Warhammer 40k

I thought I knew his name, and turns out he's the one who challenged Farsight to the War of Dakka after taking offense at the fact the Tau thought they were shootier and blastier than the Orks.
Yeah, he's an old character that hasn't had a model in ages,
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Oh nice, his new model has a fancy gubbin that was looted from the Tau. I suppose its a markerlight or something and that's why his attacks ignore cover.
 
Speaking of orks, I wish they had a walker that was a middle ground between the gorkanaut and stompa. And I wish they gave titans more love. I don't play the game but I know people complain about how titans are unplayable, and it's pretty disappointing how many more titans the imperium has, because could really use more ork gargants and bio titans. That, and they could take a page out of titanicus, like with the dire wolf, and some extra weapon options like the melta, ursus claw and missile launcher from the warhounds. Maybe even a psi-titan. The warmaster I don't think would be feasible, though.
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Speaking of orks, I wish they had a walker that was a middle ground between the gorkanaut and stompa. And I wish they gave titans more love. I don't play the game but I know people complain about how titans are unplayable, and it's pretty disappointing how many more titans the imperium has, because could really use more ork gargants and bio titans. That, and they could take a page out of titanicus, like with the dire wolf, and some extra weapon options like the melta, ursus claw and missile launcher from the warhounds. Maybe even a psi-titan. The warmaster I don't think would be feasible, though.
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They kind of have a walker thats in between a Gorknaught and stompa now in the Dakka Rig.

Though it's not that big, it's about the size of a Deffdread.

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Finally got around to finishing Hive earlier. It's a decent book, right up until the last act when it actually has to resolve plot threads.

So the autist and the security guy had been fucking the entire time, and it's not even hinted at up until it's mentioned? The autist at one point basically accuses Osgood of wanting to fuck the security chick from the other administration who was there first. Don't know if the autist and Osgood got out, don't particularly even care, especially since they'd need to fight their way through a hive fleet after leaving the throne room with all of 5 minutes to go.

The mining woman and the sculpture surveyor just end up as lesbian couple out of nowhere as a resolution to their bullshit showing that even across socioeconomic classes love can still flourish while people are running in terror or something.

We get basically nothing for the guy that the psyker brainwashed into a geass. At least the psyker himself we do get an ending.

The arbites chick just dies "offscreen". At least the wardeave she was working with got to send the message and pretend he was doing something. And this is after they describe a hive tower falling down as if that even matters since the governor blows the whole thing up anyway.

The hills have eyes gutters who knew about the genestealers just die I guess.

The gangsters go out in a boring blaze of glory, all for basically nothing.

Obviously I wasn't expecting happy endings, people getting killed off is fine. But it's just boring. The head arbites guy and the previous adjunct who went along with him to try and take over as governor? May as well just have been blinked out of existence even though the arbites lady wouldn't stop talking about him. At least his heel-turn made sense.

Fortunately what it manages to do right, is world building. It's basically a top to bottom(literally) source/setting book for a TTRPG and a hive city regarding basically every aspect of life in it. You learn about the different cultures, the slang, the various classes, how groups actually interact with eachother, the history of the place, power generation, light usage, the fucking HVAC system for the hive city, the different locations and types of agriculture, what a ghetto is and isn't within a hive, how a hive reacts to off-world rule from Terra at the administrative and even individual level(like the drip juice people just running while the arbites lady screams about the lex imperialis and is confused that they don't give a shit about it or her), etc. Ignoring how some of the stuff gets resolved(and of course everything going tits up during a tyranid invasion) I could actually write a tabletop adventure(mostly a mystery/crime thing) based off of this, and probably might.

For a black library novel, if I had to give it a rating... 7.5/10, would have been an 8 if the endings weren't so dull.
 
So the autist and the security guy had been fucking the entire time, and it's not even hinted at up until it's mentioned? The autist at one point basically accuses Osgood of wanting to fuck the security chick from the other administration who was there first. Don't know if the autist and Osgood got out, don't particularly even care, especially since they'd need to fight their way through a hive fleet after leaving the throne room with all of 5 minutes to go.
They kind of hint at this when Osgood mentions his mistress, but yeah, it was very poorly done. I thought he was sleeping with the governor, honestly. The lesbian thing had both me and my fiance, who was listening to it in the car with me, roll our eyes.
 
