Adam

When Games Workshop was attempting to add some novels to expand on the lore of their franchises in the late 80's their first foray into Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000 only published novels of short stories to see if there was any interest in such novels. Dark Future a now rather defunct intellectual property was given the same treatment. Personally, I'm not a very big fan of the short story anthology and so, this would have been a bad idea to garner interest from someone like myself. However, I think there are loads of people that like the sci-fi/fantasy short story approach, meanwhile, I just think it's never enough of a story for such usually epic settings. Dark Future, while being post apocalyptic, suffers from a similar trait.The Dark Future setting is starkly different from the products that Games Workshop has mainly been built around. It's core game is a sort of Mad Max styled road warrior game. If anyone remembers an old game called Thunder Road from Milton Bradley this seems very similar. However, I think Thunder Road ripped off the Road Warrior in its car design a lot more. Dark Future's vehicles seem more rooted in a sort of high tech James Bond style with the secret embedded weapons while still being sports cars. Some cars are very post apocalyptic and Mad Max inspired in a modified dune buggy fashion. So, as with loads of other things Games Workshop does, it's a blend of lots of different things that have already existed. Another interesting aspect of the setting is that it takes place in the U.S. and focuses on life after the collapse. It also has a bit of a Judge Dredd flair in the cops vs. criminals aspect as well and probably some of the vehicle ideas, but loads of creators at Games Workshop were inspired by the “2000 AD” comic books. Unfortunately, the setting didn't get developed much more beyond the big box game. There was a single supplement created and it was not a major contribution to the game. After that the whole project was dropped and left to die, only to be resurrected in the form of a weird video game in the 2000's era. I have not played that video game, but it didn't look like much more than a racing game. Anyway, let's dive into the stories.

Route 666 by Jack YeovilThis is the first short story and it shares the same name as the book title, which is used again later as a full length book title, why they would do such a thing is baffling to me. Anyway, this story was not too bad, however, I felt like there was way too much being introduced to us and it feels like less of a short story than it should be. There are entirely too many characters and various factions brought into this story. It should have been more focused on the main people involved.The first group we are introduced to is this group of resettlers called the Josephites trying to make their way to Utah led by a guy named Elder Seth. Elder Seth and his group made me think of The Stand quite a bit. They made me think of the guy building the paradise out in the desert, but it was a hellish place and knowing that reference made everything predictable on my end.Amidst this world we are also introduced to a faction in the gang called the Psychopomps led by a crazy woman named Jessamyn. We first meet this gang while they are fighting with another gang called the Daughters of the American Revolution, so you can see some of the historical reference/comedic concepts that arise in this setting.The other group are the cops lead by Sergeant Quincannon and another important figure is clearly Leona Tyree. They first come across some dead bodies left behind by the Josephites and are then told become a police escort for the group. The challenge now was to catch up with them.All of these parties end up meeting up again in a small town, where Elder Seth runs into his previous assaulter in the Psychopomps. Apparently Jessamyn stole some magic glasses from him and he's taking them back. Here we learn that Elder Seth wields some strange powers and now the cops are a bit more scared. But once he gets his glasses back, Seth and his group start to move on and the story just ends... That's when we find out this was just an elaborate introduction and we'll see the story continue in the forthcoming novel Demon Download. I really hope all of the stories aren't like this in terms of an elaborate introduction to something else where I could just read a full novel.In the end, the story wasn't too bad. It just wound up being pretty cliche as far as anything else goes. Lots of references and styles that already existed and didn't feel all that unique.... maybe as the novels grow the setting it will get better.

The Old World setting has really returned to the original ways of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sort of... In the original creation the setting was broken up around the rule book then the forces of "good" and the forces of "evil". In the new edition they've used the same split, but now it's just the "Forces of Fantasy".

This book gives you a little bit of lore to get you started with your army. Right now none of the massive events from Warhammer Fantasy Battle have happened, and this setting feels a lot more of a pre-game of what's to come. I fully expect to see the forces of Chaos rise in the near future when we get back onto the regular timeline of the original release decades ago.

