When the announcement came out that GW was going to re-do the 13th Black Crusade I was ecstatic. I had taken part in the first and was really disappointed to see all the time and work that went into that huge global campaign just fall by the wayside. All that advancement in the story line simply ret-conned for no particular reason that I could see and without an explanation. The 13th Company of Space Wolves, the Lost and the Damned, the death of Eldrad, and Arhiman’s search, and eventual discovery of the Black Library. Not to mention the sounding victory that Chaos achieved even if GW played it off as a somewhat stalemate. A lot of shit happened just for it all to be taken back when the Chaos 4th ed. Codex came out and set things back to just before the Crusade began.
God I hope they don’t fuck it up…
But before we start this journey I have one thing to say…
SPOILER ALERT!!
Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get started.
CHAPTER 1: THE SLAUGHTER BEGINS
The story starts aboard the Crimson Slaughter flag ship, Kranon is chatting up his third-eyed compatriot Draznicht.
Now for those of you who don’t know anything about the CS I’ll break it down real quick. They are formerly the Crimson Sabres, a loyal space marine chapter who held a strict adherence to the Codex Astartes, so much so that it led them to exterminate an entire planet worth of people because they believed them to be tainted. Well it turns they were probably right as the Marines shortly began to hear the voices of the dead wailing and taunting them. They found that only in slaughter will they earn any sort of respite from the constant bombardment of voices, and even then only for a short while. They are driven insane and assume their current name in the wake of all their slaughter they have to commit.
They discuss the douche bag liar Xorphas, a Black Legion sorcerer, who promised that there was a cure for the plight of voices on a planet called Amethal in the Diamor system. They don’t believe him and suspect he is trying to use them as fodder, but there must be something of some value on the planet so they decide to go along. At very least they will ease their torment for a while.
There is a short box-story that introduces you to a Word Bearer named “who fucking cares”. What plays out is a conversation between said Word Bearer and Xorphas that sounds like a shitty Supervisor talking to his shitty boss who only makes him an even shittier supervisor and he takes out his frustrations on his charges, AKA cultists. The conversation goes like this…
“Oh great and powerful…”
“Stop blathering and speak.”
“The Crimson Slaughter are killing stuff”
“Awesome, get back to work. What do I even pay you for? And find me that gate” <CLICK>
*Re-enact scene from Star Wars: TFA where Kylo Ren destroys computers and the Stormtroopers stop in hall and turn around.* (except with the Word Bearer and cultists)
The attack commences and they start kicking AdMech ass. Eventually things begin to slow down and on all fronts nearly come to a stalemate until a new voice begins speaking to Kranon calling itself Amethal (Yes, the same name as the planet) and asking them to free it. At this point, in typical Warhammer book fashion, they depict an in-game ability working in a far superior manor that it does on the table top (one of the warlord traits) as the mysterious voice grants insurmountable power to the Marines and gives their haunting ghost voices an incorporeal form that go forth and begin killing AdMech.
At about the time where Kranon swings a Dunecrawler into a bunker like a baseball bat with his new found power we go back to "who the fuck cares" who has cleared out a...clearing...in order to bring in some blind psykers so perform some sort of ritual to get answers. We learn that the Crimson Slaughter are near a gate, the imprisoned one demands to be free, and his master will meet his fate at the gate. There is a lot of rhyming, it kinda sucks having to read it cause it's no Dr. Seuss.
We get back to the Crimson Slaughter and there are a couple pages describing Kranon’s forces. There isn’t a ton of flavor or character in it and it reads a little more like a text book that I would like, and then it works into the dopey 2D pics of marines and tanks and shit with mono-colour paint and static “school picture day” poses.
The story pulls a Tarantino and jumps back to the beginning of the invasion and outlines the overall plans and actions which, in a nutshell, runs like this…
The Black Legion attack the planet of Peridos, which produces the bulk of systems food, this forces the Imperial Navy to head over to protect the shipments and defent the planet. All the while the Black Legion are running small hit and run manoeuvres to hold the navy there so that a larger force can invade and conquer Ioline where the Chaos Warpsmiths build the Hex Infernium which they use to bind daemons to machines and start pumping out Daemon Engines.
