# Advance Review - Lupe reviews Legion of the Damned by Rob Sanders [Spoilers]



## Lupe (Jan 3, 2011)

_In dedicato deus imperatum ultra articulo mortis_

Well, now… through the power of friends abroad, I unexpectedly received an advance copy of Rob Sanders’ Legion of of the Damned shortly after Christmas. Upon picking it up, I found myself so enthralled by it that I almost missed my plans for New Year’s Eve. However, with social embarrassment neatly and barely averted, it’s time for a review. 

*‘BELOW THERE BE SPOILERS. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK’*

*Plot:*

First and foremost, this book is the most shameless case of title misappropriation since Prospero Burns, so it’s only fitting that I make this point explicitly clear in advance.

For all intents and purposes, this is an Excoriators novel through and through, centered on one Zachariah Kersh. Nonetheless, if you’re willing to overlook the misnomer, you’ll find this to be an enjoyable read, and a great deal of new and interesting information on a previously undeveloped chapter.

So, who are the Excoriators? Until now, all we had for them was a brief mention that they were one of the twenty Chapters of Astartes Praeses, standing vigil around the Eye of Terror. But, as it turns out, they are sons of Dorn, and their first Chapter Master - Demetrius Katafalque – had once roamed the battlefields at the primarch’s side, which would make them a Second or Third founding chapter at most. For ten thousand years, they stand vigil over the Occularis Terriblus from their homeworld of Eschara.
And, like all self-respecting Imperial Fists successors, they have their own traditions, obviously related to self-inflicted punishment. Most notable of these would be the ‘Rites of Castigation’ and ‘donning of Dorn’s mantle’, the latter of which involves ritual mortification of the flesh, particularly on the neck and shoulders. And, while on that particular note, it is worth mentioning that it is a matter of honor for the Excoriators to somehow maintain their scars open and show their battle damage with pride, in a way that reminds me of the Triumph Rope, or Lucius the Eternal’s early style. However, these guys take the practice to a whole new level, in that they do not concern themselves with just the wounds of the flesh. Dents, gashes and scrapes in their power armour are carefully conserved, and notable damage is marked with the date and campaign where it occurred. Needless to say, this has the potential to create a disconcerting look, when one considers the chapter’s cream-coloured power armor.

Aside from the morbid fascination for pain and ritual scarring, the Excoriators are a fairly pragmatic chapter. As Kersh himself remarks, they are attrition fighters. Not for them the Fists’ bombastic last stands or the Templars’ relentless advance and indiscriminate purges. And, given that they’ve managed to survive and thrive for ten millennia in close proximity to the Eye of Terror, this approach seems to be working for them…

The protagonist, as I’ve mentioned above, is Zachariah Kersh, the Scorge – standar bearer and bodyguard to Chapter Master Ichabod. However, things have definitely not been going well for the Scourge lately. Recently, he has failed to stop the Alpha Legion from crippling the Chapter Master and making off with the Stigmartyr, the ancient Chapter banner, dating back to the days of the 7th Legion. This proves to be a devastating blow to the battle-brothers’ morale, and the cause of many problems for the Chapter prior to the events of the book. It also makes Kersh a persona non-grata in the eyes of his brothers. To make matters worse, the Scourge now finds himself afflicted by the Darkness – a condition in which he is constantly reliving Dorn’s darkest hour, when he finds the crippled Emperor on the bridge of the Vengeful Spirit. While it is not clear whether the Darkness caused Kersh’s recent failures or was triggered by them, the implication is that this is not a unique occurrence, although far from the inevitable Black Rage or Red Thirst of the Blood Angels. 

At any rate, following all these unfortunate events, the Scourge is placed in stasis, only to find himself begrudgingly awoken by his peers as their last chance to win the famous Feast of Blades, in a desperate bid to restore some of the Chapter’s rapidly declining morale.