"Forces of Fantasy" gives you rules for the various armies and gives you instructions to help create a muster list. From here you will need to get a hold of your army's respective Arcane Journal to flesh out all the details of running your army. I'm sort of surprised they went this route instead of creating the old 128 page army books that gave you all the information you needed. I do wonder if they eventually march into the next edition they will eventually do that. There are just some minor details that I sort of wish they would get into and flesh out, but that's what makes this feel a lot more like a "getting started" sort of design. The rules are fully fleshed out, but I mean more in the sense of the lore at this point.

I did enjoy reading all the basic lore of all the armies though, so, in that regard I did enjoy the book. Maybe they're trying to entice people to start more than one army... which I can very much see Games Workshop doing. In any event, to play this game as any of the armies in this list, this book one really be enough. You need three books to fully play your army of choice in this edition of Warhammer.

Easily a 4.5 through and through

Despite a booklist of the Sharpe series existing that puts the books in chronological order of the story, I think I'm going to read these in publication order. I've found I prefer reading books in this order, because the authors tend to improve quite a bit as they hone their craft. Or, if for some reason, the first book is amazing and the others are not, at least I read the best book first!

I must confess that I was never much interested in the Napoleonic Wars and I must solely blame a youtuber by the name of Chris Peach (his channel is Peachy Tips) for introducing me to this. He raved so much about the Sharpe series and a TV show starring Sean Bean that I felt compelled to give this a shot. So, I had my mom order this book from the library to see if I'd even enjoy it. Now, it should be known, I do quite like history, some histories I find more interesting than others and while I, naturally, knew who Napoleon was, I have never sat down and truly engaged that history at any higher academic level. So, to my surprise I wound up cranking through Cornwell's first book pretty well. The story was interesting and very exciting! Thus, begins my journey into Napoleonics...

Sharpe's Eagle introduces us to a new hero in historical fiction named Richard Sharpe. I will say, he is a bit of a Mary Sue, but as I'm going into this series there are 20+ books, so I fully expect him to be living through the wars. However, the hardships Sharpe faces come more from dealing with the classist structure of the British military more than fighting with Napoleon's forces in this book.

In this novel Sharpe is already a Lieutenant, but he's been promoted up through the ranks. Meaning, he's not a gentleman and therefore is much less respected amongst the rich leaders who paid for their commission. Apparently merit based promotion on the battlefield is looked down upon... so anyway, Sharpe seems to draw up the ire of new British commanders when they show up in these books.

Within the world of Sharpe, he is already in charge of the Riflemen and Wellesley is bringing forces into Spain to fight the French. A new British Force, the South Essex are arriving in Wellington's encampment early in the novel. The South Essex are led by Sir Henry Simmerson and he and Sharpe are on a real crash course in this novel. Simmerson believes in flogging his army in order to keep them in line and Sharpe knows all too well this does not make a good soldier. So, Sharpe is worried about coming engagements, because he knows Simmerson's men are not battlefield ready in the least. However, at the same time Major Hogan and Wellesley are brewing up a plan to make things harder for the French by blowing up a key bridge. So, in a joint effort with the South Essex and a Spanish regiment, Sharpe and his crew are sent to help blow up the bridge.

The engagements at the bridge are really what start the ball rolling for this story. Without trying to spoil too much, Simmerson makes some extremely ridiculous errors and the French see this as an opportunity to take out some British forces. The whole thing is a mess, which Simmerson then tries to escape blame by laying it at Sharpe's feet, when Sharpe was the one who actually made the defeat less total for the British. However, Simmerson is not willing to suffer the lower classes getting a leg up.

Due to Simmerson's status, Wellesley does not have the power to really protect Sharpe and this leaves Sharpe in a position where he needs to do something incredibly heroic to prove his worth in a way the court can't ignore. This is where Sharpe devises the plan that his only way out is to get a French Eagle, which has never been done before. Now, I don't know how historically accurate this is, but it is on par with taking the British colors from one of their forces.

Now that the mission of the bridge is concluded, Wellesley is ready to march the army to another place in Spain to prepare for a much larger engagement. Here Cornwell brings in some of the aspects of just waiting to go to battle. Sometimes for days, as they wait for weather to clear or they wait for other reinforcements to appear. I can see why Cornwell set out to create more interesting sub-plots in the meantime rather than trying to simulate the doldrums of nothing going on for days on end. This is much appreciated as far as I'm concerned. The interactions with the other commanders and how things play out were actually interesting to read about, so I praise Cornwell for making segments that could have been boring into a more engaging light.

