Review: Legacy of Russ

Legacy of Russ by Robbie MacNiven. This is a collection of short stories (novellas is the fancier term) that were released as ebooks in between the two main releases of the Warzone: Fenris campaign during the last full calendar year of the 7th edition of Warhammer 40,000. These fill-in the gaps in the story between these two releases as well as expands and explores some areas of the story that may have only been touched upon in the campaign books themselves. The Legacy of Russ is the name of the whole series, and it is collected into the Legacy of the Wulfen omnibus along with Curse of the Wulfen.

Unlike my other reviews, I am going to sum up my thoughts and opinions on this work before I share with you what occurs in these stories, as I will not be able to avoid spoilers in the following summaries, Over the course of a few months, I slowly read through this and at the conclusion of each part I wrote out my thoughts on each one as well as summarized what I took away as being the most important aspects.

The story itself is good for the most part, being a serialized event with the intention to support and set-up the Wrath of Magnus campaign. However when it concludes it leaves subplots unresolved. Those specific spoilers I will review at the summary at the end of this review. A lot of chapters, or rather sub-chapters, are just straight up warporn. I may be exaggerating here a bit, but after the 5th or so overly detailed slaying of a Soulgrinder, my interest level wanes and I felt like I was just grinding through this material. I found the parts that advanced the over-all story of the Warzone: Fenris campaign were the best parts, and it's unfortunate that the Wrath of Magnus itself wasn't novelized. I find that weird since the first half of the Campaign, was novelized (I'll rant a bit more about this later).


+++++++++++++++++++


On with the story-by-story review, SPOILERS ahead!!!


LEGACY OF RUSS 1: THE LOST KING

Logan Grimnar is lost and everyone is freaking out!

The Space Wolves kill lots of daemons, and the daemons kill lots of Space Wolves.

Inquisitor de Mornay*, who just knows the Dark Angels are a sneaky lot, has an interesting encounter with Azrael on the Rock. The Changling clearly is manipulating the entire situation and avoids the Inquisitor's detection...




LEGACY OF RUSS 2: THE YOUNG WOLF'S RETURN


More daemons die, more Space Wolves die, and the Dark Angel crusade fleet wants to nuke everyone from orbit. Krom makes friends with Stern and the Grey Knights realize they have to prevent the Dark Angel's before they blow everything up. The Young King, Ragnar Blackmane, does indeed return.







LEGACY OF RUSS 3: LYING IN FLAMES


The war porn bloodbath gets deeper but some interesting moments occur that flavor this grind: Brother Captain Stern, while being transported to the rock has to deal with the three Space Wolf escorts after they morph into Wulfen. The other highlight being Conran's attempt to rescue Midgardia's Planetary Governor and his family before the crusade fleet bomb the planet. Also Ragnar's communication with Inquisitor de Mornay is especially interesting.





LEGACY OF RUSS 4: THE BROKEN CROWN

More warporn ensues, however the plots thicken as Ragnar meets Inquisitor de Mornay and a loose alliance is formed. Meanwhile the search for the Great Wolf heats up as clues are found (i.e. the "broken crown" in the title of this part) under Midgardia. Harold Deathwolf joins Sven Bloodhowl on Svellgard and they commit to stand together in defense of this world even if it means standing against the mustering Imperial Guard... and on the Ramiles Starfort Gormenjarl Brother Captain Stern and his Grey Knights discover that the starfort has been over-run by daemons.





LEGACY OF RUSS 5: INFURNACE

Inquisitor De Mornay meets with Ragnar Blackmore. Together, after hearing Brother Captain Stern's report regarding the Ramilies Starport being over ran by daemons, they team up to investigate the sister fort Mjalnar, which no one has heard from and communication with it has been lost. Upon arrival they are stunned to find that it is apparently untainted by daemons but the crew are unaccounted for. Baffled, and feeling the ever rising wild urge trying to take them, they are ambushed by daemons!

Infurance arrives on Svelgard to assault the World Wolf's Lair. He is the most potent Bloodthirster I have ever read about and he is so enraged that he burns hot from within. He arrives dramatically by jumping from the ocean in a cloud of steam to smash a thunder hawk gunship out of the sky. He lands on the Wold Wolf's Lair. Above in orbit, the Iron Hands vessel, Iron Requiem, spots the greater daemon and the captain makes the decision to target Infurnace from orbit...


LEGACY OF RUSS 6: WOLF TRAP

Ramilies Starfort Mjalnar is indeed infested with daemons. Sneaky ones. But their ambush is foiled by Ragnar and De Mornay. There are some tense moments with these two as Ragnar refuses help from the Inquisition with cleansing the starfort (because killing daemons is really fun!), but De Mornay sends a call out to the Grey Knights anyway. They later find and kill a giant Tzeentchian eyeball** that shoots warp lightning. The warp lighting transforms it's target into all manner of unpleasantness before it's popped.. 

Probably my favorite passage in the book so far has got to the lance strike on the Wold Wolf's Lair on Svelgard. A really powerful Bloodthirster called Infurnance has just kicked the crap out of the Space Wolves. While the they are scrambling to figure how to kill it, the Iron Hands lance strike hits the Bloodthirster, wrecking the Wold Wolf's Lair in the process. Sven  deals the deathblow to Infurnance who is in no shape to fight back after being ground zero to a lance strike. 

In the next  chapter we get a POV of Terrek, the Iron Hands Captain who fired the lance shot. He is thrilled to be able to take on both a Greater Daemon and the Space Wolfs simultaneously, and while he is figuring out the firing solution for the next shot, the Ultramarines contacts him and gets him to stop lancing Space Wolves, but to instead join him in a ground assault against the Wolves! 