I’ll take a break from the main plot in order to say a few words about the Feast itself. Although it’s a previously established piece of the fluff, I feel that Mr. Sanders has really done a good job filling in some blanks. First of all, this tradition was established and first presided over by Rogal Dorn himself, immediately after the Iron Cage, in order to foster brotherhood between the various chapters that resulted from splitting his legion. Tradition has the Feast as centennial tournament where each of the participating chapters presents ten champions and a series of individual fights are scheduled, until only one clear winner remains. Apparently, the chapter that claims victory in the Feast is allowed to schedule another one before a hundred years have passed, in order to further capitalize on their success, and this is the case with the 816th edition that takes place at the start of the book. The location of the Feast needs to be the site of a victory earned by the organizing chapter, in this case Samarquand IV, an Ork held world in the middle of what might just be the only non-expansive greenskin empire in the Galaxy, where the Imperial Fists had successfully completed a regional purge. Also, given the origins of the Feast, all individual matches are held in an arena that closely mimics the treacherous conditions of the Iron Cage – going so far as to shift the geometry of the field during battles. There are also rules of conduct in place to ensure an honorable fight, but these do not seem too effective at preventing accidental casualties. In fact, accidental deaths seem to be overlooked, while deliberate debilitation is rather vocally objected against.
So it is under these circumstances that, with a heavy heart, the chapter decides to risk waking the Scourge, as a desperate bid to salvage some honor, after seven of their competitors have been defeated early in the tournament, and the other two are hopelessly outclassed by their upcoming match-ups. It takes a risky intervention to the catalepsean node in order to bring Kersh out of the Darkness, and into something resembling a functional state. Shortly after, the Scourge begins to see things – a revenant in midnight black power armour that shadows him at every step – and questions the effectiveness of the procedure. Still, despite all his concerns and protests, the reluctant Kersh is pressured into fighting in the Feast by the very brothers that despise him. Long story short, his performance in the tournament causes the Excoriators to win the Feast of Blades for the first time, despite a debatable move that pits him in a three way duel with the Black Templars and Imperial Fists champions. The victorious Kersh is scheduled to return to Eschara with the prized Dornsblade to show for their triumph.

However, new orders from Chapter Master Ichabod change things for Zachariah, when he is given captaincy of the Fifth Company. To put things in context, the Fifth is now at half strength and lacking a captain, after a mission to retrieve the Stigmartyr turned out to be a carefully planned Alpha Legion ambush. Kersh is now in charge of the battered remains of a company that hates him, with only the Apothecary who brought him back from the brink of madness as an ally. To make matters worse, he is constantly questioning his sanity – due to the constant haunting by a phantom Astartes – as well as his suitability for a command position. 

His first mission as Corpus-Captain is not the revenge against the Alpha Legion that every battle-brother longs for, but a distress call from an obscure cemetery world where a pyramid of skulls has just emerged from the lake. The world held no strategic importance whatsoever, however ancient oaths and the tomb of an Ecclesiarc and High Lord of Terra contributed to the Chapter master deploying the Fifth to such an ignominious goal, and the Scourge had every intention of not failing him again.

This strange phenomenon leads Kersh to postpone revenge even further, when word that a sizeable Khornate Crusade, known as the Cholerchaust, is making way to the graveworld in the tail of comet emerging from the Eye of Terror after ten millennia. Much to the company’s dismay, he orders a defiant last stand against the invaders, and strands his forces on the world by sending their apothecary and their crippled strike cruiser to a Forge World out of the comet’s path.

Needless to say, the weight of the Khornate assault far exceeds Kersh’s estimates, and things start looking grim, when the titular Legion of the Damned makes an unexpected appearance in the very last chapter of the book, stopping the Blood Crusade in its tracks, leaving us to piece the last details in the epilogue.

*Impressions:*

All in all, it was a terribly enjoyable read, and Rob Sanders has clearly shown that he certainly knows his way around the 41st millennium. 

Character development is strong, especially for the Scourge and Apothecary Ezrachi. But the Scourge in particular gets a lot of screen time, and we get to see multiple paragraphs in first person. He tries to make sense of the revenant constantly stalking him. He tries to reconcile his background as a guard dog with the requirements for diplomacy and politics that his new position demands. He expresses his trust and distrust in various brothers under his command. He occasionally remarks on mortals’ feelings, even when he’s sincerely surprised by their reactions. Even more, he genuinely sympathizes with some of them, such as the Pontifex of the cemetery world. He even expresses displeasure with the penchant for formalities and squeamishness of the other champions at the Feast of Blood.

