I've finished the first of the free books they gave out a while back for the app launch, it sucked.
Female authors are a mistake. Or at least this one is since she can't write a consistent character to save her life. While this wouldn't be a problem if the novel was just bolter porn, it's not that. It's fairly introspective and the bulk of the runtime is spent inside the internal monologue of our two main characters/narrators. They both struggle with survivors guilt, Evangeline the batter sister after surviving a face off against a lord of change on Ophelia VII (presumably the tyrant of blue flame). The other one is a schizophrenic inquisitor (literally, she can't differentiate between reality and prophetic dreams) on a quest to save her almost dead interrogator/lesbian lover. There are other characters but they get very little screen time and wouldn't you know they all also have some manner of survivors guilt.
Evangeline can be both extremely zealous, as a SoB should but also weirdly understanding at times. At one point a young sister under her command blindly charges into some kind of demon which results in another sister getting heavily wounded. Said sister just gets a stern talking to and they literally hug it out. But for the entire novel she thinks she's heading toward certain death and is completely fine with that. When that death fails to happen during the final battle, she decides to become a repentia becouse she doubted Big-E. . She also sometimes acts a bit marry sue-ish. Not only does she survive a lord of change without immediatly turning into fruit-by-the-foot, she gets marked with the titular mark of faith and is prophecized by the ecclisiarchy on terra to go and get the McGuffin, which leads to people literally worshipping her. To give the author credit she leaves it up to interpretation if everything involving her mark and prophesy was a tzeentch scheme or not.
The problems sart with Ravara, the afformentioned shizophrenic inquisitor. She's also bipolar but the pollar oposite of Evangeline. While Eva is a gentle souls who blames herself for everything that happens Ravara is the kind of person who wont take blame for anything ever. She's a very sterotypical inquisitor. She very quickly resorts to threatening anyone who dosn't agree with her, has in her past sanctioned exterminatus and all other fun stuff. She's also a seer, having prophetic dreams. So while lesser members of the Inquistion might result to lowly techniques such as interrogation and invesitgation to acomplish their goals she just dreams up the solution. She searching for a diffrent McGuffin that she belives will help her both close the great rift and heal her dying interrogator. As the plot progresses her shizophrenia gets worse and she starts seeing a ghost of her father. This time the author leaves no room for interpretation. Her visions and the ghosts are all part of a thousand sons sourcerer's scheme to unrubric his brother.. The issues with her are twofold. First of all the author clearly wants us to be symphetetic with her plight. Which is very difficult becouse her problems are entirely her own fault and as previously mentioned she's a very brutal cunt who probably killed billions becouse she dreamed someone will do a heresy. While very grimdark and a good idea the execution falls flat. You don't get to go 'I'm just a smol bean' as an inquistor. Second of all how did her powers not set off any alarm bells in the inquisition long before she earned her rossette. Seer powers are generally associated with the eldar and Tzeench. Not even the strongest human psykers could do that.
Kais is a fucking great character. If Farsight is this old, wizened sage who keeps his trauma in check through will and meditation Kais has become this PTSD-riddled nutcase completely unable to verbalize anymore from how mentally broken he is as a result of all the shit he's seen and done. IIRC it was made canon that the Kais in Dark Crusade is that same Kais, so it seems like he decided to recover enough mentally to try diplomacy like Farsight... only to lose and then start freaking out again and snapping.
The canon with Kais is a bit weird because the timeline doesn't hold up and he has a common tau name but I do prefer to assume he's the same guy they promoted the shit out of. and then put him in a suspended animation that left his brain awake for 300 years so he could eventually be crazy enough to solo an entire fortress monastery. Ill have to get around to reading that sequel someday. (Otherwise the tau have three guys with the same name that are all equally badass.)
I never liked Tau lore, they just read like a worse Eldar with a constant superiority complex over humans (despite being a tiny fish in a pond), and faction wide plot armor with how they aren't fucked by AI and Chaos. Humans being better under Tau is also more of an informed trait as they are still third rate citizens who work constantly, live and die by the whims of an approachable caste and only stick with the system due to religious dogma and the threat of violence.
The superiority complex is there, but it comes across more as propaganda indoctrination then racial dickery. (and again the average Tau age is 40 years, its usually youth talking) The Tau are capable of wising up once shit gets real. One of my favorite scenes in the first book of the Farsight trilogy is seeing him get insanely pissed off at one of his best men for underestimating the Imperium again after everything they've seen and been though. All but saying "WE ARE ANTS AGAINST A MOUNTAIN, IF YOU WERE A RECRUIT ID SEND YOU BACK TO THE ACADAMY IN DISAGRACE"
(It is so satisfying reading it in Peter's voice)
AI can be explained by how well they are treated by the Tau, Often times they view them as brothers in arms and dont ask them to do anything they wouldn't do if they could. That said, there is an example in the shadowsun book of an AI freezing up in a logic problem when it cant guarantee her safety and almost gets her killed.
