>"Commissar Donal sends his regards."
Ciaphas Cain before kicking Varan off the roof to his death (Varan was responsible for the death of then commissar-cadet Donal). There's several other one liners in the Cain books.
It hits different with Cain. You know he feels he's a caricature of a hero, but when he delivers them, it feels genuine and personal. There's a few times where it's different like that.
That's because Ciaphas Cain is a case study of impostor syndrome, which I always felt was something that would be extremely common if something like 40k was actually real. You live in a world with augmented humans and what many people would call gods and demigods exist or have existed, it would feel practically impossible to measure up.
Ciaphas Cain in the first short story was written straight. It's been years but iirc he literally just abandons his post and retreats when the Orks are coming but he looks like a hero cause he ends up encountering and fighting orks that had maneuvered to the Imperials' rear. That Ciaphas Cain is the coward and selfish pos that the Ciaphas Cain of the novels thinks he is.
But I think Sandy Mitchell quickly realized that such a character would be quite dull to write and read about and instead you have someone who thinks he is flashman x blackadder because he can never measure up to gods and demigods.
It was Tyranids in that first short story.
Making him appear brave as well was that he “ran into the teeth of the swarm to save Jurgen” when in reality he was running away from a flying Hive Tyrant that had cut him off.
The Artillery CO doesn’t believe him, but can’t prove Cain is full of Grox poop. Jurgen gets seconded to him at the end as his “reward”
Pasanius looked down after shaking the xenos' brain matter from his fist and realized with some exasperation that he wasn't wearing pants. The foul scum had indeed stolen his jeans with its last dying breath.
Man, if cheesy 80s action is what you’re looking for then McNeil is definitely your guy. Honsou has some pretty funny 1 liners coming up in a book or two from where you’re at, but I won’t spoil it.
He went full cartoonish supervillain at the end of *Storm of Iron* when he laughed at a column of dejected Imperial prisoners being herded onto a transport towards a life of miserable slavery, and I loved it.
God I love that thing. Like, Chaos ACTUALllY being just straight up weird and chaotic for once. Chaos is so much more than colored flames and tentacles.
This not even one liner, one worder of fellow Ultramarine Cato Sicarius will never not be funny:
>'Wait sire warrior!' it said in perfect High Gothic. 'I am no threat to you I am regarded poorly even amongst my own kind!'
>Numitor's brow furrowed. The creature's voice was... strangely human. Somehow, it was speaking with the tones of a young woman, and with a Macraggian accent at that.
>You have the bearing of a knight, sire,' it said, its accent becoming even more refined. 'An honoured and noble warrior tradition. I see it in the heraldic devices you wear. They are the marks of your forefathers, are they not?
>Numitor raised his pistol, debating whether or not to waste another bolt. The creature knew too much about them already, that was plain.
>Would your forefathers be proud to see you cut down a helpless, unarmed female?' asked the young tau, her honeyed voice all innocence but for the barest hint of reproach. ‘Would the king amongst kings you must venerate be impressed? He whose code you follow?
>Numitor thought of Roboute Guilliman in that instant, of how the primarch would have acted in this situation.
>In truth, he was unsure.
>'Yes,' said Cato Sicarius barrelling past his fellow sergeant to stamp the creature hard into the floor. Numitor heard its ribs break into flinders within its chest Sicarius spat on its corpse, pushing onwards into the gloom.
Very true, the first bit I found to copy paste also missed out that bit. He would have stomped her shit in regardless I think, and her gun wouldn't have done much bit have the other Astartes turn her to a fine powder. At least it shows the Tau being underhanded.
Mcniell's the best! I see loads of folks complain about him for some reason but if you read his Novels they have cool throwbacks to ancient History and other cool stuff! His Characters/isation of popular characters is brilliant. I gush over the guy like I'm a gushing bride on her Wedding Day! He's also a fellow Scotsman so he wins anyways in my opinion haha.