There is also a fitting recurrence of motifs centered on death or ritual punishment. Take, for instance, the non-codex titles used by the Excoriators. Corpus-Captain and Squad Whip are the exact terms used to designate a Captain and a Sergeant. The ritual scarring and mortification of the flesh are also good examples of this, as are the choices for some of the names (such as Chapter Master Ichabod, the strike cruiser Angelica Mortis, and even the protagonist’s moniker – The Scourge). But without a doubt, the concept of a cemetery world is the most brilliant addition that Mr. Sanders has come up with so far. Not only does it fit in seamlessly with the whole death mythos, but also it’s a crazy concept that perfectly illustrates the Imperium in all its “grim darkness”. To put things into a context, it’s a planet that supplies one thing and one thing only. That commodity is temporary funeral arrangements for those who can afford to pay for a few decades of their afterlife on the same planet as a long-dead Ecclesiarch. How cool is that? After the defense of the inverted fortress in the Iron Within short story, Rob Sanders manages to surprise me with yet another awesome concept that just fits so well in the 40K background, that I have to wonder why it wasn’t there in the first place.

*High Points:*

•	Kersh ordering his scouts to open fire on the retinue of the Ecclesiarchy officials who had just tried to coerce him. His pretense? The heresy of keeping men under arms. He also delivers a killer speech about the Emperor’s supposed divinity.
•	Everything the particular Damned Legionnaire stalking Kersh ever does.
•	Kersh replacing his lost eye with a simple ball-bearing, because he didn’t want to risk the time to adjust to the perception change a bionic implant would incur half way through the Feast of Blades 
•	The Legion of the Damned making their appearance in orbit and dealing with the Khornate fleet. By blowing up the comet they were hiding behind.
•	Various scenes from the last chapter, as the Damned legionnaires clean up the berzerkers on the ground. All examples are based around materializing and dematerializing at the right time. 
•	When the Imperial forces finally arrive, the Excoriators were not responding to any distress call looking for their missing company. They were looking for the Dornblade.
•	The World Eaters' behavior once the invasion goes full tilt. First they throw in the cultists, then the renegade chapters (such as the Goremongers and Skull Takers). Only then do the actual survivors of the Heresy drop in, when all that's left still fighting is likely to be worthy opposition

*Low Points:*

•	The minor Ordo Obsoletus that shows up in the first chapter is not really expanded on. Current speculation is that it specializes in miracles.
•	The Feast of Blades, while enjoyable, seemed to drag on for far too long, detracting from what could have been more screen time for the Legion of the Damned
•	We don’t really get a conclusion to the Chapter Master Ichabod / Alpha Legion / Stigmartyr subplots. Even though after the epilogue there is a quote where the source is listed as Chapter Master Zachariah Kersh, of the Excoriators Space Marine Chapter, a few words about what happened after would have been nice
•	Some ideas seem to be repeated a bit too often, as if to make sure the point is driven home. One such example is the mention that the Excoriators are attrition fighters. Granted, nothing comparable to the infamous wet leopard growl, but still, it might be slightly bothersome.

*Conclusion:*


Definitely one of the better books out there, provided you don’t mind the minimal screen time of the actual Legion of the Damned. It successfully combines an interesting protagonist with decent fight scenes and to top it all off, it uses a previously unknown chapter to achieve all of this.

*Rating: **9/10*


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## ckcrawford (Feb 4, 2009)

Interesting. I like the fact that the book is about one of the chapters of Dorn. Should be interesting. I wonder if the title means more than just a brief rescue of the Legion of the Damned. 

Nice Review. Thanks for telling me what its really about.


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## Angel of Blood (Aug 18, 2010)

Hmmm, well i won't be rushing to buy this anytime soon anymore. Was really quite looking forward to a novel about the Legion of the Damned, not a novel about some other chapter(no matter how interesting) with the cursed legion turning up only at the end. 

Good review though, well done.


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## Brother Lucian (Apr 22, 2011)

Passable book, having very good space marine interaction. But it is really the false advertisement about the Legion of the Damned that drags it down from upper tier. Sitting all the way through the book and waiting for them, and they only appear and sweeping the final chapter.

