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I'm still only halfway through the Beast Arises series, but I've noticed a lot of hate towards the series as a whole on other sites. Here is my two cents and I hope that its brings up some of what the series did well and what people wanted to see more of.

Sorry if I get some of the names wrong. I tried writing most of this from memory.

What went well:

The Beast - By the end of Book 1, the Beast is revealed to be a monster of an Ork with Nobs the size of Warbosses and Boyz the size of Nobs. The premise is great and while it gave us the kind of stupid name of "Prime-Ork" it definitely gave Orks a new Ork-oid creature that fit in with the fluff. And likely has helped GW to decide on increasing the size of Ghaz for the new model.

Orks being Underestimated - A good Ork story has the Orks being underestimated by their enemies. And the Orks at this stage show that they can out maneuver the Imperial Navy, establish a civil Ork Kulture (If by civil you mean Ork Priests handing out free ammunition), and an ability to use psychological warfare. Too many people assume Orks are shoot first and ask questions never, but this series really put effort to show while Orks appear dumb there is a method to the madness.

Adeptus Mechanicus Representation - I'm an Ork and Ad Mech player. So having Skitarii armies in the books was very nice. My favorite being when the Imperial Fists and Mechanicus duke it out on Mars, because of a stray missile that only had a less than 1% chance to deviate. The Skitarius book didn't highlight the capabililties of the Ad Mech as much as this book did.

Assassins - The entire Assassin storyline was priceless. The only downside to me was I was hoping that Vangorich was going to slowly replace at least one High Lord every book.

Life on Terra - This is still one of the few books that highlighted how life on Terra is. With pilgrims flooding every corner and political intrigue.

Orkyness - This book inspired me with its Deffdreads with Void Shields, Ambassador Orks, Goffs wearing Luna Wolf armor, and so many other great Ork-oids.

Vulkan Lives! - Vulkan being back temporarily really added some much needed commentary on the difference between 30k and 40k, and how the Primarchs will react to the changes. Yeah it sucks he doesn't stick around too long, but he has a pact he has to make good on.

What didn't work for me:

Too Many Ideas - Every book was themed around an idea. The ones that carried through out the series were Terra, Mars, Imperial Fists, and a rotating one. But this resulted in a lot of weirdness; Iron warriors and Eldar feel very tacked on. This is an Imperium versus Orks series, yet some of the middle books get hiijacked by Chaos.

The First Book - Dan Abnett really did a good introduction to the Beast, but it wasn't an Ork book. It was definitely more of an Imperial mystery novel. In particular with the whole why is this planet just destroying everything.

The Limelight Shifting - Orks being a concern is throughout most of the books, but then you get Inquisitor Veritus spouting off about how Chaos is the true threat right now. I may just be too sensitive when there are reveals like Orks didn't plan this it was Chaos/Eldar.

Dangling Plot Hooks - While I've been slowly reading this book series, I have noticed that a few plot hooks seemed to either be left unresolved or were resolved very abruptly. I feel like the writers may have needed to give the next author in a series a list of dangling ideas. The biggest one for me was the attempt at assassinating the head of the Ecclesiarchy. By the next book he's still alive, having discovered a cure to the poison Vangorich gave to him.

What could have worked:

Show the Orks fighting Non-Humans - We see the Imperial front of the war, but the Eldar are likely taking a severe beating as well. Instead of getting a Harly running through the Throne world it would have been interesting to see a Craftworld dealing with an Attack Moon or something.

More Named Character Orks - Aside from the Beast, Bezhrak is the only Ork that really gets a name, he's the Ambassador who is only in the one book. This is a problem I find with a lot of Black Library books about Orks. Maybe it's because I played Dawn of War 2 where you have a Space Marine say "We need to take out Rippa Splitta". Having the Imperium interact with Boss Squigcrusha would have been better than Imperial Fists fight a nameless Runtherder with a farm full of humans. Just give the Ork a name is I'm saying that scene was awesome.