The Chaos side is actually pretty interesting because it's actively working to find a way to corrupt the empire. For all their shadyness, the repressive System set up by the Ethereals is good at preventing chaos (and the stealers funny enough) from getting a foothold by giving everyone a purpose and not tolerating deviance. That doesn't mean they cant be possessed, it's just a lot more rare. A tau water caste guy gets possessed by a tzeentch demon after absent mindedly touching a warp engine the Tau were working on and he does some crazy shit ill talk about later.
Humanity is an interesting pickle, because they dont get a choice in working for or with the greater good. But if they play ball, the benefits are "usually" pretty good (free medicine, better quality goods, better working conditions). The trouble is the Tau is not a monolith when dealing with them. There are different ideas about their treatment under different leaders. And there's no cops enforcing the rules to protect them. In the grand scheme of things I think it usually works out as long as everybody gets the picture and plays ball. Otherwise the Tau gradually ramp up pressure with sterilization and work camps. They dont usually engage in wholesale genocide but there may be exceptions. With Farsight, I appreciate that underneath the racial superiority and misgivings about humanity he does want to free slaves from a horrific mechanicus death world.
Damn, that is a glowing review. That was the one 40k book I simply couldn't read all the way through because I couldn't stand it. I thought the idea of this Tau going against the grain and becoming more violent was really interesting at first.
This is where it really lost me. So much of it felt contrived. On practically his first deployment, in his first encounter with SM, he gets nailed in the head with a bolter round that happens to not penetrate his armor and on top of that doesn't explode, he gets KO'd with space marines standing right over him. You're telling me nobody's gonna stomp on his head and make sure?
It was decent bolter porn, but it felt like the character was just invincible by dumb luck, and made SM feel like lumbering, slow idiots rather than highly trained devastating killers. It's interesting that you came away with the opposite perspective; I did like how the Tau started to fear him and get freaked out by his increasingly merciless perspective. Maybe I'll give it another shot, as I did not get to him working with UM.
A lot of it can be handwaved as Chaos outright giving him an edge or looking out for him.
The first time he kills a marine he uses an ethereal as a human shield and pops his head with a plasma pistol. 2nd time he fights 5 marines, he Snipes a unhelmed librrian in the middle of a mind probe, shoots a grenade launcher into a guys face and pops another with a plasma round. Really the biggest bullshit isn't surviving an unexploding bolter round to the face. It's being able to outrun and dodge Bolter fire to the point to where some SM's kill each other in a cross fire. Last guy almost gets to stomp him before his Tau buddies Volley fire him to death. I did like how it emphasized that tau rifles do shit against their armor unless you have a lot of concentrated fire. There's also a moment where he flings an explosive drone into a bunch of marines in a tight corridor and kills them all. That may or may not be total bullshit, but it was cool.
I chalk a lot of the raptors fucking up to being not as suited to ship interior combat as open ground but I dunno. Poor bastards really went in with light expectations against the Tau. And to be fair its kinda like fighting on easy mode at first.
I also want to correct the meme that Tau are incapable of melee. There's a line that the bog standard infantry are not trained for it. But Farsight has his regulars trained in using their ceremonial knives.
It aint much, but it can work in a pinch and Kais was able to kill a fucking demon (and a guardsman) with it. But more importantly in the lore, the battlesuits kick total ass.
A tau battlesuit in a tight hallway with a couple SM's can easily kill them all. They have melee based plasma weaponery, but even without that they can backhand everything to death with their fists. They also have Beam shields so they can take a shit ton of punishment. The tau really need to make entire SM style company's of these dam things. They can do everything.
A tau water caste guy gets possessed by a tzeentch demon after absent mindedly touching a warp engine the Tau were working on and he does some crazy shit ill talk about later.
AI can be explained by how well they are treated by the Tau, Often times they view them as brothers in arms and dont ask them to do anything they wouldn't do if they could. That said, there is an example in the shadowsun book of an AI freezing up in a logic problem when it cant guarantee her safety and almost gets her killed.
The Chaos side is actually pretty interesting because it's actively working to find a way to corrupt the empire. For all their shadyness, the repressive System set up by the Ethereals is good at preventing chaos (and the stealers funny enough) from getting a foothold by giving everyone a purpose and not tolerating deviance. That doesn't mean they cant be possessed, it's just a lot more rare. A tau water caste guy gets possessed by a tzeentch demon after absent mindedly touching a warp engine the Tau were working on and he does some crazy shit ill talk about later.