The book would have been far less of a disappointment if it hadn't been called Legion of the Damned, should have been called Excoriators, Grave Matters or something alike catchy. I regret buying it as an ebook as I had been excited for an indepth story about the LoD.

Also I find the LoD was poorly used, simply godmoding at the end and saving the imperial marines from their demise, effortlessly ripping a new one to the world eaters host. It would have worked much better if we had seen small groups of LoDs assisting the excorcies in smaller skirmishes and disappearing, leaving them wondering what or who that is fighting at their side, until the main LoD force commits to fight the main group of the khornate host, trapping them between themselves and their living brethren and vanishing after letting the living imperials have a glimpse of what they are.


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

From another thread:

Yup. I was expecting a lot of detail about them but 

_literally _all they were were ghosts that could kill. Similar to the Space Wolves and their Abnett leopard growl, the LotD's teeth chatter every two minutes. I thought they were an actual Chapter with battle commands and everything and were flesh and blood. 

The whole book focuses on the Excoriators chapter who are literally a cross between the Salamanders given their need to self-mutilate themselves with whips rather than hot branding irons and the Blood Angels in that they have an illness called the Darkness which essentially puts them into a coma and they believe Dorn's suffering at the sight of a dying Emperor could be emulated through self-purging. 

Overall *very *uninteresting Chapter with weird names for squads, consisting of the word _whip _ and the term Scourge is actually one of their honorary titles if I am not mistaken which took me a while to realize.
 

Some forty pages or so from the end of the book, the LotD are seen for the first time.

Writing was very good but the: 



monotonous action

boring Chapter who are disrespected and not revered by the Sisters of Battle despite being one of the Emperor's Angels

dull setting 

cliched depiction of the World Eaters as being mindless berserkers 

ten Chaos Astartes dying to one loyalist Astartes 

utter disrespect for the company captain by those below him was too much, I actually felt bad for the guy. Several times he has to repeat himself and he gets challenged to a duel over who gets to lead, etc. (Astartes might have their differences with their superior officer but they are programmed to obey.) 

chapter's psychotic obsession with a stupid standard and its loss causing the company captain's unpopularity 

idea that they are such an important chapter (despite the above) the Alpha Legion themselves had to poison their Chapter Master with a poison implied as having a cure (yet they do not ask the big shots at Terra/some other planet to cure their Chapter Master)

(random and unrelated to the criticisms but the Emperor's poop is mentioned and plays an important part in one of the scenes in the book and the Excoriators don't believe Dorn is dead but simply missing).




did not sit well with me.


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## Rameses (Aug 21, 2011)

I am currently reading this novel and I am finding it hard topick the book up. It's a slow read (but then I am only 50 pages into the book.) Unlike other 40k books I am having a hard time immersing myself.


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

It is slow but the pace picks up trust me.


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## vulcan666 (Jun 19, 2010)

i read this as an ebook just after deliverance lost and i found myself thinking that it was better than deliverance lost despite the fact that the legion of the dammed are only in it at the end.
in one way it does make sense
since you cant write about the legion of the dammed without possable revealing too much of who they are and what they are, the fact that acording to the space marine codex they turn up only in the darkest moments of a battle was in fact exactly what we got in this book, a desperate fight and they turned up and destroyed everything before going away again.

for me a highlight was fininding out that the legion of the dammed have a star fortress thing. 
as to darkblades comments about how much disrespect the captian gets it makes sense, he was charged with the chapter banner, a relic dating back to the time of dorn loosing such an item is tantamount to heresy as is in fact allowing the enemy to strike down the master of the chapter. the scourge basically commited great sins and had they been ultramarines he would have been exiled from the chapter.


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## Phoebus (Apr 17, 2010)

To the OP:

A cemetery world is not a new concept: Nick Kyme featured one in his "Tome of Fire" Salamanders trilogy. Just FYI.


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## Rems (Jun 20, 2011)

As did James Swallow in the first Blood Angels book.


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## Xisor (Oct 1, 2011)

The Cemetry World isn't a new concept, but it's a tremendous realisation of one.

