Wolf Guard Terminators WIP 3

Few words, lots of pics.

Odds and Ends

Dark Eldar armor is slowly getting refined.  Still in the air over whether I want a darker red or a brighter red.  Hopefully in between the test model and the Sybarite in this update.  Wyche test model in a clean up and detail phase.  Wolf Guard Terminator is in there because my plan worked.  After painting a bunch of DE I felt the need to get some work done on my Space Wolves.  The power axe looks weird in the pics.  Like the energy tendrils aren't coming out of the edge, but they do in person.  Going to have to do something about that.

Prospero Burns Review (The Bad, The Good, and The Meh)

Not my favorite Horus Heresy novel.  Bam!  Goodnight.

Nah, seriously, I wasn't a huge fan.

The Bad:
Judging it simply as a literary work, its not bad.  Its a very competent execution.  Still, not Abnett's best.  His battle run downs are almost off handed.  Like he's gotten bored with describing dismemberment in all its glorious forms.  Death on a massive scale is so blase after all...

"Soandso had his head chopped off.  Soandso2 was decapitated and his arms torn off.  Soandso3 was torn in half and by the way...had his head chopped off."  Really Dan?  I'm not making this up.  This is a paraphrase of an actual part of the novel that takes place during the fall of Prospero. Which, by the way, takes place in the absolute last section of the book and is incredibly short.  I read it in an hour.  The novel is called, Prospero Burns, and the battle itself is barely a footnote.

My biggest issue with his prose is his fall back to repetition throughout the story.  There are entire paragraphs devoted to saying one thing three different ways.  This is significant considering the book is pretty short when compared to the other HH novels.

This is barely a Space Wolves novel.  They are supporting characters!  I repeat, Dan Abnett made the Space Wolves supporting characters in their own novel.  See more about this in the Meh section.

The Good:
Its gives us a peek at the tribals of Fenris...a section that easily equals the amount of pages spent on Prospero.

It gives us a decent look at the "The Rout" themselves.  Pre-Heresy Space Wolves don't call themselves Space Wolves.  They're "The Rout" or Vlka Fenryka.  The Fang, the most famous fortress in all of WH40K, is not The Fang.  Its "The Aett."  These little things, whether you approve of the execution or not, are nice bits of world building.  I love world building.

There are a ton of little things that I enjoyed about this book.

The depiction of Long Fang.  He's a Terran born Space Wolf Rune Priest.

"Bear"  I put the name in quotations because there's a funny story surrounding the name.  Bear is just a cool character.  An utter bad ass, a stoic pragmatist, and a good friend.  That IS what a Space Wolf should be.

SPOILERS!!!!!!(Highlight the space below to reveal)
"Bear" spends the entire novel as "Bear."  At the end, its revealed that the narrator mistranslated his name and its actually...drumroll please...BJORN!!  Bjorn the Fell Handed himself...at least thats what I think.  He ends up losing his arm in a fight with a Daemon and later makes a remark upon seeing a couple of his Dreadnought brothers.  He was happy he lost only an arm because surely being a Dreadnought would be worse.  *wink wink*

All in all, Abnett's depiction of the Wolves is well done.  They are savages.  They are murderers.  They'd be the first to tell you this themselves.  They are also cunning.  They are practical.  They are loyal and steadfast.

Chained beasts, but the chains are there for the guests' assurances.  Their master knows that he need only raise his voice and they are his will personified.

This is a nice second side to the story depicted in, A Thousand Sons.  In A Thousand Sons Russ is shown to have no hesitation in the prosecution of his brother, Magnus.  In Prospero Burns he's shown to have given Magnus many warnings.  Even going so far as to attempt to speak through a proxy to Magnus to get him to surrender peacefully to spare his life and the lives of his Legion.  The Wolf King makes only three or four appearances in the novel, but his presence is felt.  He is shown to be a wise leader with a decent heart, but a firm hand.

The Meh:
The Narrator!  Ugh.  I understand what Abnett was trying to do.  I understand that it would have been very hard to have a Space Wolf narrate this story.  An outsider was needed to tell the story of Prospero.  Unfortunately, this is a crutch that many Horus Heresy novelists have fallen back on.  Telling stories through Remembrancer characters or Legion proxies so that questions that a member of the Legion would never ask can be asked for the benefit of the reader.  We get the point.  Astartes are demigods.  Who better to marvel and impart marvel for the Astartes than a mortal, but damn...is it getting a bit old.

