Warhammer 40,000 Novels

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Arch

Lord Nagafen Raider
1,036
25
Titanicus was pretty good (but also not in HH timeframe I don't think - been awhile since I've read it).
 

Taloo_sl

shitlord
742
2
Legion has very little legion perspective. Nemesis is assassins. Other than that the odd novella or anthology story. Maybe audio books but fuck those wouldn't in w.
 

Chanur

Shit Posting Professional
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Does anyone know much about these End Times books Games Workshop has been putting out? It seems like its a big book of fluff and a book of rules. I know one for Skaven came out recently Thanquol. I don't have anyone to game with out here so I don't care about the rules but are the fluff books worth the 50-60 dollar price? I still really enjoy the history and the art.
 

Phayd

Golden Knight of the Realm
111
40
Made the mistake of googling a warhammer timeline, found the wikia and there went half the night...
 

Taloo_sl

shitlord
742
2
It doesn't matter much in most cases and would be a god awful headache to try and list everything in order with the correct dates. The high notes off the top of my head would be Pre- Heresy, Heresy, Post Heresy, and Pre/Post Age of Apostasy. For things that don't involve those you have distant past which will be fluff lore and things that are mentioned but not depicted outside of the occasional lore blurb in a codex or what have you. Recent past which is the last 2,000 years or so where 99% of non HH stories and novels take place. Then current events which I would lump in anything referencing a time period immediately before or after the turn of the millennium and 13th Black Crusade.

They do a decent job of pointing out what you need to know about when the story takes place. From the imperial point of view it rarely even matters since almost no one knows fuck all about anything that isn't currently happening anyhow and if they did the IQ would probably put a bullet in their head. Throw the warp fucking with an individuals time frame into the mix and you may as well give up. The Night Lords series for example featuring characters who besieged the Imperial Palace less than 500 relative years (generous estimate) later preparing for the 13th Black Crusade at the end of the series. A lot of stories aren't even dated in any meaningful way.

If you don't mind me asking why are you bothering to look it up? Just curious? Personally I just don't pay attention to it beyond something like this.
Zael
from the Ravenor series was present at the first war for Armageddon. Which was long long before the second war. Yarrick was in the second war. The third war is current timeline and Yarrick is also there so 2/3 are recent/current history. Which places the first war towards the end of "recent" history at best. Which places Ravenor/Eisenhorn a decent bit prior to that.
For certain prior to/concurrent with the discovery of the first Tyranid hive fleet because Ravenor does not recognize them in the Wych house despite being of the Ordo Xenos
. In my examples there actually were dates but the numbers don't really mean shit to me beyond current(ish) and a long ass time ago. I just work it out as I go along because it never matters as far as the story goes.
 

Erikmustride_sl

shitlord
64
0
Only reason I was asking is because I'm new to the series and wanted to keep the timeline straight. I didn't know if it mattered on the grand scale since most of the books that tie together seem to be released in an omnibus. You have more than answered my question. Thank you sir.
 
W

Wrathcaster

Erm, I don't exactly want to tag an entire post because of spoilers, since I can't adequately gauge what people in the thread have read but I'll just do it like this:

FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T READ UP TO UNREMEMBERED EMPIRE IN THE HORUS HERESY SERIES SPOILERS BELOW

I'm trying to figure out how they're going to go about sticking with canon as far as Sanguinius and the Blood Angels ending up at Terra without Guilliman, Lion and their respective legions. From the older fluff, it was always sort of established they booked it straight to Terra from Signus Prime, but the whole Imperium Secundus thing kinda throws that off. It's especially confusing since the Ultramarines and Dark Angels can't make it until after the siege, which from all credible sources took months to come to an end. I'm guessing it's going to have something to do with Curze. Someone upon high in GW/Black Library is Mary Sueing the fuck out of him. I could've passed it off as one author having a boner for the Night Haunter but when Abnett gets sucked in to silliness like Curze taking on three Primarchs in short succession and living, I've got to wonder about what GW's plans are for future Night Lords miniatures. Still, they have a get out of jail free card for Sevatar, well, being Sevatar.