It should still be way worse, even if the Tau are relatively small psychically (but not immune) their allies and Ethereals should be much more vulnerable to chaos, and once Chaos takes root even the best attempts in order fail.
Humanity is an interesting pickle, because they dont get a choice in working for or with the greater good. But if they play ball, the benefits are "usually" pretty good (free medicine, better quality goods, better working conditions).
It raises a contradiction that on one hand Tau society is way more free for humans, but in the same time controlling enough that they can't create cults like in Imperial worlds. It should be one way or the other.
I also want to correct the meme that Tau are incapable of melee. There's a line that the bog standard infantry are not trained for it. But Farsight has his regulars trained in using their ceremonial knives.
Lore wise their issue is massively reduced reaction time and size compared to an average human, so in hand to hand they will almost lose. And that's before psyker fuckary puts them against someone who can preemptively know their moves and bolster his strength.
The only chance they have is using mechs to bridge the gap, but at that point you are fighting a robot rather than the pilot.
It aint much, but it can work in a pinch and Kais was able to kill a fucking demon (and a guardsman) with it. But more importantly in the lore, the battlesuits kick total ass.
So Monument Hobbies made their own line of Speed Paint/Contrast Paint called One Step.
Ended up picking them up, since I adore their paints. Ended up trying it out on one of the Death Guard Mini's i have.
The Only thing that isn't the one step is the metallic, which is the Army Painter Rough Iron, and the fluorescent, which is Monument Hobbies Fluorescent Orange. The armor is a mix of the One Step Warm Yellow and their graphite green, the skin is the shadow flesh. Overall, enjoying the paints. They airbrush without thinning too, which is nice, though obvious. They won't replace regular paints for me but like Speed Paint and Contrast paint, I can see myself using them to quickly paint an army.
For those that care here are all the paints that I used.
Once again, leftards would gladly be eaten by Tyranids, ultra-raped by the Dark Eldar and/or Slaaneshi and so on, than doing something racist. Unless the enemy is vaguely Trumpian/NAAZI/opposes them, then exterminating with twice the zeal of the average Inquisitor is mandatory.
Once more someone doesn't understand irony/satire or the distinction between them.
'I can't understand that this setting isn't idealizing the horrible fascist slave state that's actively throwing orphans into the literal gears of industry unless a character looks at the camera and makes a marvel movie quip'.
These people need to kill themselves. 'The actual lore is 100% justification of genocide' READ THE FUCKING BLURB THEY PUT ON THIS SHIT PAGE ONE RETARD. ONLY WAR. LAUGHING GODS. CORPSE-EMPEROR.
Everyone is genociding everyone and thus there is no genocide. It's a war game where every faction is a motherfucker trying to out bastard everyone else. That's the irony, that the Imperium is the worst shit ever conceived yet every other faction (besides the Tau, who this author would unironically approve of since they have re-education camps) is worse.
Edit: I appreciate one of the top replies being an earnest explanation of what satire is and how this person is a faggot.
What? Astartes are a power fantasy to be a genetically modified racist superhuman and not a condemnation of DRUMPF in current year? I just don’t know what to do with this information. At least chaos is the real antifa fighting fascism for democracy in the galaxy.
Space Marine 2 breaks minds in very special ways because people probably hear from other wokies that 40k is a hecking anti fascist satire and unless you have context from the previous game and shitty background lore they only revealed in a WD you can more or less just barely get that the imperium is bad from background convos while a diverse multicultural squad of gigachads do heroics to stop a space Satan incarnate and genocidal bugs. You're the Ultramarines so its not like they could've written them as bastards too much anyways.
I do remember a single redditor say the same about Darktide, which although the story was shittier, (read, even more non existant) you still had someone decrying the fascist power fantasy even though the game screams at you that the imperium is le bad
SM2 is pretty on the nose that you're working for the guy's building mega-structure factory hell holes that use literal chain gangs to haul missiles around, have lobotomized peasants around to do menial labor, are religious fanatics, etc.
But you're fighting hyper locust and guys literally trying to summon Satan, so its fine to butcher them while being full of euphoric zeal in your service to the fascist death cult.
People who only care about Le Fascists Bad just can't square the circle because you're playing a game as 'the good guys' regardless.
Anyone who can't just stop clutching pearls to enjoy a power fantasy with a grimdark backdrop had no chance of enjoying it. These are the 'subnautica can't have a knife, that wouldn't be wholesome' crowd.
