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Right, I'll get straight to the point:

1) In The Chapter's Due a character known as The Corsair Queen engages Captain Sicarius in single combat and bests him. If not for the intervention of some of his men she would've killed him, so my question is this: what race is the Corsair Queen? It doesn't seem plausible that she could be anything other than a Dark Eldar Succubus, given her obvious speed and skill in combat, but I can't remember whether the book ever actually mentions her race.

2) In almost every single combat duel Captain Ventris fights, he always ends up getting his head kicked in, so my second question is this: am I missing something here or is Ventris just crap at hand-to-hand combat, something an Astartes captain should surely be handy at?

Cheers!

I'm in the camp of "Ignore the whole UltraMcNeill's series", the whole series flies in the face of what we know about the Ultramarines, and Ventris is such an awful character, he's an awful leader, a terrible tactician and he is the epitome of Mary Sue.
I love the Ultramarines, but Nick Kyme writes them so much better IMO. Unless it's HH, McNeill does them well there, but Abnett rules 30k Macragge.

The way I perceived it in the book Nightbringer was space marines trump any other human, but when Ventris faces a dark eldar, he takes all kinds of damage while the dark eldar pirate he fought was pretty much unharmed in the duel.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
I'm in the camp of "Ignore the whole UltraMcNeill's series", the whole series flies in the face of what we know about the Ultramarines, and Ventris is such an awful character, he's an awful leader, a terrible tactician and he is the epitome of Mary Sue.
I love the Ultramarines, but Nick Kyme writes them so much better IMO. Unless it's HH, McNeill does them well there, but Abnett rules 30k Macragge.

Agreed.

Don't read the Ultramarines novels. They're garbage.

 Muhr wrote:


2) In almost every single combat duel Captain Ventris fights, he always ends up getting his head kicked in, so my second question is this: am I missing something here or is Ventris just crap at hand-to-hand combat, something an Astartes captain should surely be handy at?

Cheers!

Any context here? Who is he duelling? If its a lowly scrub then you may have a point but if he's going up against a skilled opponent then why shouldn't he get knocked around?

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Muhr wrote:


2) In almost every single combat duel Captain Ventris fights, he always ends up getting his head kicked in, so my second question is this: am I missing something here or is Ventris just crap at hand-to-hand combat, something an Astartes captain should surely be handy at?

Cheers!

Any context here? Who is he duelling? If its a lowly scrub then you may have a point but if he's going up against a skilled opponent then why shouldn't he get knocked around?

especially as it's boring reading to have every time he's in a fight be "and our hero doth smite his foe and moved on" by making it a challange you have a build up of tension

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
I'm in the camp of "Ignore the whole UltraMcNeill's series", the whole series flies in the face of what we know about the Ultramarines, and Ventris is such an awful character, he's an awful leader, a terrible tactician and he is the epitome of Mary Sue.
I love the Ultramarines, but Nick Kyme writes them so much better IMO. Unless it's HH, McNeill does them well there, but Abnett rules 30k Macragge.

Agreed.

Don't read the Ultramarines novels. They're garbage.

Wishful thinking.

If Uriel Ventriss is an awful leader and a terrible tactician, he is by definition not a Mary Sue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

Veteran Sergeant is an Ultramarines fangirt that simultaneously is offended by everything that does not, in some way, praise the Ultrasmurfs. She's also upset by anything that besmirches their reputation. Anything that does not sing praises of Rowboat Girlyman's gakky book is heresy.

Frankly, she will ruthlessly criticize anything that conflicts with her ridiculous headcannon.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
I'm in the camp of "Ignore the whole UltraMcNeill's series", the whole series flies in the face of what we know about the Ultramarines, and Ventris is such an awful character, he's an awful leader, a terrible tactician and he is the epitome of Mary Sue.
I love the Ultramarines, but Nick Kyme writes them so much better IMO. Unless it's HH, McNeill does them well there, but Abnett rules 30k Macragge.

Agreed.

Don't read the Ultramarines novels. They're garbage.

Wishful thinking.

If Uriel Ventriss is an awful leader and a terrible tactician, he is by definition not a Mary Sue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

Veteran Sergeant is an Ultramarines fangirl that simultaneously is offended by everything that does not, in some way, praise the Ultrasmurfs. She's also upset by anything that besmirches their reputation. Anything that does not sing praises of Rowboat Girlyman's gakky book is heresy.