Myself, I overwhelmingly enjoyed the book. The prose is excellent, the tale detailed, the massive amounts of insight into a well-realised Space Marine chapter, the sensible progression, the presentation of the Legion of the Damned throughout.

There really wasn't a thing I could properly criticise about it. For its insights into the Horus Heresy, the presentation of the 40k universe, the exploration of broad ideas and the actual presentation of the Legion of the Damned: excellent.

Contrast this with _The Chapter's Due_ or _Nocturne_ in which similar themes are dealt with...this blows the other two out of reality. (Overlapping themes: unstoppable invasion, Legion of the Damned, magical intervention from the Heresy-era, 'humane-ish' Marines [to an extent], in-Chapter troubles, vengeful Chaos hordes etc.)

Easily the superior of the three. Certainly not for everyone, but I can't agree with Malus Darkblade: I've read a lot of tedious action scenes in 40k books, this book had not even one of them; the Chapter were more interesting than most others I've read; the world was delightfully imagined, far from boring.

Hell, my disagreement is so much so that I'm not _entirely_ convinced we read the same book. 

*Misnaming the Book*

The name's a name. Did you read the blurb? _That_ actually covers the book rather well. And the game's given up in the prologue: were people _really_ thinking we'd have Damned Legionnaires as PoV characters?

Anyway, the story lives up to its name exceptionally well, in my esteem.


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Xisor said:


> Easily the superior of the three. Certainly not for everyone, but I can't agree with Malus Darkblade: I've read a lot of tedious action scenes in 40k books, this book had not even one of them; the Chapter were more interesting than most others I've read; the world was delightfully imagined, far from boring.


Compare the action scenes between Helsreach and LotD. Each battle in Helsreach felt new and exciting while in LotD , it just consisted of ten chaos Astartes dying to one loyalist, crazy civilians dying to mass las-fire or scouts getting bitten in half by daemons and not realizing it for several minutes. 

We have a World Eater who fought with Angron and was at the Siege of Terra get his throat slit by a ghost, even the author pokes fun of how stupid that scene was. And I don't want to get into how cliched and stereotyped the WE's in this book were. One of them destroys the circuity of his drop-pod before it lands because he's _ mad _. 

The Exco. chapter just have slaves whip them while they moan about the greatness of Dorn. Not my cup of tea. And the feast of blades was just silly. Give each contestant a poisoned knife that can paralyze half your body with one touch? 

To me that's not a good way to gauge one's strength or skill at all. The feast of blades should consist of heroic battles that last forever until every sinew and bone in the contestant's bodies is pushed to exhaustion. Dorn is all about persistence and preserverance. I am not even going to talk about the He-Man who threw a pillar around and how dirty the protagonist was for holding a Black Templar in place as said pillar flew into his face. Why did he even need to do that? To take out one contestant? Ok but wow that was dirty lol (in b4 exco's are attrition fighters, etc).

And the psychotic obsession with a banner. Fine ok it's a relic given to them by Dorn supposedly (if I recall correctly. If so, you would think they'd lock it up in stasis) but for them to hate the protagonist for losing it in an * ambush * is just silly and unrealistic.

Call me naive or what have you but yes I was expecting a book about the LoTD. I had no reason to assume otherwise. Prior to reading the book, I actually thought they were a flesh and blood chapter (curse you lexicanum, curse you), damned by the warp but serving the Emperor before their bodies were completely lost to Chaos. That's cool. Not ghosts who just slit throats and fire magical bolters. They were used as bait for people to buy the book.

Writing was solid but I just had issues with all the above.


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## Xisor (Oct 1, 2011)

You had "no reason to assume otherwise"?

"Following the trajectory of a blood-red comet, the berserk World Eaters blaze a path of destruction across the galaxy in its wake. The small cemetery world of Certus Minor appeals to the Space Marines of the Excoriators Chapter for protection, but the force dispatched to deal with this grim threat is far too small and their losses against the renegades are high. Just as all seems lost, salvation is borne out of legend itself as sinister spectral warriors descend upon this planet of the dead, and the enemies of the Imperium come face to face with those who have already travelled beyond the realm of the living..."

?


