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warragh's review
3.0
Fifth book in the Ultramarines series.
Uriel Ventris and his loyal friend Pasanius have returned to Macragge after the completion of their Death Oath. After being deemed pure by the Grey Knights and their own Ultramarine brothers they must again prove their worth by defending Pavonis from a Tau invasion (one of them must anyway, the other just chills on Macragge).
So the story is very simple. The Tau attack and the heroic courageous Ultramarines must defend Pavonis alongside some Imperial Guard allies.
And here's where the problems begin. First of all the Tau. They are an extremely technologically advanced race focused on ranged warfare and killing their enemies from a distance. They have extremely advanced weaponry, agile vehicles, and very mobile troops. They are a rather small faction on the galactic scale. What they are not, is an endless horde of troops throwing thousands of men at a fortified position. This books shows them outwitted and outfought at every turn by the heavily outnumbered Imperials. They make tactical mistake after tactical mistake, at one point attacking Space Marines using guns as clubs. And at the end they end up being defeated by a threatening speech from Uriel Ventris.
Other than that there's more Codex Astartes nonsense, there's sergeant Learchus (who reported Uriel Ventris for his breaches) who goes against the Codex Astartes (?!) and proves decisive there are fanatical preachers and overall a whole lot of xenophobia. There's very little grimdarkness (especially when compared with the previous books) but a lot of talk about humanity and the Imperium and how non-humans are automatically horrible and undeserving of anything other than death. At no point do the Imperials look like good guys to the point where it is almost outright stated at the end that the planet would have been better of in the Tau Empire.
There are a couple of decent characters scattered throughout the story and some cool moments but they are few and far between.
So overall easily the weakest entry in the series so far even though it has its moments here and there.
Uriel Ventris and his loyal friend Pasanius have returned to Macragge after the completion of their Death Oath. After being deemed pure by the Grey Knights and their own Ultramarine brothers they must again prove their worth by defending Pavonis from a Tau invasion (one of them must anyway, the other just chills on Macragge).
So the story is very simple. The Tau attack and the heroic courageous Ultramarines must defend Pavonis alongside some Imperial Guard allies.
And here's where the problems begin. First of all the Tau. They are an extremely technologically advanced race focused on ranged warfare and killing their enemies from a distance. They have extremely advanced weaponry, agile vehicles, and very mobile troops. They are a rather small faction on the galactic scale. What they are not, is an endless horde of troops throwing thousands of men at a fortified position. This books shows them outwitted and outfought at every turn by the heavily outnumbered Imperials. They make tactical mistake after tactical mistake, at one point attacking Space Marines using guns as clubs. And at the end they end up being defeated by a threatening speech from Uriel Ventris.
Other than that there's more Codex Astartes nonsense, there's sergeant Learchus (who reported Uriel Ventris for his breaches) who goes against the Codex Astartes (?!) and proves decisive there are fanatical preachers and overall a whole lot of xenophobia. There's very little grimdarkness (especially when compared with the previous books) but a lot of talk about humanity and the Imperium and how non-humans are automatically horrible and undeserving of anything other than death. At no point do the Imperials look like good guys to the point where it is almost outright stated at the end that the planet would have been better of in the Tau Empire.
There are a couple of decent characters scattered throughout the story and some cool moments but they are few and far between.
So overall easily the weakest entry in the series so far even though it has its moments here and there.
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