And then there were none... - It would have been so much better to see Vangorich assassinate every High Lord one by one as opposed to what I've been told is in one foul swoop. The first couple of books seemed to set this up with the Ecclesiarchy getting poisoned, but by the next book he is cured by unknown means.

I don't really see why the Orks would go for a Craftworld. They're much harder to find and a much worse fight than Terra.

pm713 wrote:
I don't really see why the Orks would go for a Craftworld. They're much harder to find and a much worse fight than Terra.

I should point out I meant Craftworld Eldar fighting Orks, not an attack moon trying to catch a Craftworld ship. The Orks in Beast Arises are everywhere, they probably attacked every Xenos race out there. I'd imagine Eldar were just as harassed by the Orks as the Humans were. At this time the only major Xenos races (i.e. that we have rules for) in the Milky Way were Orks and Eldar. Eldar are definitely protective of their Maiden Worlds and the Orks would have likely been at odds with them if not directly fighting on a craftworld.

Necrons still hadn't awoken yet. Tyranids hadn't arrived yet, first contact was 745.M41. And Tau didn't really get started till 502.M37-956.M38.

I'd say you've covered the pros and cons here pretty well. I'd disagree about Vulkan coming back being good, but on the other points you're bang on.

Even moreso than normal for Black Library, I found the standard of writing in this series was all over the place. Some books were great and others rubbish, but also the same sub-plots would be engrossing in one book only to become incredibly dull in the next! It's really hard to give an impression of the series as a whole because of this.

The last book fixes some, but nowhere close to all, of the problems of the series.

Something important to keep in mind is that while the series may have come out one month after another, there were multi-year gaps between when the series started being written, when it stopped, and when it started back up again. There was little to no communication between authors. Editorial staff changed, then disappeared entirely, and in my opinion, it shows.

That said, I adored all of the High Lords of Terra and high politicking that went through the whole series. I loved watching Vangorich figuratively beat his head against a wall trying to get something done. I also liked the replacement of the Imperial Fists. I might be in the minority, but to me, every chapter should have some secrets, no matter who they are.

On the other hand, I hated everything with Vulkan and I genuinely hope he died. In my mind, concentrated Waaagh! energy is a pretty good example of something that could kill a Perpetual. I also hated the entire Zerberyn and Kalkator plot and felt it could've been shortened substantially.

If the Beast were killed in, say, book 6 or 7, and then the rest dealt with Vangorich's rule of the Imperium (which lasted 100 years!) I feel that would've been a much more interesting progression.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:

pm713 wrote:
I don't really see why the Orks would go for a Craftworld. They're much harder to find and a much worse fight than Terra.

I should point out I meant Craftworld Eldar fighting Orks, not an attack moon trying to catch a Craftworld ship. The Orks in Beast Arises are everywhere, they probably attacked every Xenos race out there. I'd imagine Eldar were just as harassed by the Orks as the Humans were. At this time the only major Xenos races (i.e. that we have rules for) in the Milky Way were Orks and Eldar. Eldar are definitely protective of their Maiden Worlds and the Orks would have likely been at odds with them if not directly fighting on a craftworld.

Necrons still hadn't awoken yet. Tyranids hadn't arrived yet, first contact was 745.M41. And Tau didn't really get started till 502.M37-956.M38.

Oh that's far more probable then. It's not hard to think of a reason for Craftworlders to be fighting Orks, it was just the Craftworld part I had issue with.

One thing about the series I've heard is that it originally was to involve Men of Iron in some capacity, but since they had no models to sell the moneybags decreed that they weren't allowed to feature.

Wouldn't be suprised that if the rumor's true it's the reason for at least some of the bad writing, like why they resolved the plot with the Orks the way they did.

The Adeptus Mechanicus battle between them and the Imperial Fists could have been the Men of Iron. But honestly it worked for me.