This is a minor issue so it didn't make it into the bad.  Hell, it might have even made it into the Good section if not for SO MUCH of the book being devoted to this one character.  So many pages were spent trying to get the reader to care about The Man of Many Names that it makes the Space Wolves themselves supporting characters in the ONLY  HH novel devoted to the VIth Legion.  Let me reiterate.  The Narrator is not a bad character.  His motivations are fleshed out, the subplot surrounding him is woven into the Heresy as a whole, and he serves a purpose to the Legion.  Unfortunately, the subplot is dumb in my opinion.  I'm not going to spoil it. Not even in blocked out letters.  The subplot's resolution is over inflated and it felt like Abnett wrote himself into a corner and decided, "well I've spent over half the book on this bullshit I might as well give it delusions of grandeur that affect every aspect of the Heresy now."

Stupid as it is, its not "bad" per se.  Its just not a great decision in my opinion.  It works as far as it could.  I'm not anywhere near as competent a writer as Abnett is so what do I know?  Maybe he felt this was the ONLY way this story could be told with a sense of power.  I just wish it hadn't completely overshadowed the Space Wolves themselves.

Summation:
A Thousand Sons was the stronger of these two novels.  If you read A Thousand Sons you got the gist of the Fall of Prospero.  Read Prospero Burns if you're a Space Wolves fan.  Otherwise, save yourself the cash and hope it shows up in your local library.  Its not a bad book.  Its a decent one, but it falls short of expectations.  Health problems or not this did not read like a piece of work that was YEARS in development.

Personal Note:
This was all very hard for me to say.  I'm not a fan of McNeill.  Storm of Iron and Thousand Sons are the only books of his that I enjoy.  On the other hand, I love Abnett.  He and Aaron Dembski-Bowden are my two favorite Black Library authors.

Off Topic:  Now that I've finally put this baby to rest.(I was waiting so very long for this book to come out)  I can go back to reading Lord of Night with the second Ciaphas Cain Omnibus soon to follow that.

Skin is the New Black 12/21

Fallout: New Vegas Dead Money is queued up on XBL, but it cycles endlessly through a load screen when I A button that obstinant executable.  This has forced me to paint and make my own photo box out of duct tape and foam board from a painter's palette.  Its so weird not painting space marines.

Clap your hands or cover your mouths because all orifices can be made to know suffering...

More DE wip pics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tallarn Flesh basecoat for refurbished flesh and  Dheneb Stone for actual flesh.

I still haven no idea what color I'm going to make the bodysuit.  Possibly blue.  Really just working on my gold.  Scorched Brown/Shining Gold mix to pure shining gold to burnished gold to burnished gold/mythril silver mix.  Consecutive Gryphonne Sepia washes followed by leviathan purple painted into the recesses.

Still my first warrior squad...

Knife

Foam board

Duct tape.

The 1 minute Light box.

Why I hate Games Workshop Paints...

Deja vu.  Its like this almost every time I go to paint.  A color I was planning on using is dried out despite being securely closed.  Last week it was Chaos Black...this week Leviathan Purple.  I want to go through my GW paint pots to see exactly how many are still viable, but I'm too afraid!  I've been slowly building up my Vallejo Game Color collection to replace my others.  I'm done with Citadel paints.  DONE!  Well, except for their washes and foundations...I love them too much.  Too bad my Mordian Blue dried out as well.  VGC is just so hard to find.  My only local retailer is Dreamland Comics in Vernon Hills, but they have incomplete stock and seem to have restocking issues.(I've been begging them to restock their black, but no dice so far.  Probably because they want to get out of gaming altogether since a Games Workshop opened up ten minutes down the street)  Online retailers aren't much better.  The Warstore is out of black and has been for at least a month.  To quote an American icon, "AARRRRGGGHHH!"  Just a few pics of my test models.

My lovely girlfriend, Tabitha, proudly displaying the source of my despair.  Power from Pain indeed!

My test Wych.  I'm thinking gold for the armor plates and purple for the bodysuit.

Not entirely sure about what I'm going to do with the Hellions schemewise.  Possibly green and black.

Dark Eldar Kabalite Warrior Test Mini

I'm attempting to do the Kabal of the Flayed Skull.  So far I own a box of warriors, a box of Hellions, a Raider, an Archon, and Urien Rakarth.(just a counts as Haemonculus because I'm not fond of the character's rules)  I haven't done any of the detailing yet.  Just trying to nail my red.  The Rakarth pics are just there in case anyone was interested in seeing the model.  Its definitely one of my favorite sculpts.

Large Pic Update

Long Hunter WIPs, Razorback for Long Fangs WIP, Objective Marker WIP, Work space pic, and the start of my Dark Eldar.

No resin bases for the DE.  That sort of treatment is reserved for the Sons of Russ.

I found this desk and gave it a new life as a workspace for my grey plastic minions.

Really just playing around with this to see if I can get it to work.  Looks a bit crap right now.  Didn't even bother trimming flash yet.

Two Long Fangs with Rogue Trader Missile Launchers.  Still waiting on two more MLs to finish the squad.

Grey Hunter with Phobos pattern Bolter

Kabalite with Blaster