Frankly, she will ruthlessly criticize anything that conflicts with her ridiculous headcannon.

It's not headcannon. You seem to be one of those who actually doesn't know any real UM fluff, so resort to name calling and crowd following with it. There is so much wonderful literature about the Ultramarines out there, even within C:SM, try reading the 6th edition one, or Index Astartes, the Warlords of the Dark Millennium dataslates we have. The Ultramarines are more than just McNeill, Ward and ignorant forum crawlers.

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
I'm in the camp of "Ignore the whole UltraMcNeill's series", the whole series flies in the face of what we know about the Ultramarines, and Ventris is such an awful character, he's an awful leader, a terrible tactician and he is the epitome of Mary Sue.
I love the Ultramarines, but Nick Kyme writes them so much better IMO. Unless it's HH, McNeill does them well there, but Abnett rules 30k Macragge.

Agreed.

Don't read the Ultramarines novels. They're garbage.

Wishful thinking.

If Uriel Ventriss is an awful leader and a terrible tactician, he is by definition not a Mary Sue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

Veteran Sergeant is an Ultramarines fangirt that simultaneously is offended by everything that does not, in some way, praise the Ultrasmurfs. She's also upset by anything that besmirches their reputation. Anything that does not sing praises of Rowboat Girlyman's gakky book is heresy.

Frankly, she will ruthlessly criticize anything that conflicts with her ridiculous headcannon.

pointing out how the codex astartes is presented in other sources and saying Mcneil's interpretion of it doesn't make sense (that said the "Death quest" Uriel Ventris was sent on was for basicly abandoning his post. I've got no military experiance myself but I'd be willing to bet a modern military would... frown, if a company commander took off to play commando while his company was in a siege situation) is hardly ridiculas headcanon.

Just because Vetern sergent disagrees with you is hardly a reason to stoop to personal attacks.
Besides accusing anyone else of fanboyism is proably not something you wanna be doing, you have your own biases.

I can only author three pieces of advice in regards to the Ultramarines Books, and most if not all of McNeil's writing in general. Light a fire, grab all of your McNeil books, and pitch them into the flames. Your life will be better without them.

I'm not even in the military nor even an armchair general, and reading a couple books from the Ultramarines Series made by want to start a bonfire with the books considering how poorly written they are and how utterly stupid the content is.

BrianDavion wrote:

 EmpNortonII wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
I'm in the camp of "Ignore the whole UltraMcNeill's series", the whole series flies in the face of what we know about the Ultramarines, and Ventris is such an awful character, he's an awful leader, a terrible tactician and he is the epitome of Mary Sue.
I love the Ultramarines, but Nick Kyme writes them so much better IMO. Unless it's HH, McNeill does them well there, but Abnett rules 30k Macragge.

Agreed.

Don't read the Ultramarines novels. They're garbage.

Wishful thinking.

If Uriel Ventriss is an awful leader and a terrible tactician, he is by definition not a Mary Sue.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue

Veteran Sergeant is an Ultramarines fangirt that simultaneously is offended by everything that does not, in some way, praise the Ultrasmurfs. She's also upset by anything that besmirches their reputation. Anything that does not sing praises of Rowboat Girlyman's gakky book is heresy.

Frankly, she will ruthlessly criticize anything that conflicts with her ridiculous headcannon.

pointing out how the codex astartes is presented in other sources and saying Mcneil's interpretion of it doesn't make sense (that said the "Death quest" Uriel Ventris was sent on was for basicly abandoning his post. I've got no military experiance myself but I'd be willing to bet a modern military would... frown, if a company commander took off to play commando while his company was in a siege situation) is hardly ridiculas headcanon.

Just because Vetern sergent disagrees with you is hardly a reason to stoop to personal attacks.
Besides accusing anyone else of fanboyism is proably not something you wanna be doing, you have your own biases.

Norton is a top competitor for "Worst Dakka Poster" with his repeated homophobic slur posts and other general nastiness and complete unwillingness to add anything useful or insightful to the forum, however, he's mostly upset that I was one of the people who said that his idea about Curze being able to start his own Heresy wasn't very probable since nobody would follow Curze.

'She'? Veteran Sergeant is a woman? That surprises me, I always assumed she was a man.

But then, I went under the username 'Brotherharaldus' for three years, so what do I know.