I don't consider it a spoiler to say Sharpe succeeded, as mentioned earlier, he is a bit of a Mary Sue character. It feels a bit like the Star Trek style where if there's a side-character in the hero's vicinity they are likely to be the tragic death... especially if they are beginning to be well liked. I was worried about his friend Harper for a brief moment as I quite liked this character, but I think he will have real staying power for a while. He seems kind of essential to create a good banter between Sharpe and other aspects of the army. I just worry that by book 20 maybe something bad will happen, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised.

In addition to all this, there is a bit of a James Bond element thrown in with the presence of Josefina, who is really there to purely be a love interest for Sharpe. She is also a major source of conflict for Sharpe and Simmerson's nephew, Gibbons. This is an underlying plot through the whole story with Sharpe playing the standard faire protector of fairer sex or what have you back in the 1800's. However, these are not exactly star crossed lovers and Josefina winds up breaking off with Sharpe eventually, which, maybe because of the period, I don't exactly understand. It just made her seem kind of shallow and searching for status, but it's not like Sharpe is massively different in his ambitions, because he wants to rise in the ranks of the army in order to also have status. It does make sense with the period and how classist the structure of Britain is at the time and, honestly, now that I write this out, it probably is more realistic because it's not exactly like people back then were going to have elaborately thought out goals on the average. No, most people were probably simple, especially those growing up in the slums like Sharpe and he saw the army as a way out. Anyway, the whole Josefina arc, by the end, solidified my assumption that Sharpe is also a bit of James Bond. Women are highly attracted to them, but the women in his life wind up being a flavor of the month, which is a bit annoying. I quite enjoy power couples with two people working together... but i have hopes for this as I've seen a bit of the TV series, so maybe the James Bond feel won't last...

I would be remiss without bringing up the TV series starring the amazing Sean Bean. The TV movie series is a bit different from the books as they tried to put things in a bit of a more chronological order. This has created a sequence where they have taken serious liberties with what happened in the books. Because there is another main love interest for Sharpe later on, she gets introduced early, so that meant Josefina got a bit pushed out of the sequence as they made this book into a TV movie. They also left out a lot of the stuff involving the Spanish army, which does make sense for cutting out time. In the end, I did really enjoy the adaptation to film despite some of the changes made. Given how many of these TV movies they made, hopefully Cornwell feels similarly.

So, in the end, I probably should thank Chris Peach for introducing me to this. I'm not surprised it was not on my rader, this stuff doesn't seem to have been well distributed in the 90's for America and since I wasn't massively into Napoleonics in my youth, I can see why this never even crossed my path. Now Peachy is into miniature wargames and I am as well, so I imagine it was only an inevitable crash course that I would go down this road. He painted up a wonderful set to look like the Rifleman from Sharpe. I picked up the same set from Wargames Atlantic to do just the same thing! So, now I am planning on getting some more sets and putting together a proper force. I would also be remiss not to mention that all of this has been exacerbated by the wonderful Big Lee from his channel Miniature Adventures. These two have been such a pleasure to watch as I enter the foray of the Napoleonic Wars on the tabletop!

