So, it's been a while. A combination of things have kept me from writing on here for a few days, few of them good unfortunately. The daemonic entity which occupied the building of my last job made one last effort to kill me and claim my soul, altering fate by trying to end my life via stress induced heart attack. I was then unable to take the week off to prepare for my new one as planned, forcing me to cram seven days of work into two. Oh, and now after joining my new employment, I was given a three day crash course crammed full of information, before being left as the only person to run my department. In fairness though, that one was just plain bad luck, and no, you're not getting more details on this.
The point is this - Lots of bad stuff kept me from sitting down to properly type, moderate and run this website, and that's something i'm trying to end. Starting tomorrow things will be moving again, though I cannot say they'll be up to full speed for a while at least. As it stands, we'll be aiming for three to four updates per week to try and account for abrupt workload shifts, and quite a few of those will be going back to old ideas.
More than a few things I wanted to do were missed dropped abruptly thanks to the utterly hellish last few weeks of my previous job - including a rather great April' Fools joke. These will be focused upon first, added in around new releases as we can and updated as time goes by. Sure, new video games and novels will still take priority, but there's a lot of classic coverage and past great releases which deserves a great deal of attention. This is especially true of Black Library, with one particularly overlooked book which we'll be covering in full tomorrow.
You can also expect a Star Wars related announcement not long after that. I won't spoil much ahead of time, but there are a few follow-up comments which need to be made surrounding Aftermath and, having thought over the subject for quite some time now, I have decided there's more we need to talk about before finishing up with that franchise.
So, fingers crossed, and with any luck we'll be back to releasing content at our usual pacing again. You have my word that all viable comments will be approved and quite a few awaiting ones will be responded over the coming week or so, just as soon as I sift through the usual wealth of morons, spambots and death-threat dealers first. I apologise in advance if it takes me some time to upload your comment and answer it, but you have my word we will get to it at some point.
Oh, and if you're not a fan of the obvious Terminator reference, here's the alternative:
Welcome back!
ReplyDeleteMany thanks.
DeleteI approve of the gif. Also, I have a question. Would it be alright if I periodically sent you 40k lore questions? If so, how should I send them?
ReplyDeleteAt the moment that's a bit difficult unfortunately. I am sorry, normally I wouldn't be opposed to this at all, but given how busy life is they would probably be set aside and then forgotten about as I try to juggle around various tasks. You're welcome to leave a couple of comments here and I will try to get back to you on them, but it might be some time before I can open myself up to that sort of thing again.
DeleteThat's fair, and I understand that you're still quite busy. I'll continue to visit the blog, so just let me know when your plate is light enough to indulge my questions in the future.
DeleteWelcome back. I'm curious what more there is to cover about Aftermath, and also what games you're going to be reviewing as there's a lot of them coming out recently.
ReplyDeleteHasn't been too many new 40k things past the third Gathering Storm book though with two major exceptions, those being that the Sisters of Silence and the Adeptus Custodes each got a Codex that helps further the story slightly (located in the Talons of the Emperor box set instead of being sold separately).
There's not much to either so if you're not going to cover them then that's completely understandable, but what we get is good for the most part (there's one bit in the Custodes lore that's not well thought out) if a bit bare-bones for both books.
In any case apparently Guilliman's extra armed forces for the Imperium aren't soldiers using whatever the Tau have to appear out of nowhere, instead they're the Custodes. The book states that after a long discussion (and apparently getting permission from daddy) Guilliman convinced them that the best way to protect the Emperor, is to kill any and all threats to him before they reach the palace and in doing so, redeem themselves for not being there during his duel with Horus. All of the Companions remained behind while all other Custodes headed off into the galaxy, with the book stating they number somewhere around 10,000+. We also get more details on what they are specifically, in that apparently they have the Emperor's blood flowing through them (though I guess they've got some way of recreating it as it mentions that they can still make more Custodes) and apparently the Custodes to the Emperor is like the Marines to their Primarchs, though the Custodes still don't have gene-seed and the process of making them still differs from how one would make Astartes. We also get confirmation that the Custodes do not age, which makes them biologically immortal in that if they're not killed in some way then they'll live forever, and even the ones with the worst of wounds can live forever as Contemptor Dreadnoughts.
Apparently too they have their own fleet, which at least gives a somewhat reasonable explanation for how the Imperium's supposed to push back against Chaos.
The Sisters of Silence on the other hand are now used partially to hunt Chaos forces, and partially as extra buffers to keep back the spreading Chaos. A few are stationed on ships to make them less vulnerable to the denizens of the warp, while others hunt down Chaos Sorcerers and close warp rifts. They also give explanations for how they're still around (which make a decent amount of sense provided you ignore what the Beast Arises did with them) and their numbers are also stated to be in the tens of thousands. I actually tried doing the math on the amount of planets that the Gathering Storm books claim the Imperium has in comparison to what the numbers of Pariahs that the Sisters Codex claims to exist, and that's actually well within reason. It also mentions that after the Horus Heresy some of them tried moving on to other areas to start life over, and apparently some managed to have kids in areas that weren't extremely hostile towards them (though it was hostile enough to get them to leave eventually) and apparently those had kids later, and that's the explanation we're given for why the Pariah Gene spread throughout the Imperium (honestly I don't find it that bad of an explanation). Apparently the reason their gear is still the same and what they've been doing in the meantime is working for the Astra Telepathica, as the book states that when an Astropath gets word of a Rogue Psyker or some sort of Psychic Tyrant it can get passed on to the Sisters who'll show up (usually in secret) to remove this threat, presumably if the Ordo Hereticus doesn't deal with it first.
