I dunno, Jeremiah Blitz reminds me of the sort of rogue that Flashman is. He could certainly be portrayed in that manner.

MILLANDSON said:

MILLANDSON said:

:: Glares at Mill:: Dude I hate you. Ciaphas Cain is my hero.

BaronIveagh said:

Imaginative enough to have given us such ubiquitous and evocative terms as vox, or promethium?

Seriously, I strongly disagree with your opinion, he absolutely doesn't just use situations from real life and then add 40K terms, though of course part of the charm of the books is that they do feature recognisable characters, emotions, and situations. What real world events equate to Hinzerhaus? Or the events of Blood Pact? Or even the first book in the series where Gaunt's men pass strange factories full of automated beating drums, and uncover a plot to discover 'Men of Iron'?

I'm reading Blood Pact at the moment, and there are scenes in it that are stunningly well written.

Gaunt himself is one of the few weaknesses of the books, arguably. He is a bit of a blank slate of a character. Which is a shame. But he's surrounded by much more interesting and plausible characters ... such as Tona Criid for example - check out the scene where she is jogging in Blood Pact and dreaming of pastries. It sounds light and frivolous, it's actually brilliantly written imo.

There's a reason Abnett gets the plaudits by and large. He's a great writer of genre fiction and the main reason the 40K novels have exploded like they have.

EDIT - Sandy Mitchell is an okay short story writer at best imo, he is not a patch on Abnett. The Cain books are not Flashman in space either imo, as Cain is not in fact either a coward, or much of a womaniser. More importantly the Cain books all suffer from Mitchell's formulaic and stodgy style of writing. The bits where he flags bits of text as being badly written (by one of the female characters in later life) are usually in fact no worse than the rest of the book.

Ranek7212 said:

I'll have to take a photo of the signature and send it to you then, so you can share in the awesome It's a shame you couldn't make it, Sandy is a really nice guy, doesn't take his fans and praise for granted like Dan Abnett did when I got to talk to him.

Adam France said:

Strange, I could swear Codex Imperial Guard was written by Rick Priestley and Andy Chambers...

I'll grant that the scene with the beating drums was a bit odd, and chalked it up to Chaos being chaos. The whole Men of Iron plot is a mishmash of RUR and Vault of the Beast with some 40k tossed in. Didn't read the rest of them after that.

To return to the topic at hand: Dark Angels armour is black, not green.

Kryptykfysh said:

I thought that was just Pre-heresy and Ravenwing? Not that I really followed DA at any point, in all honesty, other then to use Cypher in my old IG army

BaronIveagh said:

Their armor coloration depends on to what level of secrets they have been entrusted with.

• Typical Dark Angel armor is dark green
• Ravenwing is black
• Deathwing is (bone?) white.

Other then that, I can't recall if the Chaplains and Librarians differ from the "codex" norm.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

I remember seeing a chaplin wearing black in terminator armor.

Ciaphas Cain is fun. I love the idea of a Commisar who is the anti-thesis of

everything they are portrayed as in canon. A coward smart enough to not

blindly run away, a cross between Flashman and Blackadder.

Balseraph said:

Dan Abnett is the best 40k writter! and Gaunt is the greatest Hero of all time.

This is just to keep the controversies going on.

Also Dan Abnett is never going to do the space wolf novel for the HH line of books because the The Thousand Sons players poison him or redirect his attention to the Smurf Movie.

does he have a side kick who has a cunning plan though

Ranek7212 said:

KNEEL BEFORE CALGAR!

BaronIveagh said:

Logan Grimnar tells me I do not have to kneel before any 'man'. That includes you calgar.

BTW my dog is yellow lap/husky whose name is Logan grimnar.

Drake56 said:

Not that I've noticed. Would be funny though.

Regarding the Dark Angels colour scheme, isn't it the case that all Librarians of all Chapters have their armour painted blue, with only some space given to the original Chapter colour? Also, I seem to recall that all Chaplains wear black armour, with some parts of the armour painted in Chapter colour?

On the subject of novels, Dan Abnett is seriously my favourite. I don't particularly care if something in his books violates some obscure bit of fluff, he has more actual writing ability than any other 40k writer I've read, and his stories abound with intrigue, plot twists (even if pretty obvious most of the time), derring do, and interesting characters. He's also the only author who has made Space Marines have more personality than the standard "For the Emperor, charge!" marines (although granted - I haven't read any Horus Heresy novels yet). When running DH and RT I strove to replicate Abnett's vision of 40k as much as possible.