They kind of hint at this when Osgood mentions his mistress, but yeah, it was very poorly done. I thought he was sleeping with the governor, honestly. The lesbian thing had both me and my fiance, who was listening to it in the car with me, roll our eyes.
Yeah the mistress could have been literally anyone and yeah the governor honestly would have been a more obvious candidate other than "teehee subverting expectations" especially due to the conversation Osgood and the autist had about the other security chick in the first place. The lesbian thing came COMPLETELY out of fucking nowhere though. Sure, she was fascinated with the overmost chick having red hair, whoopdeedoo. They go on a little adventure to find some art, accidentally kill some hivedef, and then if it wasn't for genestealers they'd suddenly be scissoring? The warbond lady with the cybernetic arm and the munitions depot clerk had more of a believable relationship than that
 
But it's just boring.

A lot of the ending relies on the reader being aware that the decisions characters are making don't solve anything because the problem is so much larger than them.

The only way that the ending could have been avoided is if the Imperium unfucked the situation years in the past. It's a tragedy because all these people are individually coming to their conclusions and trying to help/alert others (who are doing the same thing) in a system so fucked up top to bottom it was never possible.

It's not GREAT at that, but like you said Abnett is way more interesting as a details guy than the 'big picture'. At least Hive is a good playground for his autism versus something like Gaunt's Ghosts (where the series suffers because he sucks at plots).

Genuinely I hope we get more stand alone sandboxes for him to design interesting cities in, because shit like 'Hive wide refresh of the Governors statues' was waaaaay more interesting than the lesbians.
 
A lot of the ending relies on the reader being aware that the decisions characters are making don't solve anything because the problem is so much larger than them.

The only way that the ending could have been avoided is if the Imperium unfucked the situation years in the past. It's a tragedy because all these people are individually coming to their conclusions and trying to help/alert others (who are doing the same thing) in a system so fucked up top to bottom it was never possible.

It's not GREAT at that, but like you said Abnett is way more interesting as a details guy than the 'big picture'. At least Hive is a good playground for his autism versus something like Gaunt's Ghosts (where the series suffers because he sucks at plots).

Genuinely I hope we get more stand alone sandboxes for him to design interesting cities in, because shit like 'Hive wide refresh of the Governors statues' was waaaaay more interesting than the lesbians.
I agree, but... just because things are grimdark doesn't mean things have to all be boring just because the imperium is dumb. Grimdark and interesting aren't mutually exclusive of eachother, especially since a lot of the boredom just comes from characters disappearing into the ether and not actually coming to a conclusion. The gangsters yes, there's a conclusion there(it's just boring and has to wrap itself up quickly for the last remaining guy who barely has time for the previous death to really sink in after being told off). The arbites lady? No, not at all. And becoming a lesbian couple isn't a conclusion to anything.

And yes, it's the little details like the statue refresh and where the heads wound up that actually make it worthwhile. Like I said, I got more about the fucking HVAC for the place than some of the concluded character shit. What is an airflush? how does it work? why is it needed? What happens when they get delayed, what happens during one? etc. Hell, even that the window cleaners and the HVAC guys do kinda work together but don't necessarily get along even though they're all part of maintenance/facilities, like actual workers/tradesmen. You get all of that told naturally over the course of the story-telling throughout the book.

Honestly, I don't want to see him do it again with a different hive, rather a different type of world entirely because apparently when he's let loose to do his own thing, he does amazing world building.
 
Honestly, I don't want to see him do it again with a different hive, rather a different type of world entirely because apparently when he's let loose to do his own thing, he does amazing world building.
Him writing for a Feudal world that doesn't really know what Xenos are would be hilarious, honestly.
 
Him writing for a Feudal world that doesn't really know what Xenos are would be hilarious, honestly.
Maybe. The fucking admech poop train in that recent necron book is something I didn't need a chapter about though. Wasn't Abnett, but is a prime example of doing things wrong.
 
The arbites lady? No, not at all.

I actually really liked her and the beat cop going on a detective adventure together, tracking down leads, doing good cop bad cop, foot chases, shootouts, and all that jazz. All to crack the case and uncover the truth.

Meanwhile, the police station is a bombed out wreck, the ongoing riots have reduced whole hive towers to rubble, the Arbites' lady's boss got bodied trying to stage a coup, and the literal sky is falling.

But damm if beat cop doesn't send that 'yo boss, maybe we got a GSC problem' message before he eats it because he's ride or die that way.

It's the kind of disaster movie tragic that works for me and a lot of the endings (like the insurgents from the other hive) have that quality to them.

I also really liked how tedious and annoying dealing with the retarded rich families are from the administrative side of things. We don't get enough discussion about local government policy in 40k. Plus, seeing GSC do their thing on a planet without Space Marines and the like around to pull off heroic bullshit was rad. "What happens when nids show up at some random planet?" is at least unique.


I hope Abnett gets to write something related to knight houses sometime. Dude would go crazy inventing peasant levies and royal customs for the giant robot paladins.
 
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