Do Black Library authors bother to read up on the fluff? [or, Phil Kelly, wtf?]

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**Psienesis**

It was in a trench, which offered, at best, a few dozen meters of clear fire, against an attack the cultists weren't expecting, with the Ghosts deploying flamers (in which case a trench filled with enemies is an absolutely *ideal* scenario... this is what they were built for in M2) and their noted excellence at CQC. The cultists basically tripped over themselves to repel an enemy they weren't expecting to suddenly find amongst them.

It should be noted, too, that the Ghosts that went there did not avoid casualties, we're just not given the names of all 2000+ soldiers that were in the Ghosts at the time. The strength of the regiment waxes and wanes over the course of the series.

**13whited**

BlaxicanX wrote:
Kain wrote:
Because sci-fi writers tend to not be physicists and like to pull numbers out of their ass.

Best description ever.

**jonolikespie**

-Loki- wrote:
Psienesis wrote:
To be fair, 50 Guardsmen of a specialist light infantry unit against 10,000 Cultists who don't know their arse from a hole in the ground, or which end of the weapon to point at the enemy makes sense. There's plenty of real-world examples where a very small number of professional soldiers slaughtered many, many times their number of irregular militia/undisciplined rabble.

That would be fine if the situation was described as such. But the Cultists were obviously knew how to operate weapons, having support platforms set up in defensible backlines (we know this because the Bluebloods used some of them). They were never described as breaking, but turning to fight once they knew the threat was there. 10,000 armed militants, not breaking, but turning to shoot at 50 men moving through their lines. No real guerilla warfare employed, 50 men pressed between 10,000 armed militants with no morale problems mentioned at all.

It was a poorly written piece trying to emphasise the heroism of the Imperial force that doesn't really work - Abnett even references this himself that it made no sense in a later part of the chapter. But it's pretty similar to much of Abnetts book endings, with miraculous escapes happening just because he can't finish a book properly.

You're completely ignoring the Eldar magic that had everyone believing they were fighting to save their homeworld. For all we know the cultists never saw anything but more of their own when they turned to look at the ghosts. Hell they could have thought Gaunt and his men where greater daemons or something, the crazy magic storm was clearly capable of it.

**-Loki-**

jonolikespie wrote:
-Loki- wrote:
Psienesis wrote:
To be fair, 50 Guardsmen of a specialist light infantry unit against 10,000 Cultists who don't know their arse from a hole in the ground, or which end of the weapon to point at the enemy makes sense. There's plenty of real-world examples where a very small number of professional soldiers slaughtered many, many times their number of irregular militia/undisciplined rabble.

That would be fine if the situation was described as such. But the Cultists were obviously knew how to operate weapons, having support platforms set up in defensible backlines (we know this because the Bluebloods used some of them). They were never described as breaking, but turning to fight once they knew the threat was there. 10,000 armed militants, not breaking, but turning to shoot at 50 men moving through their lines. No real guerilla warfare employed, 50 men pressed between 10,000 armed militants with no morale problems mentioned at all.

It was a poorly written piece trying to emphasise the heroism of the Imperial force that doesn't really work - Abnett even references this himself that it made no sense in a later part of the chapter. But it's pretty similar to much of Abnetts book endings, with miraculous escapes happening just because he can't finish a book properly.

You're completely ignoring the Eldar magic that had everyone believing they were fighting to save their homeworld. For all we know the cultists never saw anything but more of their own when they turned to look at the ghosts. Hell they could have thought Gaunt and his men where greater daemons or something, the crazy magic storm was clearly capable of it.

Again, my original comment had the additional 'fuelled by the power of hope'.

It's still silly.