Another thing's bugging the hell out of me, too. In Vengeful Spirit, Russ is on Terra. The Space Wolves never made it to Terra during the siege. But they get there conveniently late, and Russ isn't there during the siege. What the actual fuck?

I've loved a lot of the work that has been put out there over the years, but I think at this point GW is just fucking around, trying to print as much as possible before they have to kill off 'ol Empy.
 

Taloo_sl

shitlord
742
2
Erm, I don't exactly want to tag an entire post because of spoilers, since I can't adequately gauge what people in the thread have read but I'll just do it like this:

FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVEN'T READ UP TO UNREMEMBERED EMPIRE IN THE HORUS HERESY SERIES SPOILERS BELOW

I'm trying to figure out how they're going to go about sticking with canon as far as Sanguinius and the Blood Angels ending up at Terra without Guilliman, Lion and their respective legions. From the older fluff, it was always sort of established they booked it straight to Terra from Signus Prime, but the whole Imperium Secundus thing kinda throws that off. It's especially confusing since the Ultramarines and Dark Angels can't make it until after the siege, which from all credible sources took months to come to an end. I'm guessing it's going to have something to do with Curze. Someone upon high in GW/Black Library is Mary Sueing the fuck out of him. I could've passed it off as one author having a boner for the Night Haunter but when Abnett gets sucked in to silliness like Curze taking on three Primarchs in short succession and living, I've got to wonder about what GW's plans are for future Night Lords miniatures. Still, they have a get out of jail free card for Sevatar, well, being Sevatar.

Another thing's bugging the hell out of me, too. In Vengeful Spirit, Russ is on Terra. The Space Wolves never made it to Terra during the siege. But they get there conveniently late, and Russ isn't there during the siege. What the actual fuck?

I've loved a lot of the work that has been put out there over the years, but I think at this point GW is just fucking around, trying to print as much as possible before they have to kill off 'ol Empy.
Empire takes place before Betrayer as far as I can tell. Pretty sure Gulliman would have mention Angron turning into a giant fucking demon. Assume they get bogged down defending Ultramar/"hold the gate" so that the Blood Angels can make it to terra via holding traitor forces at bay or deus ex machina way out of the ruin storm. Not sure whats up with the Dark Angels. 2nd edition era lore had them returning to Caliban after the siege of terra but without having participated in the fighting as they could not arrive in time to participate.

If I had to guess BAs take the "spotlight device" to terra/use it to navigate. Ultramarines garrison Ultramar and protect said device to prevent Lorgar from following(Angron makes it to terra but afaik Lorgar did not). World Eaters break through and head for terra. Johnson leaves Gulliman hanging to pursue them to terra or for some other agenda which becomes the basis for rumors he was waiting for a victor to emerge.

Stab in the dark on Johnson. Every book and story he has been in depicts him in a wildly different way. Sevatar is still aboard his flagship as of Empire. Curze is planetside. Johnson has possession of some form of entity I can't recall that can cause or abate intense warp storms in addition to the capacity to instantly transport men to ships in orbit and then force those same ships to instantly translate to the warp at will. A Watcher in the Dark is aboard his flagship and converses with him and he is aware that shits not great on Caliban(which contradicts prior lore where the first anyone knew of Luthers rebellion was when they were fired on after reaching Caliban post siege). He kills one of his senior chaplains in a fit of rage and shows no remorse nor does anyone question it. He gives incredibly powerful siege engine to Perturabo rather than sequester them like you would expect since he was well aware that loyalties were in question. Think Johnson has more loose ends than anyone else atm. No idea where they are trying to take him.
Typed the above a while ago. TL/DR Yeah shit doesn't make sense yet.

They trade Russ for Jaghati pretty much. Russ leaves to chase Horus during/after VS. He gets ambushed by the Alpha Legion and is sitting in a nebula or some shit hiding. Jaghati sides with the loyalists and since Dorn tells him to get home ASAP he tells Russ sorry bro can't help good luck but I'ma peace out later. Which leaves him on the way to terra "now" and Russ still sitting wherever he was unable to leave.