Read the Space Wolf books, there is a little more to them than just charging in as well. I mean they do do that, but its the character of the wolves that carry the day.

Ranek7212 said:

Hey, it was a perfectly good joke, considering that Gen Zod will be Calgar, IIRC.

Ranek7212 said:

The sad thing is... I met Dan Abnett at Games Day too, got his signature and everything... but he acts like a stuck up, egotistical *bleep*

He turned up 20 minutes late to the signing session I was waiting at, and when I told him I was a big fan of Eisenhorn and Ravenor, all he said was "yea, you're not the only one, everyone loves them," in a voice that sounded so smug it hurt.

I'm just not sure I can like him or his books anymore when he just doesn't seem to care about his fans to the extent he takes them for granted like that.

Now, Graham McNeill (signed a load of my stuff and after I told him my name (when he asked me who he was signing stuff to) knew me from the RT credits, which was sodding AWESOME *squee*) and Sandy Mitchell... they were guys who appreciated you telling them you loved their work, and who wanted to have a chat and a conversation with all the people they were signing stuff for. Even if they didn't mean it, it shows more respect for their fans than Abnett showed.

I had an identical issue with a famous historian. I told him I had read all of his work, and he just shrugged and walked off. Shelby Foote.

However, when I told Jonathan D Spence how amazing his research and writing was in reference to "Return to Dragon Mountain," he was pleased, corresponded with me, etc.

Because of these two experiences, when I realized that the Civil War historian I had used as a source was a d-bag, and the chinese historian was a genuine teacher, I have heavily studied the chinese.

So what is the deal with "fame"? I cant imagine Dan Abnett has that much to brag about. I have read his work, and it is not like it is up there with Dickens or even the guy that writes Star Wars books. Seriously, I really like 40k, and sure he has contributed a good bit, but as we all know, canon changes, and who is to say his writings do not become heresy before too long? LOL

Grand Inquisitor Fulminarex said:

Well, it's not like 40k is the only thing he writes - he is the co-creator of an ongoing 2000AD comics series (Sinister Dexter), is currently contracted to basically write all of the stuff for the Marvel universe that isn't set on Earth, has written scores of comics, books and audiobooks for various other licences, and had one or two original novels published...

Eh, fame is different things to different people, and can really bring out the ******* in some. (Trent, I'm looking at YOU)

I can't say that I've met any of the three authors mentioned. However...

Stephen King used to be cool, but started getting a bit uppity when his name got bigger then the title of the book. David Kinkaid (of the Brandos) is an ok guy... most of the time. Do NOT piss him off. Graham Nash is very pleasant (and quick to pay). Russel Means is very friendly (and has an incredible memory for faces). Dan Akroyd is a remarkably skilled card player. Chicago: the band are ok by and large (only met them for a moment once), but the manager on their last tour was an ******* who did not understand what "I don't care what your contract says, that would be illegal ." meant.

Razorboy said:

In the case of the majority of the codex chapters, yes. Their librarians armor is mostly blue even amongst the Dark Angels as I recall. Can't grab my buddies codex to verify right now since it's in his room and he's sleeping. There are some exceptions among other chapters. Space Wolf Rune Priests armor is commonly the same color as the rest of their chapter, that light slate/blue gray color. Though, I guess if the shade is darker and more blue it would still fall into the "standard" color scheme of Librarians.

The Wolf Priests of the Space Wolves ; who double as Chaplains and Apothecaries for the chapter, seem to wear a dark gray, not quite black armor.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

While they fulfil the same battlefield role (and are sufficiently close to be represented the same way in game terms), Rune Priests aren't Librarians in the strictest sense; the Space Wolves don't have a Librarius, and they apparently never have had one, instead using shamanic battle-psykers developed as an extension of Fenrisian traditions rather than in the more standardised manner of Codex chapters. Just as importantly, the Space Wolves are known for their lack of adherence to the Codex Astartes, and consequently will invariably ignore things like Codex-mandated colour schemes for specialists except where it serves their purposes.

Brother Praetus said:

I'm just being old and crusty and lamenting the morphability of fluff.

In the Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader rules (First Edition), the Dark Angels' armour scheme was black, the Emperor himself was their Chapter Commander (with the Space Marine who actually functioned as the Chapter Commander bearing the title Custodian).

I still have black liveried Dark Angels and I'll be damned if I'm changing them!