When I read the first Gaunt's Ghosts Omnibus, The Founding,
by Dan Abnett I was very pleased by what was in each and every one of those
pages. He wrote the action sequences so well that I could really imagine myself
in a huge hive city pinned down by the rolling hordes of enemy infantry. Each
character was bright and vibrant and really held their own in the story and was
not over shadowed by the charisma of other characters. In the second omnibus by
Dan Abnett, The Saint, which this post will be about the Tanith First
and Only return in a las gun packed volume of action that picks up where the
last book left off. (Massive amount of spoilers.)
I am going to group
three of the books in the omnibus together because they all have the same good
and bad parts to them. For those that are interested the individual books are; Honour Guard, The Guns of Tanith, and Straight Silver. I will take Sabbat Martyr by itself since it is a different beast
from the others.
Action packed combat
scenes that make the reader feel like they are in the line of fire is the back
bone of any good book from Black Library author and Dan Abnett does not disappoint
at all in these books. Any Imperial Guard player would be happy to field las
guns after reading these books. My favorite part of these books is the way that
it's possible to track every key unit in a battle and get the overall strategic
picture of the battle. If you have any talent at all for map reading it is
possible to draw in unit positions and sketch their route through the battle
field. No punches are held in these very gritty combat scenes, there are
amputations, deaths, stabbings, burnings, explosions, pretty much anything and
everything one might expect from a warzone in the 41st millennium. None of it
gets stale either; every battle is unique in its setting and the way it is fought.
To spice things up every book has a new unique element to each theatre. What I
mean by that is in one battle the Ghost's will be fighting alongside an armored
regiment (tanks), in another they have allies in a futuristic drop troop
regiment, and it changes every time with guest appearances from allies from
previous books. Since the Tanith are very light infantry they really need to
work in concert with their allies to take down heavy opponents. Dan Abnett does
a really good job of writing combined arms battles where each different type of
regiment is working as a whole to accomplish a unified goal.
I do have some bones to
pick about the combat scenes and the biggest one to me is that the power of lasguns
are about as consistent as a person with multiple personalities and one of
those is a pathological liar. Dan Abnett tries to cover this up by reminding
the reader constantly that the Tanith lasguns have power selectors to make the
beam more or less powerful, it also has a single shot option or full auto
options. It is very inconsistent with the power of each shot and how long the
power cell lasts. Inconsistencies are everywhere with the power that weapons
have in these books. Gaunt’s power sword can magically cut through anything
even a Chaos Dreadnought. Missile launchers fired from the Tanith are deadly
accurate and will screw up any armor that’s not a super heavy, just make sure
it is fired by a Ghost and not a trooper in a regular regiment because that
missile will flat out miss or bounce off. Flamers maintain a constant
throughout the books as well as any weapon that is not commonly employed by the
Ghosts which is nearly any other type of heavy weaponry.
Characters that I liked
in the first omnibus who return in this one just did not feel the same to me.
In the books defense I was in a very guarded mind set after reading the forward
where Dan Abnett warns the readers that characters are going to start dying and
a faster pace. Anyone that has read Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin can sympathize with me on getting
into that sort of mind set towards characters. The characters just seemed a bit
more one dimensional. Major Rawne, previously one of my favorite characters,
went from an incredibly efficient yet hardnosed leader to a person who was
marginally efficient officer that poisoned anyone under him and making them all
jerks. When the characters interacted with one another it didn’t seem nearly as
seamless as it should have been. One of the interactions that annoyed me the
most was when Doc Dorden and Ann Curth were saved by Gaunt executing some fools
who were beating on them for medicine and Dorden was barely tolerant of that. I
had always viewed Dorden as a pragmatic man and figured he would have
appreciated the save a bit more. Another confrontation between the Doc and
Gaunt that struck me as wrong was when Gaunt went to execute a trooper for
causing the deaths of almost all of his squad and Dorden refused to let Gaunt
do it even telling him that if he wanted to execute the trooper he would need
to kill him first. Gaunt kills neither of them and the trooper only receives a
stern talking to. At the very least Commissar Hark should have put a bullet to
the trooper, the entire book before that incident had a huge section about how
Gaunt needed to learn to delegate commissarial tasks to Hark, and apparently
Gaunt forgot that lesson. No way would the Doc have stood up to Hark who would
have shot both in a heartbeat which would have let Gaunt save face and maintain
discipline.
