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SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS



Just finished the Gaunts Ghosts book HONOR GUARD, and while overall I think it was a pretty good read, I am left somewhat underwhelmed but the conclusion.


Never mind the final barely half page explanation of the Deus Ex Machina uber weapon that saves the day a the end, but what really got me was the so-called final epic battle at the Shrine of Saint Sabbat.


Throughout the novel Gaunt and his boys begin to fight bigger and bigger enemy forces along the way, defeating each in turn by the skin of their teeth. The problem is the final army is so ridiculously large that instead of being epic and scary it instead pulled me out of the story and scratching my head.

Described as having 9000-10000 infantry with well over 500 plus armored vehicles, and being of "Legion size" the main thing im wondering is......WHERE THE HELL DID ALL THESE BAD GUYS COME FROM?

In the book it take Gaunt roughly a week to travel from one side of the included map to the other which means somewhere...somehow on this same map the enemy was somehow hiding this massive army and hundreds and hundreds of tanks.

I don't care how good you are at camouflage....the amount of support equipment and baggage train required for that large of a force is impossible to hide. 10000 troops and 500 tanks is going to take many thousand more fuel trucks, ammo carts, supply depots......etc etc etc.

This is hiding on a map the majority of which is described as "rice paddy" like in nature.......not easy to hide stuff in.

It should have been obvious to anything in orbit that the enemy had a gigantic force very close by.


Thoughts.

They could of just approached

While it takes Gaunt and his men a while to move up, they were moving with caution and had several engagements

The Chaos forces were not inhibited in such a way and made a beeline directly towards their target

I share your frustrations with the ending completely. Didn't stop me enjoying it the first or repeating times though.

If you want a 'reasonable' explanation, here's some I thought of.

1. The enemy used warp portals or some such to sneak up on the ghosts.
2. Orbital was too busy with the evacuation going on at the time to notice and/or warn the ghosts, who might not even have been able to pick up the warning.
3. Orbital noticed, but Ludd, who had it in for all of the forces on the mission, just decided not to warn them.
4. Someone just plain miscounted.

I like the Ludd explanation. It is something he would do

Wasn't it implied that the enemy were moving around masquerading as pilgrims and refugees?

You could also have a Viet Cong style tunnel network. ?

Its amusing to think of either a tunnel network or pilgrim parade that could hide a Baneblade super heavy tank. I suppose that they could just have said that it was their Popemobile! hang a few banners and erect some statues on it and no one would ever know...

ingtaer wrote:
Its amusing to think of either a tunnel network or pilgrim parade that could hide a Baneblade super heavy tank. I suppose that they could just have said that it was their Popemobile! hang a few banners and erect some statues on it and no one would ever know...

That was more for infantry.

Yeah... Put a large wooden shrine on the roof?
Being 40k a cardinal riding in a baneblade is not entirely stupid..