Review: Blood and Fire

The ebook cover. 

Blood and Fire by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.
This a short story that follows up directly to the story Helsreach in Black Library's Space Marine Battles range. It was originally only available as an ebook but was recently combined with Helsreach into a two story omnibus called Armageddon.

The story is written in first person, as told by Chaplain Grimaldus of the Black Templars. It directly follows the events of Helsreach and wraps up some of the leftovers from that story. Helsreach jumped back and forth from a third person viewpoint to a first person view point from Grimaldus's perspective. Sticking with the first person viewpoint better serves the story in my opinion and helps pull, and anchor, the reader into the story.

The story is about Grimaldus finding out about the Celestial Lions Chapter's very high fatality rate in both the space and ground battles during the Third War of Armageddon. He receives a message from a fellow Chaplain of the Celestial Lions who sends him a detailed report that spells out the fate of the Celestial Lions chapter. It implicates that the Inquisition is likely orchestrating events to set the Lions up for failure in their campain against the orks. Essentially he learns what we players learned from the old 3rd War of Armageddon Website about the Lions. And he decides to do something about it.

As a Celestial Lions fan I am thrilled to say that we learn quite a bit more regarding the Celestial Lions in this story. And I am trying my best here not to make this review a total spoiler fest. So I will spare the details and stick with the basic story.

We learn that the Celestial Lions are also, like the Black Templars, a successor Chapter of the Imperial Fists. Grimaldus feels an obligation to assist so he and his companion, Cyneric, a new Chaplain aspirant, return to Armageddon to seek out the Lions. They find them, or what is left of them and learn this:

"Nine hundred and eighty-three warriors. They had brought nine hundred and eighty-three warriors to this world, and only ninety-six remained."

These survivors were being led by their highest ranking officer to survive, Sergeant Ekene. Having given up any hope, these warriors have decided to make a final push back into the Mannheim Gap where so many of their battle brothers have perished already. They do this for both honor and vengeance and they know it is likely suicide. Although Grimaldus would rather pull them out and return them to their chapter world so that they may begin to replenish and rebuild their Chapter back into a fighting force.

I will stop here with what is essentially a set-up. As I said, it is a shorter story and it is hard to say too much about it without opening a can of spoilers.

• Did I like it? Oh, I loved it. Sticking with the first person perspective for the entire story was s major plus for me. I love it because we got to see the aftermath of the 3rd War of Armageddon after the "fire season" starts and we got to revisit characters from the previous story. As a Celestial Lions fan, it was nice to get more details about their chapter and customs. 
• Was it hard to put down? Very. I tore through it relatively fast compared to Helsreach. The only part that I thought went too long was the storytelling session Grimaldus has with Ekene and the Lions. But otherwise, it was quite good.
• Could I care about the characters? Indeed I could, but for some characters this proves to be a regrettable decision. I have said before, if you mourn for a character than that character was well written and developed. 
• Did the writer truly grasp how the 'world' of the 41st millennium works in the sense that it doesn't betray or retcon previously established (as I know it) lore? This was handled well. Heck, there is so little Celestial Lions lore that all Aaron could do was build upon it. And he built upon it well. I felt that the Lions were given a new life, and I would love to see him revisit them as the Chapter tries to rebuild. Or better yet, revisit them in the post Dark Imperium paradigm.
• Was I being talked down too? Well, you are reading the personal account of a Reclusiarch...
• How predictable is this story? It is a very straight forward story, but it did not end how I predicted it would end. The body count was considerly higher than I would have anticipated also. For a short story, it adds considerable weight to the legend of Grimaldus. 
• Do I recommend this book? Very much so. Even more so if you have an interest in the Celestial Lions or of the 3rd War of Armageddon. However, in order for the story to have maximum impact you really do need to read Helsreach first. And you should because it is awesome.

Armageddon Omnibus. 

Book Review: Helsreach

 Helsreach by Aaron Dembski-Bowden is a story about the Ork siege on the Hive City of Helsreach on the planet Armageddon. Actually, it's really the dramatization of about 3 paragraphs from the Warhammer 4th edition Codex: Black Templars entry on Chaplain Grimaldus and how he became the Hero of Helsreach.

Spoilers ahead! (Possibly).

The book starts off with war preparations as the Imperial Forces are very aware that the orks are coming back to wage war on the planet and they are readying for a battle to end all battles. The hero in our story, Black Templars Chaplain Grimaldus, starts the book hardening his heart in preparation to die. He knows that he has been assigned a task that he will most likely not survive.  They know that the approaching ork forces are legion, and they know that in spite of all of the Imperium's preparations that they are grossly out numbered and outgunned.

For a taste of what I'm describing here, check out this  sweet fan animation done to the Helsreach audiobook, it's really cool.