The women in the story
are probably my biggest issue with the characters. I have no problem with women
being in a combat situation or anything like that, I thought they were going to
be a good addition to the regiment and make things a bit more interesting.
Little did I know that they were going to take over the regiment. Almost every
key female carries a specialist role, sniper, scout, flamer, and they even have
a Sergeant. They are disproportionately awesome for the numbers they provide.
There is a character that is hot as hell, is a dead eye sniper that is
marginally worse than Mad Larkin who is the best shot ever, oh yeah she is also
deaf. I know that a deaf person is probably the last person besides a blind
person that I would want as a sniper. You may ask why do you need ears to shoot
well and that’s a good question and I will answer you with the following
questions. How is she going to adjust her aim from directions from her spotter without
taking her eye off the scope? How can she react to the sound of the shot if she
doesn’t happen to see it? If she is up in a sniper perch how is she going to
tell if something is behind her, a damn dreadnought could be stomping behind
her and she would be oblivious to it. Not only are all of these women total bad
asses but the majority of them wouldn’t be out of place working on a pleasure
planet. I was just waiting for them to stumble upon a couple squads of dead
Sisters of Battle and take their armor for shits and giggles; Emperor knows
that these female Ghosts could use it better than anyone else.
It really felt like the
entire omnibus was originally supposed to be one big book because there is no
decent ending in any of them except the last book. In Honour Guard it feels like the publishers broke into Abnett's house and
forced him to write an ending to the story so they could print it. A magical
weapon goes off that cooks all the chaos forces on the planet and throws back
the chaos fleet that in still in the warp...really? The books just end abruptly
without any closure what so ever until you get into the next book. My
motivation to continue to the next book was depleted by the time I got to the
end. It was only the by the encouragement of a friend that promised me that it
got better did I work my way through the whole omnibus.
Blood Pact troopers, the
elite infantry of Chaos generals in this sector. They actually held that title
well until Straight Silver where they just became the standard grunt
that was barely better than a Khorne fanatic...oh yeah that’s exactly what
these guys became. It really saddens me when a competent enemy becomes a
faceless horde that just throws its body against the meat grinder.
Sabbat Martyr is probably my favorite book in
this omnibus, it has given me a little bit more willingness to continue the
series, but that might be because of the simple fact that it had an ending with
a bit of closure to it. I can't say that I was a fan of everyone in the First
and Only suddenly getting visions and become extremely devout but it had a
purpose so I took it with a grain of salt and continued on. Besides a few silly
things which I will get to later the combat in this was amazing! Squads were
fighting all out with everything available to them, missiles were in short
supply, and the God setting on the lasguns was taken off for this book. The
fighting was as down and dirty as if can get in the Imperial Guard. You really
appreciate how well Abnett increases his skill at being able to describe the
entire battle as a fluid whole so the reader can appreciate the broader picture
instead of just worrying about the important platoons. At the end he even has a
character explain why the war on this strategically unimportant planet is so
important to the campaign as a whole which I really appreciated because I did
not fully comprehend exactly how over extended the crusade was. This book was
still far from perfect and here is my list of issues:
1. Saint Sabbat Reborn
cuts the barrel of a Baneblade in half with one swing and then kills the driver
of the tank with her sword through the tank. My chanfist terminators are
jealous of her.
2. Makoll killing the
Dark Eldar Mandrake with probably the oldest trick in the book.
3. Deaf sniper girl
kills the super sniper because he just haaaaad to stick his head out a bit
further. Come on Larkin that should have been your shot!
4. Sneaky Chaos
dreadnought just happens to pop up in the command center during an award
ceremony.
5. Sneaky Chaos
dreadnought gets thrown off its feet by a grenade...nobody else seriously affected
by it.
6. Sneaky Chaos
dreadnought killed by boiling water.
7. Larkin didn’t kill
Lijah Cuu, he killed a psyker puppet that was no longer truly Cuu.
8. Apparently drop pods
can carry normal human soldiers and not turn them into past when they land.
Honestly I would not recommend
these books to anyone but the most diehard Imperial Guard fan. There were some absolutely
fantastic parts in each book but ultimately I felt let down. Dan Abnett is a
fantastic author but I don't know what he was considering when he left the
endings like he did. Of course read it for yourself and form your own opinion,
many of my friends really liked this omnibus. I suppose it just was not for me.
If you read through all this may the Emperor bless you and have a fantastic
day!
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