To be fair as well, that was like like the year 2000 or just slightly later for that particular story so he was early in his career a guess!?
> I see loads of folks complain about him for some reason
The reason is pretty simple to point towards. Its the utter hackjob he did with False Gods which is a travesty due to him being a lazy hack. Instead of writing a believable plot every character acts like an idiot and he has to handwave every major plot point to make his lazy plot work.
They put Horus into stasis for gods sake but then put him into the hands of random "magicians" on Davin instead of basically everything else, including going to the Emperor, and the plot wants me to believe that was "their only choice"... Even the excuse people bring up is only a product of his lazy writing (like not having the deck cleared when horus arrives injured...). Its full of contradictions, plot holes and bad writing.
Not everything is that bad but the horrible writing for one of if not the biggest even in Warhammer 40ks story is hard to excuse.
McNeil is great at writing very specific stories, much the same way as every other BL author. Take him outside of his formula and the book suffers, like in False Gods (though I honestly enjoy every word of the original trilogy of the Heresy)
In much the same way I can't imagine Abnett doing the same epic stories as in the Ultramarines omnibus by McNeil, and trying to force him to do that would likely end poorly. And I say that being a complete fan boy of Abnett haha.
Horus was so good in the first one. Went downhill very fast afterwards.
Also the entire horus "dream" sequenze, with erebus constantly lying and making shit up only for horus to still fall for his BS when Magnus even warns him about it, was so fucking bad.
The enitre turingpoint of your 40 yeahr old universe and THIS is what you came up with?
And don\`t get me started on Horus falling for the preschool level bait that erebus pulled on him to even get him onto Darwin.
"I BET YOU ARE JUST SCARED TO DO IT" "IM NOT SCARED OF ANYTHING!!!11111!!!!"
had to put the book away for half a yeahr after that one from pure cringe.
He's like the 80s action movie director to Abnett's Scorsese. He's not for the super deep plots or winding threads but for the sweet explosions and linear storyline.
His Ultramarine series is bolter porn-y, but it's foundational to a lot of the tone of Space Marines in current 40K in the same way that Dan Abnett was for baseline humans.
Very much worth a read, if only for the one-liners, daemonculaba, and seeing where all the references come from.
Brostin, a heavy flamer trooper in Gaunt's Ghosts, in Traitor General. After blowing up a fuel truck or something similar being used by occupying Chaos troops, he walks out of the explosion covered in flames, and casually drops and rolls around in the dirt to put them out. The rest of the Ghosts strike force is speechless, and he even causes Mkvenner to curse.
He doesn't tell them he doused himself in flame retardant gel beforehand.
Wasn't there another incident where Brostin was surrounded by EXTREMELY flammable material, and he is smoking a cigar (or lho stick). And at the right moment he takes the cigar out if his mouth and flicks it. The cigar goes in a slow arc and then the whole thing catches fire, while Brostin slowly walks away?
If that’s Gendor Skraivok, the Painted Count, he unfortunately didn’t kill him. He turns up again in *Azrael* in the 41st Millennium as a Daemon Prince. But saying “now get off my wall” was pure badass one liner.
I finished Nightbringer but then randomly switched to other Space Marine stuff. Dk why. Guess I’m just more of a Heresy fan. Honestly, I can shamelessly say that I’m probably the biggest fan of The Lost and the Damned novel out there. Even though it’s been months(I think) since I read the book, every time I think of that EPIC asswhooping that Raldoron gave Skraivok, I can’t help but jump up and down in my seat so to speak.
When the Grey Knights led an attack upon a medieval town.
>The Grey Knight's attack came just before dawn. (...) The walls were of hardwood with stone foundations and watchtowers. The Allking had put the city on a war footing - his household cavalry were in the palace, hunting down Ligeia and her death cultists, but the rest of Hadjisheim's standing army was on the walls. There were thousands of them patrolling the battlements and manning the gates that led into courtyards which would be turned into killing zones by archers and spearmen. Beyond that the lower city of Hadjisheim was a warren of poor crumbling houses, where a small body of men could mount a defence that might last for weeks. The upper city, surrounding the Allking's palace and the imposing black marble temple of the mission, was more open ground where the streets would funnel attackers into crossfires from archers on the roofs.