In any case I'm interested in if the books are going to keep pushing the plot along like this, and if they are then I'm certainly not opposed to it.
I think i'm definitely going to need to sit down and go through the codices myself at some point, if i'm given a proper chance at any rate. From the sounds of it there are a few awkward retcons here and some odd ideas that I'm going to need to look over in dettail, but it doesn't sound too bad at all thus far. It is a shame it's rather bare bones given that these are two major factions which are being re-introduced to the setting and I do personally think that there needs to be a little more thought put into just how much impact that would have or why they would emerge now. The Custodes example, just going from what you said, seems a little too simplistic for my personal tastes and I think there's a better way it could be fully described on the whole. I do personally quite like the idea that both have been very active over ten thousand years despite this though.
DeleteThey're very short which definitely helps out in going through them, and I'm mainly hoping that Forgeworld comes out and says you can take several of their units as Custodes units, similar to what they did for the Deathwatch on their facebook page:
Deletehttps://www.facebook.com/ForgeWorldUK/photos/a.257098454307442.84604.257094630974491/1441653392518603/?type=3&theater
That's a long link but I think it's very important since the Deathwatch got more than a little screwed on vehicles, since Kelly and Cruddace said that they only included what they wanted the players to buy (also it seems that Forgeworld didn't get the memo that the Deathwatch aren't a part of the Inquisition any more).
It'll probably take forever for that to be the case though, and they might not even do it since they could just stick with their Talons of the Emperor set. It would be a shame if they did that though, since nearly all the Marine 30k stuff also has 40k rules.
Continuing on from that previous comment, the rules for both the Sisters and Custodes are rather limiting, though moreso for the Sisters than the Custodes.
ReplyDeleteThe reason for this is that the Sisters have three squads: the bolter squad, the sword squad and the flamer squad. You can't mix and match, which is sad because you used to be able to when GW released that free Burning of Prospero PDF. Granted the individual squads are still good, especially the sword squad as they have Strength 4 AP2 weapons that strike at Initiative 5, while the worst of the Sisters has 2 Attacks base. They have no issue hacking through anything (even enough of them can take down Custodes if they forget to bring their shields and forget to use their special detachment to its fullest).
Aside from those though, they get a rhino, and that's it. Just four units to make an army out of, though it's certainly not the worst offender in that aspect (just look at the 6th edition Imperial Knight Codex). On the plus side if you used them to their fullest, then they basically lock down all Psychic Powers within a 27" radius of each model (yes I'm serious).
The Custodes on the other hand have 5's where Marines have 4's (with the exception of Initiative which besides the squad leader is still 4) however they also get access to the best weapon in the game: the Guardian Spear, the Guardian Spear however is weird and also kind of funny in what it can do.
So it works exactly like the Guardian Spear that Deathwatch Watch Masters get by default (although this time it states that the spear's supposed to be a symbol of the Emperor's authority, so it's still beyond me as to how the Deathwatch got it) but there's a major change with it: multiple models can block the same attack at the same time.
How that works is you roll one dice for each model trying to block the attack, and if the total is higher than the to hit roll, then the attack is blocked. Since the average roll of 2D6 is 7, this effectively means that 2 Custodes can outright negate a single attack that hits the group (since you nominate against attacks that hit, you don't have to worry about attacks that miss). It also doesn't interfere with their own attacks, so there's no downside in attempting to block attacks. Better yet too, the Custodes can use this ability to flat-out cheat in challenges, since the wording allows other Custodes to block attacks that are meant for the challenger. To use a quick example, if Ghazghkull was up against a minimum sized squad of Custodes and they were all armed with Guardian Spears, then he's mathematically incapable of putting a single Wound on them (or even getting remotely close to one) before he's slaughtered. Even if just the squad leader attacks him he'll die before dealing a single Wound in return (although I suppose this cheating ability's fitting for bodyguards). That said the spears are not nearly as good against mass amounts of attacks, as opposed to few high-quality attacks.
The only limit to what the Block ability can affect is whether or not the attacks require rolls to hit. If they require a roll, then it can be blocked regardless if the attack's from a Grot, Marine, Carnifex or Wraithknight (although the last one will just stomp them to death). If there's one disappointment, it's that the Custodes in 40k can only have bolters on their spears (though I honestly prefer these spears with the upgraded block rule over the 30k ones without it). Unfortunately the Custodes only have one squad, a Contemptor Dreadnought, and a Land Raider, that's about it. There isn't that many options on the last two either (not that there were many for the squad) however they've all been buffed since everyone in the army (including the Land Raider) has BS5 and a 5+ Invuln save.
All of that done however, as mentioned before I'm looking forward to what else you're covering and I'm curious what books besides Red Tithe you'll be covering in the future.