Norton, you should not accuse anyone of being a fangirl. For each time Veteran Sergeant has said the Ultramarines are good, you have praised the Tau at least three times.

Just saying.

Guys please keep in mind that Rule Number One is Be Polite. That means not making personal attacks. Keep the conversation about what people say rather than about them. Thanks.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 Muhr wrote:


2) In almost every single combat duel Captain Ventris fights, he always ends up getting his head kicked in, so my second question is this: am I missing something here or is Ventris just crap at hand-to-hand combat, something an Astartes captain should surely be handy at?

Cheers!

Any context here? Who is he duelling? If its a lowly scrub then you may have a point but if he's going up against a skilled opponent then why shouldn't he get knocked around?

Good point. It's been a good few years since I read the series. It was only after a recent re-read of the last book, The Chapter's Due, that I asked that question. Over the course of the series, Ventris struggles against myriad foe's, not all of which I can remember off the top of my head, but a few of the one's I can remember are the following: Ventris and his sergeant, Pasanius, duel with a Grey Knight in a no weapons hand-to-hand free-for-all. Ventris and his sergeant are beaten easily, which, rather bizarrely, prove their innocence and non corruption; during the height of battle in The Chapter's Due, Ventris faces Xiomagra, Mistress of the Blade Dancers, who easily gets the better of Ventris who realises he is hopelessly outclassed. His life was saved by Nero, his Company Champion, who goes on to kill her in just a few brief seconds of swordplay; Ventris also duels a genetic copy of a Space Marine that was created using Ventris' DNA. Known as The Newborn, this foe completely owns Ventris in no time at all, which was prevented from killing Ventris when one of Ventris' men shoots him with a melta gun; while on Medrengard, Ventris is attacked by Honsou's champion, Onyx, who doesn't even break sweat as he dishes out a thorough pasting to the good captain.

That's just a few of the instances where Ventris takes a thorough kicking from, well, anyone who attacks him in single combat. There are quite a few other embarrassing confrontations, but I can't remember them all off the top of my head. Basically, when Ventris is about to get busy with a foe, you just KNOW that a jolly good pasting is about to unfold upon the hapless Ultramarine captain.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I can only author three pieces of advice in regards to the Ultramarines Books, and most if not all of McNeil's writing in general. Light a fire, grab all of your McNeil books, and pitch them into the flames. Your life will be better without them.

I'm not even in the military nor even an armchair general, and reading a couple books from the Ultramarines Series made by want to start a bonfire with the books considering how poorly written they are and how utterly stupid the content is.

I'll admit that the first book in the Ultramarine series, Nightbringer, was very ponderous IMO; however, McNeill has authored some of the best books I've ever read, namely: Priests of Mars (though the other two books of that trilogy came nowhere near the first one in terms of epicness), False Gods, Fulgrim, Thousand Sons, Angel Exterminatus and Storm of Iron.

Someone on here once referred to the book Fulgrim as "a train wreck", which was echoed by several others, but to me it's one of the finest HH titles that's been written.

Objectively they are train wrecks. Characterization and depth of characters in McNeil novels are absolutely godawful and his writing skills fail at writing anything greater then a two dimensional character. Plus both of the Primarch falls he wrote were complete garbage as they both boiled down to Horus and Fulgrim being complete morons unfit for command of even a squad of space marines.

Superhuman demigods should have more emotional maturity then a small child, and should at least have a stronger grasp of logic then a young adult. Although considering how often McNeil makes these jarring errors of character development, it speaks more of his own character then anything else with no other information to go off.

 Wyzilla wrote:
Objectively they are train wrecks. Characterization and depth of characters in McNeil novels are absolutely godawful and his writing skills fail at writing anything greater then a two dimensional character. Plus both of the Primarch falls he wrote were complete garbage as they both boiled down to Horus and Fulgrim being complete morons unfit for command of even a squad of space marines.

Superhuman demigods should have more emotional maturity then a small child, and should at least have a stronger grasp of logic then a young adult. Although considering how often McNeil makes these jarring errors of character development, it speaks more of his own character then anything else with no other information to go off.

I actually agree with you about the primarch portrayals, but McNeill isn't the only one who's come up with dodgy primarch shenanigans, and by no means is the worst offender.

