Book Review: Wrath of Iron, by Chris Wraight

I finished this one up last night, so here's my review. WARNING: I cannot write a useful review without SPOILERS. Do not read any further unless you want plot details.










The story takes place on Shardenus, a pretty standard Imperial hive world. Shardenus has apparently turned from the light of the Emperor and the Iron Hands, a Titan detachment (2 Warlords, 2 Warhounds), and several Guard regiments show up to burn the place down. As a twist, it's revealed that the lower echelons of the world's population and military don't even realize they've turned traitor. There are Loyalist elements of Shardenus' Guard regiment who are killed by the invading Loyalists simply out of confusion and death-by-association.

The book largely focuses on a Mechanicum Magos, the Guard Supreme Commander of the Loyalist forces (Nethata), two loyalist Shardenus irregulars, a Death Cult Assassin, and an Iron Hands Sergeant, Librarian, Iron Father and Clan Captain.

When the plot begins, the Iron Hands are shown to be callous about the deaths of their "mortal assets," aka Imperial Guardsmen. Rauth, the commander of Clan Raukaan, orders thousands upon thousands of Guardsmen into futile efforts as a diversionary tactic. When the Guard's general complains or hesitates over the losses, he's threatened with execution. The recurring theme of the book is: "The Iron Hands are dicks." Seriously. The squad sergeant, Morvox, you get to learn about starts out with misgivings about such tactics, but he is berated by the Iron Father (the Iron Hands' equivalent to a chaplain) and threatened. See the theme here?

The book is superbly written, with great action scenes, vivid depictions of the scenery and setting, and interesting characters. Chris Wraight is a very talented writer, and I think I'll pick up some more of his work. What gets me is that the Iron Hands aren't really heroes in the story. With Ultramarines, Space Wolves, and even Dark Angels, you get a character you can rally behind and cheer. Uriel Ventris might be a Codex-breaking fool, but he does heroic things and you cheer his victories. Ragnar Blackmane isn't a humanitarian by any means, but he's so badass you can't help but love him. The Iron Hands as depicted in Wrath of Iron are downright despicable. You can't cheer for Rauth as he sends a million Guardsmen into the teeth of the enemy guns simply to draw a percentage of the traitor forces away from points in the wall. There's a scene about 2/3rds of the way through the book where Rauth lines up regiments upon regiments of Guard in an underground access tunnel to the hive. He commandeers both Warhound Titans into this fight as well. When the battle begins, the Iron hands push forward, leaving the Guard regiments in the dust to be butchered by mutants and daemons. You just can't cheer for that.

Much is made in the beginning of the book about how the Iron Hands slowly lose their humanity (or super-humanity, rather) as they replace their body with bionics. They lose all emotion eventually, operating purely on logic, numbers, and a sense of duty. There's a bit of a clash there, as how can you have faith in the Emperor and a commitment to duty when your emotions and sense of sympathy/compassion has been stripped away? It's a fun point to ponder.

Eventually, Nethata has had enough of the wasting of his men and materiels, and he colludes with the Princeps of the Titan group to stand up to Rauth and demand a change in tactics. Unfortunately, the stand falls through. Nethata dies. In fact, anyone in the entire book who shows one shred of humanity...dies.
The irregulars from Shardenus? One dies in a pointless charge against the enemy lines. The other is executed months after the siege is over as part of the Iron Hands' programme of eradication of all residents of Shardenus.
The Librarian who retained his mortal mind in order to be a Librarian? Throws himself into a warp rift to close it and is tortured for eternity by daemons as a result.
Nethata commits suicide after his plan falls through, because the Princeps he colluded with was executed by the Mechanicum for refusing orders (and colluding with Nethata).
The Death Cult Assassin blows himself up with an atomic bomb carried in his chest cavity in an attempt to destroy the daemon prince behind the whole invasion (he fails, by the way).