On Midgardia Egil discovers that the planet surface above him has been firebombed into oblivion. It's a sad apocalyptic scene, and one can't help but mourn for Midgardia. Sadder still, he locates Conran and discovers that he died trying to save the Govenor's family. Sad indeed.

LEGACY OF RUSS 7: THE WILD KING

Part 7, and finally the pace of this saga is picking up! Egil the IronWolf, upon seeing the devastation on Midgardia as a result of the Dark Angels fleet's firebombing, returned to his command ship. Frustrated with the Dark Angel's refusal to communicate with the Space Wolves, he ordered his fleet to open fire on the crusade fleet. An intense and fun bit of reading happened here as the Dark Angel's Supreme Commander Azrael struggled to maintain command of his fleet due to the Changling's efforts to directly undermine him.

The Grey knights arrive on Mjalnar to assist De Mornay and Ragnar Blackmane against the Tzeentchian daemons. Ragnar slays the Tzeentchian Herald collapsing the rift, but not before the thing tells him some truths about the entire situation. With the star fort cleansed, they rally together and continue on toward Midgardia.

On Svellgard a parley of sorts has been made with the Ultramarines, Iron Warriors and Space Wolves agreeing to focus their assaults against the three main Warp Rifts plaguing the planet. Lots of war porn follows. My favorite aspect of this being Iron Warriors Captain Terrek's barely contained desire to just blow up the whole planet and be done with the situation.




LEGACY OF RUSS 8: FATE UNBOUND

A fast and final act, as many of the ongoing subplots are resolved. My favorite chapter being the arrival of Ragnar, De Mornay and Stern to the Rock to petition to the Dark Angels to stop the madness and get them to understand that The Enemy (i.e. Chaos) as been manipulating them in a complex orchestration to ignite a civil war. Vox Seneschal Mendaxis is revealed to be the Changling and all hell breaks loose as Ragnar, De Mornay, Stern along with Supreme Grandmaster Azrael and Master Interrogator-Chaplain Asmodai pursue the Changling into the depths of the Rock. Not much is different in regards to the campaign books as this scene is detailed well in The Wrath of Magnus, but I did find the Changling's encounter with a Watcher in the Dark to be quite fascinating. Ragnar lands the killing blow and the Changling is banished. Azrael concedes that he has been a bit of a dick to the Space Wolves and agrees to pull back the Crusade Fleet to the edge of the Fenris system for now.

The order to pull back the crusade fleet frustrates Iron Warrior Captain Terrek who was readying his ships to continue to engage the Space Wolves. This guy REALLY wanted to kill some Space Wolves, and I find his subplot to be amusing. I wonder if we'll see this guy again?

The conclusion of The Legacy of Russ ends with the Great Company commanders gathered on the Grand Annulus on Fenris trying to decide their next moves and more or less summarizing the whole mess that they are in. It's a good, if not feeling a bit forced, summing up of their situation. I did like the mention, practically a footnote, of the previous encounter with the Changling where he impersonated Logan Grimnar on Dargur. I had suspected that the story in Space Wolves was a sort prequel to Warzone Fenris and I felt satisfied to see that I was correct. It concludes with Kjarl Grimblood's Great Company projected to arrive in the Fenris system and Egil Ironwolf demanding to go join him so that he continue searching for Logan Grimnar.


++++++++++++++++++++

Guess who gets the last laugh?

And that was the Legacy of Russ. It sets up the Wrath of Magnus, and even tells some of the tales in the earliest parts of it, but does everything it can to not reveal the machinations of Magnus or the Thousand Sons. Which is fine if you are going to next read the story in the Wrath of Magnus campaign set, but as a casual reader I think this is a disappointment to not have the Wrath of Magnus novelized. To read this entire story, where far too much of it takes place  searching for Logan Grimnar on Midgardia, you need to read the campaign books. I think that  to not have resolution to the Grimnar mystery and the over-all meta plot regarding the Chaos schemes against Fenris and the reunion of the Wulfen, in novel form, just feels incomplete. And for the casual or new reader, getting a hold of these answers is now a challenge considering that the Warzone: Fenris books are out of print. Maybe GW ought to consider selling the 'fluff' books from both Campaign sets together? Not sure, but it seems like a lot work went into this project and it's a sad to see it just passed by and faded away.

Again, the Legacy of Russ was intended as a gap-filler and a time stalling tool. The releases for the two campaign books were many months, close to a year, apart. Without a proper ending to the over-all story, this collection is almost useless. Shame too, because for the most part, it was an entertaining read. Yes, I use the term 'warporn' a lot in this review, many because this story was drowned in endless combat description text which, to me, I feel like I have to grind through. But the highlights are definitely here.

Do I recommend this book? To causal readers, no. It's not necessary, and you won't feel like you got the full tale when it's all over. You're better off finding the two campaign books. For Space Wolf purists, yes. But not urgently so. The over all tale is already told in Warzone: Fenris campaign books, but there is some inspirational passages in this work that will allow you to better know your Wolf Lords. I would say this is a book for completists and collectors of all things Space Wolves. But for me, I think I burnt myself out on Fenrisian prose and I am going to take on a different area of the 40K universe next.

* I am fascinated by Inquistor De Mornay, and I want to read more about him and his retinue. I suspect that there are some interesting stories to be told around him suspecting the weird actions fo the Dark Angels but never being able to connect the dots. Oh heck, I also want a miniature of this guy on his palanquin! 

** I would love to see some one build a model of this thing some day, I can't help but think that it would like the Alpha Centurian from Dr. Who...

Zap!

All of the images in the post are Copyright Games Workshop Ltd. and are used here for the purposes of review and not as a challenge to their individual copyrights.  Except for the Alpha Centurian, that image is copyright BBC.