Nick Kyme's Vulkan in Vulkan Lives is not too unlike a HH version of the Carry On films. Curze's endless attempts on Vulkan's life takes a turn for the truly bizarre when he sets about Vulkan with a fork, of all things. A bloody fork! He manages to off poor Vulky with it, stabbing maniacally away with a great big silly grin plastered across his creepy face!

And don't even get me started on James Swallow. The less said about him the better. The point I'm getting at is that, personally, I think McNeill certainly isn't the worst offender when it comes to bringing a Carry On-like feel to the HH series.

 Muhr wrote:
[

Someone on here once referred to the book Fulgrim as "a train wreck", which was echoed by several others, but to me it's one of the finest HH titles that's been written.

The two are not mutually exclusive. Fulgrim is indeed one of the best HH novels I've read, and it's still a god-awful trainwreck of a book. The rest of the HH series is worse.

Isn't A Thousand Sons considered pretty good?

 Wyzilla wrote:
I can only author three pieces of advice in regards to the Ultramarines Books, and most if not all of McNeil's writing in general. Light a fire, grab all of your McNeil books, and pitch them into the flames. Your life will be better without them.

I'm not even in the military nor even an armchair general, and reading a couple books from the Ultramarines Series made by want to start a bonfire with the books considering how poorly written they are and how utterly stupid the content is.

His HH books besides False Gods are pretty good. Haven't read Mechanicum yet but...... his "Priests of Mars" series is good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Isn't A Thousand Sons considered pretty good?

He has several VERY good books. He's either really good or awful most of the time


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Objectively they are train wrecks. Characterization and depth of characters in McNeil novels are absolutely godawful and his writing skills fail at writing anything greater then a two dimensional character. Plus both of the Primarch falls he wrote were complete garbage as they both boiled down to Horus and Fulgrim being complete morons unfit for command of even a squad of space marines.

Superhuman demigods should have more emotional maturity then a small child, and should at least have a stronger grasp of logic then a young adult. Although considering how often McNeil makes these jarring errors of character development, it speaks more of his own character then anything else with no other information to go off.

The handling of the falls were really terrible. Did he write Fulgrim? I forgot how much I thought that one sucked too

jakejackjake wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
I can only author three pieces of advice in regards to the Ultramarines Books, and most if not all of McNeil's writing in general. Light a fire, grab all of your McNeil books, and pitch them into the flames. Your life will be better without them.

I'm not even in the military nor even an armchair general, and reading a couple books from the Ultramarines Series made by want to start a bonfire with the books considering how poorly written they are and how utterly stupid the content is.

His HH books besides False Gods are pretty good. Haven't read Mechanicum yet but...... his "Priests of Mars" series is good.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Isn't A Thousand Sons considered pretty good?

He has several VERY good books. He's either really good or awful most of the time


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyzilla wrote:
Objectively they are train wrecks. Characterization and depth of characters in McNeil novels are absolutely godawful and his writing skills fail at writing anything greater then a two dimensional character. Plus both of the Primarch falls he wrote were complete garbage as they both boiled down to Horus and Fulgrim being complete morons unfit for command of even a squad of space marines.

Superhuman demigods should have more emotional maturity then a small child, and should at least have a stronger grasp of logic then a young adult. Although considering how often McNeil makes these jarring errors of character development, it speaks more of his own character then anything else with no other information to go off.

The handling of the falls were really terrible. Did he write Fulgrim? I forgot how much I thought that one sucked too

Yes, Fulgrim was by McNeil as well.

jakejackjake wrote: his "Priests of Mars" series is good.

Well, all except for the last one, which was garbage.

But they felt really rushed. I mean, the Black Templars run out of ammo in one scene, and then magically have more in the next scene. Then one of the main characters loses a hand, but magically has two hands in the final battle, lol. I really felt like McNeill churned them out as fast as he could. Which was a shame because the basic concept was decent and the characters kinda cool.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

jakejackjake wrote: his "Priests of Mars" series is good.

Well, all except for the last one, which was garbage.

But they felt really rushed. I mean, the Black Templars run out of ammo in one scene, and then magically have more in the next scene. Then one of the main characters loses a hand, but magically has two hands in the final battle, lol. I really felt like McNeill churned them out as fast as he could. Which was a shame because the basic concept was decent and the characters kinda cool.

it's possiable that GW was rushing him.

which if it was, was rather silly of them. a few month delay and they could have sold the final book in the trilogy alongside the skitarii.