For anyone who has read a lot of the Ciaphas Cain novels you kind of become an expert on what preparation for Xenos planetary assaults looks like. Titanicus is another brilliant example, especially from a Mechnicum perspective. Being that this is about one of the many battles of the 3rd War of Armageddon, the siege preparation is also proportionally epic.  The early chapters are a lot like these examples in that sense, and when the Orks start to rain down the story quickly turns into "war-porn".

But it's well written war-porn and that helps making the grind through some of these chapters a lot more enjoyable. But unlike other works that I have described as war-porn this narrative never loses it's objective tone or turns into Imperial propaganda in the sense that it sells you glory over lives or action over suffering. Indeed, Dembski-Bowden never lets you, or Grimaldus, forget that this is a city full of people. The civilians, countless and faceless minions of the Imperium that are the heart and soul of what the Imperium is, that are most in danger the whole time. In war there are always refugees who are displaced and disloged from their normal lives and roles that government must deal with in some fashion. The terror of it all is that the orks are not interested in the conquest or subjugation of these people, but only in their slaughter. Surrender is not an option. We see civilians pick up arms to defend their hidden bunkers, or to snipe from scattered rooftops. And we see whole manufacturing districts conscripted into the PDF to fight alongside the Imperial Guard.

It is this overarching human tale where Dembski-Bowden transcends above the typical Black Library war-porn epic and gives us a tale where the players and personalities are always in danger, but it's not just their lives you worry about because you understand that if they die the city of Helsreach dies as well. This isn't a senseless war fighting for the fight of it, but fighting for the very right to be alive.

The siege escalates quickly, and desperately, and although it seems the Imperial forces just might hold out and push back the invaders a series of calamities ensue culminating with the ork submersible attack on the docks, that pushes the tide back in the other direction. This is a war against all odds, we are told as much in the begining, and the story sticks to that theme. Even the titan combats, which evoke the afore mentioned Titanicus, are crazy intense.  When the mega-gargant Godbreaker arrives, the intensity ratchets up quite a bit while hope and sanity take a massive downshift. Here we have some of the awesomest titan combats I have ever read in both scale and intensity and it was a thrill to behold it.

In the begining of this review I mentioned that this is the expanded story of Grimaldus's entry in the original Codex: Black Templars. It explains how and why when you see the Reclusiarch on the battlefield he is often accompanied by a zealous pack of servitors (see pic below). Demnski-Bowden has done a brilliant job with this although I couldn't but feel that the final chapter, though satisfying, felt a tad rushed.

• Did I like it? Yes I did, and more I  read the more I like it. 
• Was it hard to put down? For the first half of the book I found it too easy to put down. Yes there was action and excitement but too often you would be introduced to a character that would be dead within 2 chapters, and I found that the loss of individual continuity would sometimes demotivate me to continue to the next chapter. The final 3rd of this story however was very challenging to put down, as events truly ramped up to an incredible finale. It took me a long time to get through this story, but the last 3 chapters I devoured in a single sitting.
• Could I care about the characters? Ultimately yes, but with so many characters dying you found yourself detached from them ultimately. Again, there are characters that are introduced that die quickly but ultimately you see that there is a reason for it. Heroes are the ones who die, and this a book full of them. Regardless of their past glories or their bravado or gusto, the ork war machine is an unstoppable force and it cares only for your death and your glory matters not to it. Grimaldus is self-assured and reluctantly humble throughout the whole thing as he expects to die. Not without a fight however, and never once does he yield to his expectation. Reluctantly by the story's end he comes to terms with why he is here at this city, and why it matters that he fights for the lives of the humans of Helsreach. Dembski-Bowden, by the tales end, has truly created a character that has grown above and beyond it's Codex game entry, and one we now hope to see grow further.
• Did the writer truly grasp how the 'world' of the 41st millennium works in the sense that it doesn't betray or retcon previously established (as I know it) lore?  Oh, he gets it! In fact Demnski-Bowden excels in this regard and I find that his embellishment ultimately is what sold me on this book. It is, so far, the best story about the 3rd War of Armageddon that I have read.
• Was I being talked down too? Never, the tone was perfect throughout. 
• How predictable is this story? It's fairly predictable as far as plot goes and as far as the Techpriest subplot goes, but there are many story elements that are not, especially the outcomes of some the secondary characters. The chapters where the Salamander Space Marines are in Helsreach were particularly fascinating as they served to showcase just how different the Salmanders are to the Black Templars. I had not predicted that to end the way it did.
• Do I recommend this book? Yes. But be patient with it. It may feel familiar to those who have read other BL Space Marine tales, but it grows into a very fascinating tale and examination of the  typical  broken cityscape battlefield of Warhammer 40k. By the tale's end I very much enjoyed it and think you might as well.