The moral of the story is that all mortal flesh is temporary, fleeting, and weak. The only thing that survives is iron, and that is all that matters. It's a fitting moral for an Iron Hands story, and the book as a whole is a neat insight into how the Iron Hands work. But you can't read it expecting any sort of final satisfaction. The characters you root for all die, and the characters that are complete dicks win the day. The book is well written, if a bit thin on character development and containing a couple plot holes, but it will leave you depressed and angry at the end.

I was actually dabbling with the idea of starting an Iron Hands allied detachment for my Ultramarines. But after reading this book, that's right out the window. Iron Hands? Those guys are dicks.

Review: 40K BRB for Kindle

I bought myself a Kindle Fire HD a couple weeks ago. I'd gotten one for my wife for Mother's Day this year, and liked the look of it. I mostly got mine for Netflix and web surfing, as I have a ton of paperbacks to read before I could even begin to think about buying eBooks.

However, I wanted to check out the 40K BRB for Kindle, and had just made a tidy profit selling some Battlefleet Gothic Tyranid Cruisers. So, I loosened the purse strings and splurged on the eBook. It was actually cheaper than trying to buy the Dark Vengeance mini rulebook from a bit seller!
Here's a quick, fast, and dirty review of the product.

The navigation is pretty simple. Flick through the pages. You can tap and hold to view the book toolbar. The toolbar allows you to quickly navigate to certain sections of the book. I didn't try to match the sections up to the hardcover, but they seem to be pretty intuitive and help navigation by putting you as close as can be to what you need.

The bookmark feature is great. I've added a bookmark on the Psychic Powers page and the Game Summary page so far. I'll also put one at the beginning of the Universal Special Rules page. From the toolbar, you can quickly hop to a bookmarked section. Great for games where you need to look up the wording of a specific rule or power.

You can also zoom in to the example diagrams and photos in the eBook, though I found that there's not much point in doing so, as they don't tend to get all that much bigger. You cannot zoom in to the data tables, though. For example, the summary tables in the back that outline movement speeds and effects of difficult terrain on units can't be zoomed in, but the to-hit chart can. This is because the to-hit chart is an image, not a table. It's not a big deal, as everything is readable on the Kindle screen.
One thing that took some adjustment was the inability to pinch to zoom in and out. On web pages, you can pinch the screen to zoom on a particular area. The eBook format doesn't allow that. If you need bigger text, you have to change the font size.

You can change the background of the book from black on white to black on sepia or white on black. The sepia background helps tables and example text stand out, as those remain highlighted in white.
There's also a highlighter function, where you can drag over passages and assign a highlight color to them. Those are marked in your Bookmarks list for quick navigation.

It's important to note that the eBook is the rules only. No fluff or painting sections. There are also no interactive popouts or glossary features like the iBook version for iPad. It's a straightforward text conversion only with a few helpful features for marking passages and pages. If you already have the mini rulebook and don't mind carrying that around, I'd skip the Kindle version unless you're also downloading and keeping codexes and supplements with you. If you don't have the mini rulebook, hate lugging the full rulebook, and already have or wanted a Kindle, the eBook BRB is worth the $30+ price. You won't find the mini rulebook online for cheaper than that after shipping, at least not reliably.

Hobbyless Holiday

I hope the holiday treated all of you (well, the Americans, at least) well. Mine was ok, between long drives and a fussy, sick baby boy. Sleep is for the weak, apparently.

I wasn't able to squeeze in any hobbying over the long weekend, since I was away for Thursday and Friday, exhausted on Saturday, and my plans to airbrush on Sunday were altered when I realized I needed my skates sharpened for a hockey game that night. Oh well. Maybe Tuesday night instead.

I did finish reading Dan Abnett's Malleus over the break, and I have moved on to Hereticus. Malleus was good, but had a really floppy ending. The story is action packed and intriguing, but I felt like the last chapter and epilogue were completely phoned in. Eisenhorn spends the entire book (like 3-5 years of time) tracking down the Big Bad, only to defeat and resolve the conflict in six pages. I've often wondered at the editing processes of novel writers, and this notion that it's a lot like writing a movie or TV show. Half of what you intended gets left on the cutting room floor. I suspect there was a conversation that involved the editors saying "Great book, Dan, but it's 75 pages too long. Shorten the ending, please."

