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I've read just the first omnibus, but I really like the series, probably one of my favorites I've read so far outside of the Horus Heresy. The only thing I can say I didn't care for was McNeil's portrayal of the Death Korps as opposed to, say, Dead Men Walking, but overall, I would definitely recommend it to anybody interested in spehss mehreenz characters.

 Pacific wrote:
Veteran Sergeant, although I see where you are coming from, to be fair that is more of a criticism of the concept of the UM/Marines themselves, and how that universe has genereally been conceptualised, rather than McNeil's specific handling of them in this case.

Not really.

The Ultramarines didn't used to be like that. They were supposed to be the masters of warfare. The problem is, the way people picture the Ultramarines has been irrevocably altered by that portrayal, lol. Sure, there were some people who, back in the day, thought that being "Codex Adherent" was some kind of bad thing (most likely because of how it was rejected by the Spess Wolves, one of the game's more popular armies), but those people have always just been kinda, well, dumb.

McNeill just took that (absurdly false) notion about the Codex Astartes being some kind of entry level cookbook for Marine-ing, and made it into a series of novels. Sadly, the Ultramarines will probably never recover from his series of book, lol. Abnett tried to reverse some of it with Know No Fear though, portraying Guilliman as a strategic genius and living battle computer, as well as having the Ultramarines themselves adapting and improvising. Abnett's not perfect, but he "gets" warfare a little more.

I mean, let's be honest, the core concepts aren't terrible difficult. But if you don't do it the right way and actually join the infantry in a real military, at the very least you should do some research. Seems like a fair thing to ask of an author.

Veteran Sargeant, who do you think writes the best "warfare" scenes in the BL, from an accuracy perspective?

I thought the books did a pretty good job of portraying the Ultramarines as not just a bunch of Mary-Sues or at least in a slightly different light, and I actually enjoyed reading them.

So all this talk of the BL UM/IW books have made me dust of my copies and give them a good read.


What is the best way to pace the IW books within the UM Series?


So far I got Night bringer, followed by Storm of Iron, followed by Warriors of Ultramar, followed by that short story that took place right before dead sky black sun, then Dead Sky black sun.


Once I reach the killing grounds, I don't know where I should insert the short stories to make the best...well story.