assigned a new chapter master from outside their own ranks in order to provide a calming influence and act as a catalyst for change. Something not best received by the Destroyers.
In addition Gulliman is also preparing contingencies for 'the unthinkable' a universe in which he is not present to command his sons. The Ultramarines Primarch is portrayed as constantly calculating, constantly strategising and playing the long game. Theoretical and Practical, Theoretical and Practical, over and over. The cast of the XIII legion here is much the same as Dan Abnett's. Careful and considered. Well, except for the Destroyers.

Now from all this you might think that the first few chapters of the book are insanely boring and I must confess they are somewhat bereft of action. Instead introspection and politics are presented as the narrative sets the scene and does the bulk of the heavy lifting before things kick off. Annandale does a lot of good work embellishing the minutiae and character of the chapter and their Gene Father.

And once the Ultramarines make planetfall it is more or less action from there on out. As if to make up for the slow start, the pace rarely slows again. Gulliman gets to let loose and the battle scenes are well written even if it is little more than wading through an endless tide of Orks over and over again. The Orks lack any character at all, they are cannon fodder, nothing more.

however, things start to become overly familiar as the Ultramarines find a pyramid and venture underground to face more Orks wall to wall and then end up being trapped and needing.... well you can guess the rest.

I hate to say it but all Annadale has done here is rewritten (by and large) the Damnation of Pythos. Marines make planetfall, are attacked by overwhelming forces, which they repel. Find structure, venture underneath, lots of heroic sacrifice, more foes underground and also the answer to an enigma that has been developing over the course of the story.... its just the same set up.

It's annoying, just like Damnation of Pythos there is potential here that is absolutely choked by poor story construction and a stumbling narrative. The action is passable and I don't really object to Gulliman's portrayal or even the way the Orks are presented. Though numerous Greenskins twice the size of a Primarch seems a touch OTT.

I LIKED the way that Gulliman is trying to preserve that which he reconquers, and mould his legion into more than just a force of destruction.  He still fights supremely when called for and it is a more rounded portrayal of a Primarch than many we have had.

I LIKED some of the action and the look into the Destroyers and the way they feel about their treatment at the hands of their father as they are chastised purely for their nature and the fact that they are Terran born and hold different traditions and ideals to Gulliman's lofty empire of Ultramar.

But this is like a director making the same movie twice in a row (like many have). I'm sure there were so many better ways that the above could have been incorporated into a narrative than the very dull plot that we are presented with, had we been given something fresh and new then perhaps the reader fatigue that I experienced would not have presented itself.

I'm not saying that this is a terrible unreadable book, there are some bits that are really worthwhile. But i cannot recommend it as a whole. Its like a horribly dry cake with juicy raisins in it. Given the truncated length and the fact that this is a series about THE PRIMARCHS it is very disappointing.

Put it this way, the short excerpt of Chris Wraight's upcoming Leman Russ Primarch book displayed more craft and skill and guile than the entire of this book. I think it will be a far superior title, but in all honesty the bar that has been set here is not hard to beat.

6/10