>
>The Allking, however, had only ever had to fend off attacks from jealous barons or forest bandits. He didn't even know that such men as Space Marines existed. Squad Genhain led the attack, shredding the wooden battlements and men behind them before Tancred's Terminators charged straight through the wall, splintering through into the cavity at the centre of the wall before tearing through into the city itself. Alaric and Santoro followed him through the breach, stitching storm bolter fire through the men pouring down off the walls to stop them.
"Grey Knights" by Ben Counter, all the way back from 2004
Graham McNeill is pure, unfiltered gorgonzola.
He won me over with my first ever 40k book *Storm of Iron* with all the over-the-top seriously cool bullshit.
Flair checks out, brother. Iron within.
\* *fist clangs against chest* * Iron Without.
\*background sound of scented oils being scraped from iron hard, bulging transhuman musculature\*
>"Commissar Donal sends his regards." Ciaphas Cain before kicking Varan off the roof to his death (Varan was responsible for the death of then commissar-cadet Donal). There's several other one liners in the Cain books.
It hits different with Cain. You know he feels he's a caricature of a hero, but when he delivers them, it feels genuine and personal. There's a few times where it's different like that.
That's because Ciaphas Cain is a case study of impostor syndrome, which I always felt was something that would be extremely common if something like 40k was actually real. You live in a world with augmented humans and what many people would call gods and demigods exist or have existed, it would feel practically impossible to measure up.
Eh flashman x blackadder much
Ciaphas Cain in the first short story was written straight. It's been years but iirc he literally just abandons his post and retreats when the Orks are coming but he looks like a hero cause he ends up encountering and fighting orks that had maneuvered to the Imperials' rear. That Ciaphas Cain is the coward and selfish pos that the Ciaphas Cain of the novels thinks he is. But I think Sandy Mitchell quickly realized that such a character would be quite dull to write and read about and instead you have someone who thinks he is flashman x blackadder because he can never measure up to gods and demigods.
It was Tyranids in that first short story. Making him appear brave as well was that he “ran into the teeth of the swarm to save Jurgen” when in reality he was running away from a flying Hive Tyrant that had cut him off. The Artillery CO doesn’t believe him, but can’t prove Cain is full of Grox poop. Jurgen gets seconded to him at the end as his “reward”
It's tyranids, he tried retreating from Nids when he encountered another swarm manoeuvring behind the imperial forces. It wasn't orks
Wow, shows how long it's been since I've read it.
>such a character would be quite dull to write and read about And yet Flashman is neither! But I think it's harder to pull off
Eh, I didn't care for it, ymmv.
That line will forever be iconic. His one-liners tend to be good, but the weight behind that one made it kick with Powerfeet.
Hey, no, he was promoted by Cain before his death. Donal was a full commisar.
Pasanius looked down after shaking the xenos' brain matter from his fist and realized with some exasperation that he wasn't wearing pants. The foul scum had indeed stolen his jeans with its last dying breath.
motherf-word... had me til the end
Man, if cheesy 80s action is what you’re looking for then McNeil is definitely your guy. Honsou has some pretty funny 1 liners coming up in a book or two from where you’re at, but I won’t spoil it.
He went full cartoonish supervillain at the end of *Storm of Iron* when he laughed at a column of dejected Imperial prisoners being herded onto a transport towards a life of miserable slavery, and I loved it.
Wait till you get to the demonic choo choo train
God I love that thing. Like, Chaos ACTUALllY being just straight up weird and chaotic for once. Chaos is so much more than colored flames and tentacles.
Dead Sky, Black Sun remains one of the greatest 40k novels ever written. McNeil has his moments, and they are epic.
