Last November, Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie was released. Save for the limited release, erratic pacing, being too short and lacking character development, the movie was actually pretty solid. It also worked as a good way bridge the gap between people who are avid players within this niche franchise and people (gamers and non-gamers alike) more »

A Thousand Sons brought one of the more interesting legions of the Adeptus Astartes into the light. It also detailed their fall from grace, simply because they wanted to do right by the Emperor by sending a warning regarding Horus’s treasonous plan. It also showed the start of the Space Wolves sacking Prospero, the home planet of the sorcerer-soldier legion.

The book Prospero Burns has a lot to do with the fall of Prospero, as you might gather from the title. This time, though, while developing the Space Wolves legion, there’s a new perspective on the events of revolving around the rivalry between the Space Wolves and Thousand Sons legions.

In the Warhammer 40,000 franchise, there is at least one pet group in the Imperial Guard, Chaos Marines and the Space Marines factions. While you look at the novels set in the franchise, there really isn’t much of a focus on any one group. However, once you get beyond the fiction and into the tabletop, console, handheld and computer games, the pet groups start getting attention.

At the moment, there are only a handful of Warhammer 40,000 games that feature Space Marines that don’t have the Ultramarines in there somewhere…

For the first time since Tales of Heresy, we are delving into a book of short stories that are following the legions of the Adeptus Astartes (better known as the Space Marines).

Space Marines are inherently fun. After all, they’re living walls of muscle and armor. They excel at causing complete death, destruction and mayhem on a battlefield and that’s before any of the really big guns (like Dreadnoughts) come into play.

However, there are things that make them harder to write about.

Not much information was given in terms of gameplay. What we do know are some of the ideas of classes that you could play and descriptions of each chapter that’s been revealed to be part of the game. Hopefully they reveal more about the gameplay. The possibility of being able to play as a space marine of any kind is well worth the wait. Either way, if the previous history of Warhammer 40,000 tabletop RPGs are any indicator, the game should have very similar gameplay mechanics to both Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader.

Title: The Horus Heresy: MechanicumAuthor: Graham McNeillPublisher: The Black LibraryRelease Date: November 25, 2008Price: $7.99Rating: One thumb up and one thumb sideways, 80/100, B-, *** out of five.Pros: It’s an entirely new presentation to The Horus Heresy series and focuses on a group other than the Space Marines. The development of characters and events is beautiful.Cons: Presentation will be hard to read for some and different enough that it might turn off people who loved the following of the Space Marines through the first parts of Heresy series.Overall: This book is an acquired taste that some people will either love or hate.

Mechanicum is a bit of a puzzle in itself. It’s a good book that, much like most of the really good sci-fi or fantasy, is entirely an acquired taste. The book is the first in the series that puts a group, other than the Space Marines, into focus…

Click through for the full review!

Title: The Horus Heresy: Battle for the AbyssAuthor: Ben CounterPublisher: The Black LibraryRelease Date: September 2008Price: $7.99Rating: One thumb up and one thumb sideways, 80/100, B-, *** out of five.Pros: It’s the first book that all events happen after Horus’s betrayal of the Imperium so it’s all new. The story never stops moving. The feel of the book is incredibly faithful to the feel of Dawn of War and Dark Heresy.Cons: Character development could be done better. It could also take more time to develop the events more.Overall: This book in a way is lackluster but it’s still pretty good and a lot of fun to read.

Battle for the Abyss in a way is an incredible installment of The Horus Heresy series. In other ways it could have been so much better.

Click through for the full review…

Title: The Horus Heresy: FulgrimAuthor: Graham McNeillPublisher: The Black LibraryRelease Date: 2007Price: $7.99Rating: Two thumbs up, 90/100, B+, **** out of five.Pros: Quick pace, gives more explanation to different events, develops all major characters wonderfully, fixes most of the problems that popped up with False GodsCons: Some of the flaws from False Gods only to a lesser extent.Overall: It starts the latter half of the series so far with the same punch that Horus Rising had.

Fulgrim is the fifth book in the Horus Heresy series. It is also the second best book in the sci-fi adaptation of Paradise Lost.

Click through for the full review…