Curze is kind of a badass though. He makes everyone uncomfortable and as "scared" as a primarch is capable of being. He beat Dorn almost to death. He fought Johnson to a standstill for the most part and would have killed him without intervention once even though Johnson stabbed him with no warning at the start of the fight. Although Johnson did push his shit in at least once. He made Corax run off scared rather than fight him. He has no restraint is what I think they try to show. Loyalist A says don't make me kill you bro and Curze replies with a dive tackle and screams about skull fucking children. At the end of the day though all the primarchs are on a pretty level playing field when it comes to a stand up fight. With the possible exceptions of Alpharius/Omegon who are smaller and presumably weaker on their own and pre-Istvaan Lorgar who was a little bitch. The narrative is the only reason anyone ever loses a fight. With that said fighting primarchs in succession wouldn't be a huge ordeal barring a near death injury or destruction of wargear. Even space marines can fight for days on end with little to no fatigue. Primarchs are way beyond that and heal about as fucking fast as Wolverine. Having your skull smashed into a few dozen pieces is just a minor irritation for these guys.
 

Taloo_sl

shitlord
742
2
Private trackers were best before I moved and torrenting was no longer an option. Anonomouse is what I was using but I got banned for not seeding a few torrents for long enough after my house was destroyed in a flood haha. So haven't used them since like April of last year. When I have stable net and care I can probably get it rescinded by talking to mods but meh. I doubt you will find a torrent with everything but there's normally a few with big bulks of it around. All HH, Gaunt's Ghosts, Cain novels, etc.

Buy the good novels when they hit paperback though. I was adamant about not downloading them back in the day because they were reasonable and worth the purchase. $50 e-books and $60 hard backs only available from GW stores for however many months can fuck right off though and I hope whoever started that shit burns in hell.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,271
50,242
MTG-ThreadNecromancer_3198.jpg



Anything good come out in the last 6 months? I've been in a cave.
 

OU Ariakas

Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
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Vulkan Lives came out. It is decent. If you like Nic Kyme writing Salamanders then you will probably enjoy it.
 

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
42,271
50,242
That's from last May. Guess I could have just googled it. Need to read Scars, Vengeful Spirit, Damnation of Pythos, and Legacies of Betrayal for HH books.

My non HH books I mean to catch up on

The Chapter's Due
Wolfblade, Son's of Fenris, Wolf's Honor
Abaddon
Dark Hunters
Ahriman series (maybe)
Caiphas Cain series (probably, i really like sandy mitchell)
Night Lords series
Space Marine Battles (own the first 2, havent read any others)
Firedrake, Nocturne, Tome of Fire
Word Bearers series (maybe)

I think since about 2009 I mostly stopped staying on top of 40K books aside from HH. I'm a pretty voracious reader but holy shit that's a lot of books to catch up on.
 

OU Ariakas

Diet Dr. Pepper Enjoyer
<Silver Donator>
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The worst part about 40k and the HH is that they don't keep a running chronology or list of books by release date. Here are my thoughts on the ones you listed:

Scars - It was about 6/10. I liked that the Scars and the Khan were front and center.

Vengeful Spirit - Any novel about the traitor legions is good for me and this one had some good character development. 6/10

Damnation of Pythos - This read more like a stand alone battle novel than a HH book. It wasn't great. 4/10

Legacies of Betrayal - I have loved 90% of the WH40k and HH anthologies because you get a bunch of smaller stories that end quickly. That is good for a bunch of these authors because they seem to struggle more when they get to novel length sagas. Legacies is more of the same and for me that was a great thing. 8/10

Ahriman series (maybe) - read the first one, was not impressed enough to read the next few.

Night Lords series - Read it. Read it now. ADB is my favorite author for BL right now and I consider these the best books (not named First Heretic) I've read in the last few years. 9/10

Firedrake, Nocturne, Tome of Fire - More Nic Kyme Salamanders. If you like the HH ones then you will like these. I consider them pretty average.

Word Bearers series (maybe) - It was good but not super memorable.