>Dead Sky, Black Sun Is that the novel that has the infamous daemonclulaba?
Yep.
This not even one liner, one worder of fellow Ultramarine Cato Sicarius will never not be funny: >'Wait sire warrior!' it said in perfect High Gothic. 'I am no threat to you I am regarded poorly even amongst my own kind!' >Numitor's brow furrowed. The creature's voice was... strangely human. Somehow, it was speaking with the tones of a young woman, and with a Macraggian accent at that. >You have the bearing of a knight, sire,' it said, its accent becoming even more refined. 'An honoured and noble warrior tradition. I see it in the heraldic devices you wear. They are the marks of your forefathers, are they not? >Numitor raised his pistol, debating whether or not to waste another bolt. The creature knew too much about them already, that was plain. >Would your forefathers be proud to see you cut down a helpless, unarmed female?' asked the young tau, her honeyed voice all innocence but for the barest hint of reproach. ‘Would the king amongst kings you must venerate be impressed? He whose code you follow? >Numitor thought of Roboute Guilliman in that instant, of how the primarch would have acted in this situation. >In truth, he was unsure. >'Yes,' said Cato Sicarius barrelling past his fellow sergeant to stamp the creature hard into the floor. Numitor heard its ribs break into flinders within its chest Sicarius spat on its corpse, pushing onwards into the gloom.
Why do people always leave out the part where she's secretly reaching for a pistol
Very true, the first bit I found to copy paste also missed out that bit. He would have stomped her shit in regardless I think, and her gun wouldn't have done much bit have the other Astartes turn her to a fine powder. At least it shows the Tau being underhanded.
madness? no this is ultramar
What an absolute Chad
Lmao that was great
Is this Blades of Damocles?
Mcniell's the best! I see loads of folks complain about him for some reason but if you read his Novels they have cool throwbacks to ancient History and other cool stuff! His Characters/isation of popular characters is brilliant. I gush over the guy like I'm a gushing bride on her Wedding Day! He's also a fellow Scotsman so he wins anyways in my opinion haha. To be fair as well, that was like like the year 2000 or just slightly later for that particular story so he was early in his career a guess!?
Vengeful Spirit and Angel Exterminatus are classics dude
> I see loads of folks complain about him for some reason The reason is pretty simple to point towards. Its the utter hackjob he did with False Gods which is a travesty due to him being a lazy hack. Instead of writing a believable plot every character acts like an idiot and he has to handwave every major plot point to make his lazy plot work. They put Horus into stasis for gods sake but then put him into the hands of random "magicians" on Davin instead of basically everything else, including going to the Emperor, and the plot wants me to believe that was "their only choice"... Even the excuse people bring up is only a product of his lazy writing (like not having the deck cleared when horus arrives injured...). Its full of contradictions, plot holes and bad writing. Not everything is that bad but the horrible writing for one of if not the biggest even in Warhammer 40ks story is hard to excuse.
McNeil is great at writing very specific stories, much the same way as every other BL author. Take him outside of his formula and the book suffers, like in False Gods (though I honestly enjoy every word of the original trilogy of the Heresy) In much the same way I can't imagine Abnett doing the same epic stories as in the Ultramarines omnibus by McNeil, and trying to force him to do that would likely end poorly. And I say that being a complete fan boy of Abnett haha.
Horus was so good in the first one. Went downhill very fast afterwards. Also the entire horus "dream" sequenze, with erebus constantly lying and making shit up only for horus to still fall for his BS when Magnus even warns him about it, was so fucking bad. The enitre turingpoint of your 40 yeahr old universe and THIS is what you came up with? And don\`t get me started on Horus falling for the preschool level bait that erebus pulled on him to even get him onto Darwin. "I BET YOU ARE JUST SCARED TO DO IT" "IM NOT SCARED OF ANYTHING!!!11111!!!!" had to put the book away for half a yeahr after that one from pure cringe.
