# Dead Men Walking.



## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

I recently finished this book, and unfortunately, it didn't leave enough of an impression on me to write a fully fledged review. What rankled most for me was that, for the second time in as many books, I felt deceived by the title. 

This novel sets itself up as being about the Death Corps of Krieg(one of my favourite units in 40k lore), but, as with _Prospero Burns_, first impressions don't last. The story ends up revolving around Gunthar Soreson, a mine overseer who gets dragged into the fighting after intitially reporting the discovery of xenos artefacts in one of his mines. 

The closest you get to the Death Corp is one of their commissars, Costellin, who, despite with being with them for years, still can't figure out why such a devoted regiment even needs commissars. 

And that's it. The only individual Kriegsman with a role is Colonel 186, and the fact you only get his number says it all. A novel supposedly about the Death Corps, and it only has one significant Krieg character. 

The whole book is told from the perspective of outsiders, and while some of the additional fluff about them is great, I really felt let down. Again. One of my most eagerly anticipated novels of the last year or two, and it's not what it seems. Again.


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## CursedUNTILLDEATH (Apr 25, 2010)

I agree with you, I found this book to be very underwhelming. The book is called dead men waking, so why is the whole story told by everyone else. Not only that but Lyons made the planet layout way to hard to understand. The city felt like a half hive half normal city mix and it just didn't work. 

Lyons does some great characters but god man, were is the action? Were is the death Koprs? I don't know, and its a ahem becasue their were such good concepts behind this book I really liked the brief look at Krieg but the Death Korps just weren't prominent enough...that and I think that the imperuim would have sent more troops, even if the death korps though they had it under control...and they commissars end...that was WTF to the max.


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## Baron Spikey (Mar 26, 2008)

I think it's told by everyone because if it was actually told from a Krieg point of view it would be one of the most boring, repetitious novels in the BL stable.

Krieg is cool but they don't exactly lend themselves to characterisation.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

Spikey`s right, you can`t relate to the Death Korps any more than you can to the necrons because they`re conditioned to be emotionless from birth. 

I was dubious at first, but I was actually impressed with how the book was written. It conveys the Krieg for what they are, and details Guntar`s integration with them quite well. 

I was also amused by the behaviour of the necrons, especially when: 



The necrons actually let him live the first time, looking straight at him and walking past while he cowered in a puddle of his own fear. 

It was also a strange but interesting twist to see the necrons using mutants as slaves and meat shields. 


I enjoyed it. There have been far worse recently.


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## HorusReborn (Nov 19, 2008)

alright.. good thing I didn't read this fully haha I'm waiting with bated breath to get my hands on this from the postman...


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## 1Foxman (Jan 30, 2011)

Ive been looking forward to reading this book, i just picked it up today while in the city to read during my bus commute home. 
I have to say for the first hour that i have read, it seems like a good book.
In my opinion so far the book has given justice to the Kreig way, i may be a little biased due to having a 2000 pt death korps army waiting to be built.


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## AK74Bob (Oct 2, 2010)

I feel let down as well. The lack of camaraderie pisses me off. I get the fact that your grim and stoic, but ffs space marines are too and they still talk to each other and interact and have names GD. Plus they're portrayed as grossly incompetent, they continue the "lets just throw more men at them" technique even though they have very limited resources. GD you are idiots. Oh and apparently you can snipe with melta guns >_>


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## Yllib Enaz (Jul 15, 2010)

I enjoyed the book and liked the characterisation of the Death Korp. It just nagged me slightly that there were several parts that reminded me of "Dalek Invasion of Earth"


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## Roninman (Jul 23, 2010)

Baron Spikey said:


> I think it's told by everyone because if it was actually told from a Krieg point of view it would be one of the most boring, repetitious novels in the BL stable.
> 
> Krieg is cool but they don't exactly lend themselves to characterisation.


THIS.

I found them little too unemotional, but nevertheless i was suprised and this actually was good read. You shouldnt ask this to be written from Krieg point of view, it would be just that. 

Why some people here take novel names too seriously, i found it utterly rediculous. This book was showed what they are just fine and i was almost taken off from this novel from reading some comments. Glad i didnt listen to them.


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

Actually, judging by the book titles, it speaks more about the Necrons (being dead and walking) more than Krieg, but the back-side is a bit misleading.


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## 1Foxman (Jan 30, 2011)

Finished reading it today on my way home, good book not what most people expected but i was pleased with the story. 



> The book is called dead men waking, so why is the whole story told by everyone else.


Because they are all dead men walking, either they became so idoctrinated like the kried an excepted they would die and tried to achieve something with there deaths or waited for it to come to them and tried to flee when it came. They were facing Necrons who so far are pretty unbeatable apart from a few small wins here and there but only through great cost.