The book is now out of print but was reprinted with another story and is now sold as Armageddon which I think may still be available. (It is, at least in ebook format anyway).

Celestial Lions Kill Team ( icons)

As any dedicated Celestial Lion Player (assuming you can find one) will tell you, there isn't much at all in the way of official visual reference for this Chapter. We have the image above, taken from the old 3rd War of Armageddon campaign website, and the artwork in and on the cover of the Armageddon omnibus from the Black Library. Prior to the Armadeddon Black Library novel the only official background source (that I know of) was from the old Armageddon 3 site. Using the Wayback Machine site I was able to explore that old campaign site. It was a very cool support page and it was a lot of fun to use and access during that campaign back in the summer of '00. I took a few snips from that site to show you the Celestial Lions stuff. Again, it isn't much:

Found via the Wayback Machine*,  the Armageddon 3 website.

The original and official story of the Celestial Lions.

Miniatures are an even worse scenario, as I believe there has never been an official painted example featured in a GW publication (although there have been fan -and I think WD staff?- models showcased but those are super rare). Which leads to a question of iconography. We are presented with two different shoulder pads, one showing a colored in lion's head looking straight-on:

Straight on!

...and the other in a more traditional monotone icon of a lion's head in profile I assumed this is the Chapter's icon as it appears on the left shoulder pad. .

Chapter Icon

Another prominent icon is this symbol that appears on the leg. I assume this is a Campaign Badge, which is something the Game Design/ 'eavy Metal team used to put on all of the marines back in the '90s. These seem to have fallen out of fashion in the same way that Goblin Green bases have but I still like to put them on my Space Wolves.

Interestingly the Armageddon 3 site doesn't give us any more info on this campaign badge. But this other image that I found does, and it says it's for the Fire Wastes Army Group North. Makes sense as this is the area that the Celestial Lions Chapter was stationed on Armageddon, and the place of their fall. I haven't decide yet whether or not I want to include this on my models. 

No idea where this is from. White Dwarf Index Astartes article perhaps?

This next pair of images are far more recent. both are from the Armageddon book. 

This image doesn't reveal much at all in the way of iconography, only that this particular Chapter Icon is the lion head looking straight-on as opposed to a profile. It's nice, but not particularly helpful. It does show the blue on their armor as being darker, which is also how I originally interpreted it from the old Armageddon 3 site as well. Often when I see other people's painted Celestial Lions they tend to paint the blue as a turquoise, which looks great as well, but not how I thought it looked on the original site.

The painting used for the cover of Armageddon.

Above is the painting used on the Armageddon two-story collection. The second story in this collection, Blood and Fire, is also available as an ePub download on it's own and has it's own cover.  It shows the Celestial Lion a lot more prominently and, of interest to me, it reveals his right shoulder pad as using the traditional upward pointing arrow that has been associated with Space Marine Tactical Squads in accordance to the Codex Astartes. The arrow on that cover is painted gold as well. 

Believe it or not, that last bit is quite a revelation!

What follows next goes back over a decade to when I first considered doing the Celestial Lions as an army. I decided that I wanted to hand-paint the lion icon onto the marine shoulder pads. One day, I found myself in a car dealer's waiting room waiting for an oil change and I had my sketch book handy. I worked up some sketches. This next image is roughly how I decided I wanted the icon on my guys to look like. 

Profile sketch. 

Another sketch had me putting stars into the dark blue, which I thought might look bad-ass. Also it really plays up the "celestial' aspect of this Chapter in addition to it just being their name.

Starfield idea. 

This next crude sketch was more working out the icon on the armor.

Crude but effective. 

After doodling about in the sketchbook I was inspired to approach my first project for the Celestial Lions. And here he is: 

I painted him in what felt like record time and entered him into a local painting competition. (He came in 2nd!). I used the forward looking straight on image of the lion for the banner, and hand painted the chapter icon onto the appropriate shoulder.

So now, as I work on my Celestial Lions Kill Team I found myself considering whether or not I wanted to make the icon mono color like a traditional Chapter Icon, or color it in simple colors like I did for the Terminator Captain. After much consideration I decided to make it hard on myself and repeat the image from the Captain's armor. Below you can see the earliest stages of my efforts to make this happen.

It's a lot of work and takes a lot of focus, but I hope it works out well for me in the end. Since I am not going to do much more for this army beyond a Kill Team, I figured the extra effort couldn't hurt. Now if I had a full 2K army to paint, I definitely would have looked into getting unique decals made!

* The Wayback Machine. It doesn't always work though.

The first nine images in this post are Copyright Games Workshop and are used here for the purposes of review and not as a challenge to their individual copyrights.