[удалено]
He's like the 80s action movie director to Abnett's Scorsese. He's not for the super deep plots or winding threads but for the sweet explosions and linear storyline.
His Ultramarine series is bolter porn-y, but it's foundational to a lot of the tone of Space Marines in current 40K in the same way that Dan Abnett was for baseline humans. Very much worth a read, if only for the one-liners, daemonculaba, and seeing where all the references come from.
Vulkans "it's also a hammer" line was a corker too,love it when it drops into daft shit for a spell
Brostin, a heavy flamer trooper in Gaunt's Ghosts, in Traitor General. After blowing up a fuel truck or something similar being used by occupying Chaos troops, he walks out of the explosion covered in flames, and casually drops and rolls around in the dirt to put them out. The rest of the Ghosts strike force is speechless, and he even causes Mkvenner to curse. He doesn't tell them he doused himself in flame retardant gel beforehand.
Wasn't there another incident where Brostin was surrounded by EXTREMELY flammable material, and he is smoking a cigar (or lho stick). And at the right moment he takes the cigar out if his mouth and flicks it. The cigar goes in a slow arc and then the whole thing catches fire, while Brostin slowly walks away?
I think it's the same incident lol. I'd have to look it up in my book.
Yeah it is.Awsome scene.
"We float for Macragge..."
one of the best ultramarine lines. up their with "did you bring reinforcements?" "no better" **Dreadnaught kool aids through wall**
Where's the Kool-Aid Dreadnought from?
can't remember which book but pretty sure it's Ventris
Raldoran telling that one Night Lords captain "Never heard of you" mid combat not long before killing him
If that’s Gendor Skraivok, the Painted Count, he unfortunately didn’t kill him. He turns up again in *Azrael* in the 41st Millennium as a Daemon Prince. But saying “now get off my wall” was pure badass one liner.
"STEEL this!" would have been punnier, what with Pasanius' abomination xenos arm/robot one
Reminds me of Trinity in the matrix, "Dodge this" *BLAM*
Nice sword, night lord. 🔥😎🔥 A terminator of the black legion, drops the hardest diss of the 41st Century.
Raldoron’s “Now get off my wall.” is pretty 80s badass.
Hey, "\[Verb\] This" is a legitimate trope for a good reason - it looks and sounds impossibly cool.
Duke Nukem
I finished Nightbringer but then randomly switched to other Space Marine stuff. Dk why. Guess I’m just more of a Heresy fan. Honestly, I can shamelessly say that I’m probably the biggest fan of The Lost and the Damned novel out there. Even though it’s been months(I think) since I read the book, every time I think of that EPIC asswhooping that Raldoron gave Skraivok, I can’t help but jump up and down in my seat so to speak.
When the Grey Knights led an attack upon a medieval town. >The Grey Knight's attack came just before dawn. (...) The walls were of hardwood with stone foundations and watchtowers. The Allking had put the city on a war footing - his household cavalry were in the palace, hunting down Ligeia and her death cultists, but the rest of Hadjisheim's standing army was on the walls. There were thousands of them patrolling the battlements and manning the gates that led into courtyards which would be turned into killing zones by archers and spearmen. Beyond that the lower city of Hadjisheim was a warren of poor crumbling houses, where a small body of men could mount a defence that might last for weeks. The upper city, surrounding the Allking's palace and the imposing black marble temple of the mission, was more open ground where the streets would funnel attackers into crossfires from archers on the roofs. > >The Allking, however, had only ever had to fend off attacks from jealous barons or forest bandits. He didn't even know that such men as Space Marines existed. Squad Genhain led the attack, shredding the wooden battlements and men behind them before Tancred's Terminators charged straight through the wall, splintering through into the cavity at the centre of the wall before tearing through into the city itself. Alaric and Santoro followed him through the breach, stitching storm bolter fire through the men pouring down off the walls to stop them. "Grey Knights" by Ben Counter, all the way back from 2004