Saturday 7 September 2013

Damnos (Book Review)

As with the last book review this is posted in full on http://thefoundingfields.com/ and this is simply a preview. If you want to see it in full then please follow the link through to there.



If there’s one thing to be said about Fall of Damnos, it clearly emphasises the scale of events, the cost behind them but most of all the story’s direction. Within a chapter it’s made very clear how great a threat the necrons truly are, with their forces being awoken and proceeding to rout any who oppose them. We see progressively bigger Imperial forces brought against them only to be smashed down in their advance. Along with setting up a number of important human characters, it gets a lot of details out of the way while setting up the book’s foe. In a very short space of time it establishes their enemy very effectively while keeping them grounded enough in power to show they can truly be fought. Better yet, their SPESS TOMB KINGZ aspects are kept to a bare minimum in this sequence, allowing for some genuine terror to seep through as they pick apart the Imperial military on the planet.

4 comments:

  1. So how did Ward wrote it as a victory? I've read the codex it makes it clear its a lost they lost 50% of the 2nd company and a vet Dreadnought

    it was a fighting retreat but still a retreat the only victory was them saving what's left of the population

    and the Necron Codex shows Damnos is now a major Tomb World

    Also what's wrong with newcrons?

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    1. Except that is only emphasised in the final moments and heavily glossed over. The original tale exploring the Damnos Incident in that edition's Rulebook made it clear the Ultramarines were fighting a losing battle, the necrons were winning and Guilliman's warriors had only achieved saving the lives of a few at the most.

      The codex meanwhile endlessly goes out of its way to emphasise the skill, power and abilities of the Ultramarines without showing any losses. Rarely are they even written to be hard pressed by the assault. Every victory is emphasises to its utmost, while any loss is ignored as much as the writer can manage. It's a heavily biased account of the conflict and tries to present the Ultramarines as having effectively won the war even as it notes they have lost the planet. If you require an article examining how detail by detail it writes the event, I would happily do it in the coming weeks.

      They're a bad joke at best, and a lazily made copy of a fantasy army at worst.

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    2. Wow a Roman themed army glowing over their failures while playing up there victories that never happened ever

      You do know every 40k fluff is ment to be interested as lies and half truths right

      Delete
  2. That's how it's supposed be be written yes. Ward meanwhile writes everything as solid fact with no opinion involved. He's made it clear many times that the massive praise of the Ultramarines in that book aren't intended to be propaganda, it's supposed to be how all 40K is in his eyes. We've seen this in both interviews and his other fluff for books, there's no opinion or half truths within them, just what he thinks should be solid, irrefutable fact. Usually ignoring or intentionally screwing over other authors as he goes.

    Also, please don't try to now worm your way out of your last statement upon being called out on it. You just tried to claim that Ward wrote it as a defeat, yet the second you're proven wrong you immediately reverse your footing and try to act as if you never stated such a thing.

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