> I feel let down as well. The lack of camaraderie pisses me off. I get the fact that your grim and stoic, but ffs space marines are too and they still talk to each other and interact and have names GD. Plus they're portrayed as grossly incompetent, they continue the "lets just throw more men at them" technique even though they have very limited resources. GD you are idiots. Oh and apparently you can snipe with melta guns >_>


They may not show the "normal" sense of camaraderie but can be interepted in a mutlitude of ways as mentioned every Death Korps soldier knows his duty, squads teaming up to systematically bring an enemy down before switching to the next target. Fixing bayonets to keep an enemy tied up or from deploying ranged weaponary so that their own comrads could deploy theirs. Deploying rough Rider squads to their doom to hold the lines while infantry redeploying into new holding formations. These may not seem like big things but it has the Spartan style of warfare where each man would die for his cause if there a positive gain for his side no matter how small.

The kreig do communicate but only say what needs to be said you also have to remember that these are still "boys" new krieg recruits are aged between 12-15 and a kreig new recruit is not "newbie" by any means. From the time of his birth hes lived in an indoctrinated life style where war and morbidity is the norm, where "boys' still fight on Krieg for the right to fight for the emperor and the only hope is to die a heroes death in service to the Emperor to forfil a dept.

I dont think they are portrayed as incompetent, they only had depleated infantry regiments available no tanks, limited long and short range artillary, and underequiped to fight a war against such an adavanced foe. There job was to fight the necrons and test information and hypothesis you could say they were perfect for the job. If the enemy was more or less powerful then planned for they would either win, fill up on recruits and be shipped off to a new war zone or lose be badly mauled by the enemy lose men and equipment. And if they did lose they were depleted regiments so the left overs can be combined into a single regiment and new regiments formed from new recruits to replace the lost regiments losing 15000 men is better then losing 50000 men. They were an expendable pawn to test against the necrons.

Considering fluff wise the Imperiums every major engagement with the necrons has left the imperium in pretty bad shape i say the Death Korps stood up pretty well. least to say that they were wrong on a few theories. 

The word "snipe" tends to be used and interpereted very loosely. Where some would say sniping is a job for say a sharpshooter with a ranged sight assisted weapon, while others would say setting and propping a weapon in an adavantages position would give you the same outcome. Picking an enemy off with controlled well placed shots.

Just my thoughts.
J


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## AK74Bob (Oct 2, 2010)

I dunno. Just didn't like how the Krieg boys were portrayed. I like grim characters, but they were just boring. Gotrek is grim, but atleast he talks and gets pissed off at times. I don't think any of the grunts said anything, only that one colonel actually had some dialogue. Mainly it was the commissar and the civilians.

I actually liked the book, just expected more from the Death Korps. As in them kicking ass, not getting their asses handed to them.


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## TheAbominableDan (Sep 16, 2010)

I haven't read this yet but my buddy has been throwing praise at it for a couple of weeks now. So I don't have much to contribute but I'm gonna try.

It doesn't surprise or bother me that it's told from the perspective of someone outside the Krieg. That's a common tactic used to allow you to learn about the Krieg who hadn't had much known about them before. It's called a fish out of water protagonist. I'll admit the whole number thing sounded like a bad idea to me because my favorite part of guard novels is the banter. But it's grown on me, it's something different and it casts my friend's Krieg army in a new light.


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## Serpion5 (Mar 19, 2010)

On the subject of Krieg, they really are the perfect weapon against the necrons. Numbers would mean little, as (fluffwise) even a space marine is at a disadvantage against a necron opponent and even power armour (again, fluffwise) is no match for gauss weapons. 

Krieg have the numbers, the weapons, the training and the mentality to defeat such a foe. In ground to ground engagements, I couldn`t think of a better force to send. 

And ironically, even they were 



forced to retreat, letting yet another world fall to the necrons.


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## sakura (Jan 24, 2011)

I enjoyed the book, but I had a problem with the ending. 

The necrons were confined to one ruined city and they couldn't complete the push? This is a planet of 9 billion people and they couldn't find a few hundred thousand to help them win? 

But, even accepting that, why no orbital bombarment or at least nuke the tomb from the outside? Heck, crash a starship into it. Still less of a loss than a whole planet.

Granted this is science fiction, but it strains credibility that a planet of 9 billion people would get the exterminatus without more effort to contain the necrons, which were in one city on a whole planet. Planets are large, necrons marching out of the city would take a long time to conquer the whole thing.

I suppose the ending felt rushed and anti-climactic. Seems like too many 40K books conveniently end with exterminatus.


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## Smokes (Nov 27, 2009)

I was wondering when an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor would show up considering it was a incident that would gain the interest of the sector conclave or anyone near-by or at least warrant the presence of Throne Agents. Necron's aren't exactly a daily event...


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