It after this that the Crimson Slaughter launch their attack on Amethal which we find out is a cursed planet where people go crazy and murder each other. A dozen colonisation attempts have failed in this manner. I almost expect to read about 2 little girls dressed the same at the end of a long hallway and then Kranon smash down a door screaming “HEEEERES KRANON!!” They give another quick description of the battle and mention the unknown power that Kranon’s forces seem to obtain.
CHAPTER 2: KILL! MAIM! BURN!
This chapter starts with our favourite douche bag, Xorphas, who is performing some sort of scrying ritual do determine the future or something. We discover that Xorphas' end goal is to open the gate and free the Neverborn. In order to do this he needed to use Kranon and the spirits that haunt the Crimson Slaughter as a dowsing rod to find the gate, the arrival of the Fallen Angels (the Death Company as it turns out) is significant for some reason, and finally he needs blood to flow like a river. And who is better than making blood flow than Kharn?
After reading this we know that the story has jumped again and that at some point the Death Company have arrived and are fighting the Crimson Slaughter and that Kharn has shown up.
It's kind of a cool introduction as the next scene in inside a Dreadclaw full of Bezerkers. They drop down into the opening scene from "Saving Private Ryan" where the doors open up and bullets happen. Lots of bullets. Enough to stem the advance of the Bezerkers until a Thunderhawk shows up, and down the ramp comes Kharn. Gorechild screaming in his hand he reaps a toll and it is pretty awesome. And then he kills a Knight Titan. Yeah, what a fucking bad ass.
Kharn soon meets up with Daenor, a Death Company Chaplain, who he kicks the shit out of and the only reason Daenor survives is because a greedy Bezerker tries to take Kharns head and gets cut in half for his troubles. Then a Reaver titan walks right between Kharn and the downed Chaplain, I know, how rude those guys are. So Kharn climbs a building, pulls a Johnny Ricco, jumps on the Reavers back, cuts a hole in the armour and kills everything inside. Then he just wanders off into the sunset, searching for more shit to kill and skulls to reap.
We have another bout of shitty paint scheme pics and dumb poses
Tarantino shows up again and we jump back to when the Blood Angels first show up. Xorphas is waiting for them with a trap, a warp storm that increases the chance of the Black Rage taking hold. The Blood Angels didn't quite understand why their enemy would want them to have more super sayan Space Marines, but they are pissed all the same and start kicking the Crimson Slaughter's ass, which is just spilling more blood satisfying Xorphas' plan, so he lets them die. Then Kharn shows up and the next couple pages go over what he did...again. It really wasn't necessary to tell us that Kharn is a skull obsessed psychopath twice.
We do get an answer as to what exactly Xorphas is looking for. Amethal is a cage for entrapped daemonic entities, and apparently it's full. We don't know how they got in there, but I'm going to assume it was the Emperor and/or the Grey Knights. As you may know that when you kill a Daemon it simply returns to the warp only to invade real space some hundred years later. If you trap it in the real world, well I guess it just gives a bad guy the ability to find it and then kick shit into the fan.
CHAPTER 3: RITUALS END
The final stage of Xorphas' plan is to use something called the Banshee Stone to shatter the cage. This is proving to be a little more difficult than planned as the Blood Angels have managed to attack Ioline and destroy the Hex Infernium. Remember that thing that the Warpsmiths were using to make more Daemon engines. Neither did I.
Anyway, his plan is to set up the Banshee Stone in the dig site that was at the same battle ground that Kranon fought on. The problem is that there is a host of Blood Angels that have the dig site surrounded and will be attacking shortly so Xorphas doesn't have a lot of time. The Blood Angels attack and things are going south for the Black Legion, even though Kharn has wandered back to the fight and has attacked from outside the ring. Xorphas sets the stone and teleports out of there just as a thunder hammer swings through the incorporeal form of his head as he is teleported to safety. He teleports Kharn out of there also which gave me a serious dejavu moment to when the Emperor teleported Angron away from his home planet leaving his friends and followers to die.