The more I read of the trilogy, the more I'm tempted to add a small Allies contingent to my army. I'd really like to add a single Inquisitor model and a small unit of Kasrkin models to my collection. I love the Kasrkin, both in models and in fluff.
Of course, I'm not sure how to implement that addition. I thought of three different options:

1) Run them out of Codex: Grey Knights. Inquisitor as HQ, Kasrkin as Henchmen Elites. This would require em to also run a Troops slot. I'd probably go for a 5-man Strike Squad, because Terminators are too pricey points-wise, and the Strike Squad brings Warp Quake to the board. Of course, I'd probably also want at least one transport, either for the Strike Squad or the Inquisitor. Another benefit here is that I can take a lot fewer Kasrkin models as Henchmen Warriors. The other options below require a full 10.
I flatly refuse to run Coteaz to make the Kasrkin Troops. it just doesn't fit with the reason I wanted to run them in the first place! I don't want big, in-game benefits for these guys. I just want the cool models on the board.

2) Run them out of Codex: IG. Inquisitor model is a Primaris Psyker, and the Kasrkin are IG Vets with lasguns. It's ok, but I'm not sold on the Primaris part. Yes, he brings Divination to the board, but again, I'm not in this for game benefits. Again, I'd probably need a transport.

3) Run them out of Codex: IG. Inquisitor model is a Commissar Lord, and the Kasrkin are IG Vets again. Less in-game benefit, and more wargear options for the HQ (though not as many as an actual Inquisitor).

I really can't decide which I like, though I like some aspect of them all. The IG options would also grant me access to a Valkyrie, which I've wanted to try painting since the final scene in THQ's Space Marine game. The Inquisitor shows up in a black-painted Valkyrie with =I= symbols on the wings. Very cool.

What would you do?

Book Review: Xenos (No Spoilers)

I'm a pretty avid reader of Black Library fiction, being a fan of the 40K universe in addition to the game. I get a lot of my Black Library books from paperbackswap.com. That's where I got this copy of Dan Abnett's 'Xenos'.
The series was highly recommended by gamers at the FLGS, and I was running low on my backstock of novels. I decided to start reading the series, despite my love-hate feelings toward Inquisitors in general.

The story starts out in a gumshoe detective fashion, which I found to be quite good. I'd not really thought of Inquisitors as detectives, but more as warrior-psykers or covert spies. As the book goes on, you learn that the detetive vibe is because of Eisenhorn's personal style. There are several Inquisitor characters, each with their own methods and attitudes. You get to see some interesting play between the Inquisitors of the different schools, from extreme radical to fanatical puritan.

The book's pace is good, though there are a few points where it slows down for exposition and introspection. Thankfully, the pace stays brisk overall, whether there is an action scene or not.

The large majority of events in the book are believable within the fram of the 40K universe. Eisenhorn isn't a one-man army. It's important to note that the background details are of the older GW canon. Example: Deathwatch Marines are referred to as a Chapter, not an organization. There's no reference to the Marines being from individual Chapters at all, which is fine. It may even be possible that Abnett glossed over those details, or misrepresented them, because Eisenhorn simply doesn't know them. The book is written in first-person perspective, after all.
There is also a believable passage of time, versus character development. For example, the characters make a 30-week journey through the Warp on a ship. They spend their time constructively, and layman/amateur characters manage to evolve into capable skill users. Those are small details that make the story work.

My only gripe abut the book is the ending. The final climax is ended by a bit of a deus ex machina. I'm aware the book is the first part of a trilogy, but the heroes get off way too easy, with the Big Bad simply running off at the end though no actions of the main character. It's my one pet peeve in fiction writing. Solve your characters' problems through their own actions, authors! You don't end a story with a minor character saving the hero with a small act.

All in all, I'd give the book a solid A grade. The only thing keeping it from an A+ is the ending, and the fact that said ending is a lead-in to the sequel.
The entire trilogy is available from the Black Library as an omnibus now, as opposed to the three book format in which I acquired it.