Bounces around a 3.5 to a 4.5 for meThis is the second installment in the Horus Heresy series that would become an eventually bloated fan favorite of the Warhammer world. So far, for me, I've enjoyed the book overall, but I've read some reviews that have some decent criticisms of this and I tend to agree with some of the nit picking they bring up, some I don't... let's dive in.One of the jarring things I think with this novel is the interactions everyone has with the Interex is just done now? Like, I thought they didn't subjugate those people at all and instead ran away for their lives? But Horus never brought the full bore of the crusade against them, and instead they're just off doing something else? According to the Lexicanum (a big Warhammer 40k wiki for those unfamiliar) they've already been defeated and destroyed... well... I thought this novel would be about that, guess we all missed it? It's a real shame though, because the Interex had contact with the Eldar and I thought this would be an incredibly interesting tie for the 40k era. As the 63rd expedition is about to engage xenos that still exist in 40k, they get side tracked by suddenly needing to overthrow the Emperor! Ah well, guess we'll never see the Eldar around here.This is where I get into some speculation. Many reviewers complain of the “silly” decisions being made by Horus throughout this novel and how quickly things happen. Well, I somewhat suspect that this is because I'm not sure Games Workshop envisioned this spawning 60+ books in the end. I wonder, if at the time of this writing, this was going to be just some sort of trilogy and they were telling authors to get to the point? Dan Abnett's book is a much slower pace compared to McNeill's and I do wonder if they wanted McNeill to just get to the important part as fast as possible and this was the most effective way he figured he could do it within the constrains of 400 pages. Whereas, it feels like the pacing of this book should have gone much slower, because then it would have felt paced more appropriately against Abnett's work.In any event, we find ourselves on the planet Davin as the 63rd expedition is sort of regrouping a bit, I assume after destroying the Interex? So, some of the pacing issues people are bringing up, I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that an entire campaign has been fought with the Interex in between these novels. An interesting point of this novel that comes up is the insistence on bringing in the Imperator Titan, the Dies Irae. Games Workshop hasn't made an Imperator model since the late 80's/early 90's in the epic scale for Adeptus Mechanicus and at the time this book was written... there is no new one forthcoming. (I have hopes that with the new Legions Imperialis set we will get one though.) Anyway, Davin was brought into compliance a long time ago and put in the care of an old friend of Horus' named Temba. Now rumors abound that Temba is holed up on a moon and is defying the will of the Emperor or something... so Horus feels compelled to go and bring things back into compliance.Horus feels the need to take care of a lot of this stuff personally, but the real issue here is that one of the captains that has Horus' ear, Erebus, has already fallen to chaos. I think part of the problem with the "speed" people complain about is that Erebus has already been wearing down Horus for quite a while. Horus is not the same man from Abnett's novels. He is getting angrier, more apt to rash decisions and I think this because Erebus is psychically stronger with Chaos supporting him. To me, this would explain some of the aspects of Horus' seemingly quick fall and essentially falling for what appears to be rather pedestrian attempts to dupe him to turn against the Emperor.Horus is so enraged at Temba's seeming betrayal he brings the full brunt of his forces against Temba who is holed up on one of Davin's moons. Once the expedition lands everything is seemingly quiet except for some strange transmissions talking of Nurgleth. This smacks of the Whisperhead's incident from Abnett's novel. These are the parts of the book I thought were really cool, anyone familiar with Nurgle will know what to expect from this particular combat scenario. I won't ruin it for anyone, but suffice to say Temba is taken down (I mean, kind of expected given the point of the series), but the shocking fact is that Horus is mortally wounded. Which should not happen to Primarch, or so many believe. In the end the Mournivale, Horus' most important advisory council is fractured on what to do. Loken and Torgaddon return to the moon to retrieve the weapon that wounded Horus to see if knowing more about that will help Horus, but Abaddon and Aximand stay behind. Abaddon had always been an impatient and angry man, and as Horus seems to become more victim to those aspects of emotion Abaddon is far more fearsome in this novel, so he and Aximand seek another way to save Horus. Erebus tells of a special healing system on Davin and without notifying Loken and Torgaddon they simply bring Horus back to Davin out of desperation.Here's where you, the reader, really begin to question whether these primary characters are starting to fall to chaos or not. They are, honestly, starting to become quite different in action and temper as laid out in [b:Horus Rising 625603 Horus Rising (The Horus Heresy, #1) Dan Abnett https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1414166935l/625603.SY75.jpg 611957]. This definitely feels jarring as some readers point out, but that's because the time scale is never really made very clear between the two novels. I think much more time has passed and we're “just supposed to know”? This is the part where I think the book is somewhat rushed or poorly written, but I have no idea how much that's because of McNeill, or Games Workshop meddling in the novel brief or editing after the fact. Where people accuse McNeill or writing Horus poorly, I must point out that I feel like Loken and Torgaddon are pretty on par with Abnett's story. Yeah, he doesn't get nearly as much character development, but I feel like because he couldn't. If you think about how much has been put into this novel and all the things that happen... when was he going to do that? Take all the time spent with Horus' internment in the healing device on Davin... which is spoilers... but... In the healing device Horus is subjected to a series of visions, for us readers in the know, these are obviously from the realms of chaos. He is guided through it all by Erebus, who is now a very known traitor to the Empire and is trying very hard to coax Horus into doing his will without expressly asking. It really is never made extremely clear why Horus decides to turn, but I sort of assume it's his desire to live and his vanity that play a major role. Even going against the Emperor he probably really believed he would be able to steer humanity into a better light... however, as this is all at the bidding of Chaos, I find it hard to believe Horus would be ignorant of that fact. However, the only argument I can think, is that the Emperor has drilled into his people that Chaos doesn't really exist and there is nothing beyond the material, SO much, that they just blindly believe this. So, even though Erebus was lying to Horus in a very obvious way, how much do we really understand how Horus interprets Chaos at this stage. You'd think at this point his encounter with Temba would have him seriously questioning stuff, but, honestly, after watching some people be duped by obvious things they simply "didn't wish to be true" or "must have another explanation" I'm kind of willing to believe Horus could fall for this regardless of how smart and perfect he is portrayed in these novels. Even smart people will believe incredibly stupid lies as I've come to find out in 2025 as I write this.The last part of the book is called “Crusade's End” and, honestly, this should have just been it's own novel. We go from Horus being healed on Davin to all of a sudden in the midst of a massive war with the Auretian Technocracy. A war that is not going super great apparently, but my gosh a lot has certainly happened between the two blank pages that divide up the novel parts... The big deal with the Auretian Technocracy is that they have access to an STC device and I really think it harnesses some serious AI tech that is absolutely feared by the Imperium of Man. However, it seemed like this was the missing piece Horus needed to truly bolster his forces. (I mean, I'm sort of assuming this allows them to bring about the Dark Mechanicum.) This isn't much of a spoiler, but of course they win and destroy the technocracy and take their tech. In this all too brief part of the book we start to see things put into motion for the fall of some of the Primarch's, the most overt is Angron's performance during this last war. I suspect that will be glossed over in the next book, but Loken and Torgaddon are starting to become extremely suspicious.The big revelation at the end of this book is painfully expected, so I find it hard to believe it a spoiler. But, at the end of this expedition Horus tells a group of the secret lodge members of his plan to turn on Terra. There's an entirely new author for the third novel, so we'll see how this goes. But I do wonder if it's going to have a similar ridiculous time jump that just comes out of nowhere. Depends on how fast they wanted to tear through the tale of the Horus Heresy without expecting it to take 60+ novels.In the end, I really liked this novel. I was able to kind of figure out reasons to justify some of the pacing even though it was largely annoying at times. The mysteries with Temba and the blade that harmed Horus were simply awesome parts. Loken and Torgaddon were the saving grace of the novel for me as their characters try to navigate the fact that all the other Space Marines around them are turning into something they don't understand. The seeds of Mersadie Oliton founding a new faith in the Emperor which can potentially turn back actual daemons. It's sort of a nod to the future of things like the Sister's of Battle, which is pretty awesome. So with her and Sindermann, that entire arc was really interesting. It was a fun 30k novel ultimately and I do look forward to reading the next installment.