The Banshee Stone wasn't wholly successful in breaking open the cage, but it was damaged and the voices inside ensure us that they will be free. Unfortunately for the Imperials Kharn managed to kill the AdMech Magos who was the only guy who had any idea what the hell Amethal is.
Kranon and friends survive by stealing a Thunderhawk. They take off, pissed at the Black Legion for being used and abused and Kranon doesn't give 2 fucks about what Abbadon wants, they are leaving.
The last bout of paint schemes and a quick description of Xorphas and his forces precedes the final telling of the story that was just told. Once again Tarantino rears his face and the story jump back to when the Black Legion land on Amethal and the preparations that are made before just before that. It then goes through the attack on the dig site, the setting up of the stone, and the retreat of chaos forces. The chaos fleet leave and rejoin the Despoilers forces while Xorphas is not allowed to leave. He must stick around and watch for the cage to break. It's a good thing he cast Invisibility on his space ship.
So there it is, that's the story. I really liked the story aspect, but some of the writing was not good. It jumped around way too much, like several different authors wrote it and they didn't do any sort of editing to make it flow from start to finish.
Now, on to what you have all been waiting for...
SYKE!! Rules will be discussed in another post. I'm tired and this post is way too long already.
Until next time, keep them dice rollin.
We do get an answer as to what exactly Xorphas is looking for. Amethal is a cage for entrapped daemonic entities, and apparently it's full. We don't know how they got in there, but I'm going to assume it was the Emperor and/or the Grey Knights. As you may know that when you kill a Daemon it simply returns to the warp only to invade real space some hundred years later. If you trap it in the real world, well I guess it just gives a bad guy the ability to find it and then kick shit into the fan.
CHAPTER 3: RITUALS END
The final stage of Xorphas' plan is to use something called the Banshee Stone to shatter the cage. This is proving to be a little more difficult than planned as the Blood Angels have managed to attack Ioline and destroy the Hex Infernium. Remember that thing that the Warpsmiths were using to make more Daemon engines. Neither did I.
Anyway, his plan is to set up the Banshee Stone in the dig site that was at the same battle ground that Kranon fought on. The problem is that there is a host of Blood Angels that have the dig site surrounded and will be attacking shortly so Xorphas doesn't have a lot of time. The Blood Angels attack and things are going south for the Black Legion, even though Kharn has wandered back to the fight and has attacked from outside the ring. Xorphas sets the stone and teleports out of there just as a thunder hammer swings through the incorporeal form of his head as he is teleported to safety. He teleports Kharn out of there also which gave me a serious dejavu moment to when the Emperor teleported Angron away from his home planet leaving his friends and followers to die.
The Banshee Stone wasn't wholly successful in breaking open the cage, but it was damaged and the voices inside ensure us that they will be free. Unfortunately for the Imperials Kharn managed to kill the AdMech Magos who was the only guy who had any idea what the hell Amethal is.
Kranon and friends survive by stealing a Thunderhawk. They take off, pissed at the Black Legion for being used and abused and Kranon doesn't give 2 fucks about what Abbadon wants, they are leaving.
The last bout of paint schemes and a quick description of Xorphas and his forces precedes the final telling of the story that was just told. Once again Tarantino rears his face and the story jump back to when the Black Legion land on Amethal and the preparations that are made before just before that. It then goes through the attack on the dig site, the setting up of the stone, and the retreat of chaos forces. The chaos fleet leave and rejoin the Despoilers forces while Xorphas is not allowed to leave. He must stick around and watch for the cage to break. It's a good thing he cast Invisibility on his space ship.
So there it is, that's the story. I really liked the story aspect, but some of the writing was not good. It jumped around way too much, like several different authors wrote it and they didn't do any sort of editing to make it flow from start to finish.
Now, on to what you have all been waiting for...
SYKE!! Rules will be discussed in another post. I'm tired and this post is way too long already.
Until next time, keep them dice rollin.
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