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)




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## Loli (Mar 26, 2009)

And now all interest i had in this book is gone, i wanted to read about the Legion of the Damned and instead i get cameos towards the end? Bleh


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## Xisor (Oct 1, 2011)

Loli, Malus is horrendously misrepresenting the book. I'd not take his ... rant... at face value.

(The Legion of the Damned appear throughout. What would you want to read about them?)


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## Malus Darkblade (Jan 8, 2010)

Xisor said:


> Loli, Malus is horrendously misrepresenting the book.


Intentional irony?



Xisor said:


> (The Legion of the Damned appear throughout. What would you want to read about them?)


Pretty much * anything *. And they only feature in the last 20 or was it 40 pages in the 300+ page book.

LotD was Prospero Burns x 1000 only PB made up for its lack of actually featuring Prospero content with a lot of interesting stuff (excluding the steroid reporter who chatted with two primarchs like it was nothing) about the very chapter on the front cover of the book.

How you justify the book featuring apples - on the front cover no less - only to not feature apples but instead bananas is kind of scary.


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## Xisor (Oct 1, 2011)

"Following the trajectory of a blood-red comet, the berserk World Eaters blaze a path of destruction across the galaxy in its wake. The small cemetery world of Certus Minor appeals to the Space Marines of the Excoriators Chapter for protection, but the force dispatched to deal with this grim threat is far too small and their losses against the renegades are high. Just as all seems lost, salvation is borne out of legend itself as sinister spectral warriors descend upon this planet of the dead, and the enemies of the Imperium come face to face with those who have already travelled beyond the realm of the living..."

That being the blurb for the book. I don't see how you can ignore that and say with a straight face "This was misleading".

The Legion, incidentally, also feature throughout the book, not just in the last 20/40 pages. Denying that, I think, is indeed horrendously misrepresenting the book. So no, it's not irony; but there's certainly improbable ignorance or outright lying.


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

what is up with all the spoilers recently... i'm kind of getting fed up... i don't want to stifle reviews, but it makes it damn near impossible to enjoy a book review (mind you there is a difference between *this* and an *actual book review*...) when it's riddled with spoilers!!! You're taking away the magic of discovery. that feeling you get when you witness a major plot twist or see a character change before your very eyes. you can't get that feeling when you know it's coming... 

Not trying to staunch your creativity Lupe, but i think i'll be doing a review guide and some guidelines stickied in a post at the top of the forum to let people know what's acceptable in this forum... in the meantime, head over to my website www.thefoundingfields.com to familiarize yourself with real book reviews.


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## Xisor (Oct 1, 2011)

I don't think a thread with *[Spoilers]* prominently in the title can be called "riddled with spoilers!!!", Ploss. That's like saying a zoo is infested with animals.

(I assume that it was there in the beginning...)


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## Commissar Ploss (Feb 29, 2008)

Xisor said:


> I don't think a thread with *[Spoilers]* prominently in the title can be called "riddled with spoilers!!!", Ploss. That's like saying a zoo is infested with animals.
> 
> (I assume that it was there in the beginning...)


i didn't mean that this post in particular had an exorbitant amount of spoilers... It just happened to be the vessel of my ire. 

CP


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## MontytheMighty (Jul 21, 2009)

*sigh* is it really necessary to [email protected] the Alpha Legion in an Excoriators book? Is it not enough for the AL to kick a$$ in their own books, to go about wiping out helpless loyalist chapters with their super-clever long games...do they have to wallop the Excoriators in this book as well?
_rant over_


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## TheReverend (Dec 2, 2007)

I started reading this book and as a bit disappointed that ther LotD weren't prominant. But by the end of the book I actually liked the way they were portrayed and weaved into the story. 

The fact that they appeared in response to a prayer to the Emporer was good, that they were a manifestation of His will. The way they haunted the protagonist after he survived a masacre and helped him redeem himself (even if the chapter standard is still missing and he's led a full company to their doom). The revelation that the Space Marine wasn't the only one seeing visions of the LotD was great. 

If the book had been totally about the LotD fighting battles it wouldn't have been good. Instead we get a story about how they present themselves and help those in dire need, a story that explains a lot about them, yet retains some of their mystery. I thought it was great.

Rev


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