I picked this book up because I also purchased the “Imperial Sector” box set so I wanted to see if this book had any helpful hints on setting things up. That's not really what I got, but what I did get was a book that will help me out when I really want to build a lot of complex detail into my “City Fight” campaigns!

I think this book is meant to be read after “How to Make Wargames Terrain”. “Cities of Death” is written with the approach that you already know how to do a lot of basic terrain creations. Even though it feels like I probably read this book out of order, I can't deny the potential of this quality book. If you're looking for some inspiration on spicing up your wargames terrain then this is a must have book, especially if you want it focused on an urban setting.

As usual with the Games Workshop books there are so many beautiful pictures you'll want to re-create everything for your own games. It gives you some interesting pointers on how to construct different buildings using their already available miniatures. Just because you buy the “Manufactorum” model, doesn't mean you can't combine it with a different set to make a different building entirely. This book gives you some details and pointers on some of these different creations. For a basic but wonderful addition, I really liked the suggestion of using different elements to make street signs to give it a much more realistic feel. I thought this was an awesome and simple enough modification that I will soon have these on my streets.

Even if you've already come up with plenty ideas on how to add more depth to your city campaigns this book may just have that extra something to give it even more of a kick. I already had a lot of terrain ideas for my gaming table, but this book has even managed to add onto those. “Cities of Death” helps to give your miniatures the most realistic world in which to fight.