I really like it when the Primarchs come back. There is 10,000 years of time for Russ to meet up with a Deathwatch Kill Team or Company of Marines to temporarily team up.

Seeing how the OP marked the thread itself as a spoiler, I am going to assume everyone who reads here will have already finished the series.

What I liked:

The crushing feeling of a galaxy being overwhelmed by an unexpected threat. We have been told that the Orks would quickly overrun the entire galaxy were they ever to unite, here we actually see how it would be like.

The series being written completely from a non-Ork POV. Reading Orks from their own POV will inevitably turn them into comedic relief, what with the funny accents and all, but here it was nicely demonstrated that they are anything but comedic to everyone else.

The Inquisitor and assassin plotlines added some nice diversity to the somewhat tiring bolter porn scenes.

Some scenes - like the stomach turning ending of the Proletarian Crusade and the Auschwitz-like planet the Snake Bites were running - left me impressively disturbed, haven't had such an effect by a BL novel in a while, if ever.

What I didn't like:

The Iron Warriors plotline that ultimately led to absolutely nothing other than a couple of Marines we had never heard about and will never hear about again switching sides. They could have left it completely out.

The other Marine chapters and the Imperial Guard seem strangely passive during the series. It's like they are expecting Koorland and the IF successor chapters to micromanage literally everything. I understand you can only introduce so many POVs though.

The complete non-interaction between Vulkan and the Salamanders. I mean, not even a token scene?

The way the Beast was finally defeated honestly felt like a MMORPG dungeon raid to me, where the party keeps going back to the same level for multiple tries and the final boss is patiently waiting in the same room every single time. I mean the guy has a galactic war of conquest to run, doesn't he honestly have something better to do than sitting around, KNOWING that the Imperials know he is there? And what with the other five Beasts, does the "Prime" Beast literally keep them in the basement? It sure felt that way.
Also, a single overcharged Weirdboy wipes out an entire planet with a bajillion Orks? What's even stranger is that the Beast/s had apparently not taken any precautions whatsoever to avoid just such a scenario, despite the fact that it happens twice in a row.

I dislike just how big they made the beast (wrist mounted leman russ cannon? What?) on the grounds that it’s very bad writing if they haven’t laid the groundwork by establishing nobz as a bigger leap than they currently are and warbosses and their retinue getting extremely large during a big waagh. It reeks of the same symptoms that led to people who can’t grasp ten broad-shouldered 7 foot guys in power armour is impressive creeping from trying to claim marines are 8 foot all the way up to presenting primarchs as absurd figures like 14 foot.

There is actually history between Chaos and the Fists Examplar, as they are the first IF successor to go traitor. I dont know if that happens in the series but I think their meeting with the IW started it off

changemod wrote:
I dislike just how big they made the beast (wrist mounted leman russ cannon? What?) on the grounds that it’s very bad writing if they haven’t laid the groundwork by establishing nobz as a bigger leap than they currently are and warbosses and their retinue getting extremely large during a big waagh. It reeks of the same symptoms that led to people who can’t grasp ten broad-shouldered 7 foot guys in power armour is impressive creeping from trying to claim marines are 8 foot all the way up to presenting primarchs as absurd figures like 14 foot.

The Prime-Orks being as tall as they are felt very rock and roll to me. Ork growth spurts have been a thing in the past especially with how Ghaz went from a boy to a boss.

The proto-orks, Krork, were around 12 meters tall and pretty comparable to the Prime-Orks. This was hinted at in the Fabius Bile book, Clone Lord. Though that was published in 2017 according to Lexicanum, which is after the publication of Beast Arises.

 Esmer wrote:
Seeing how the OP marked the thread itself as a spoiler, I am going to assume everyone who reads here will have already finished the series.

What I liked:

The crushing feeling of a galaxy being overwhelmed by an unexpected threat. We have been told that the Orks would quickly overrun the entire galaxy were they ever to unite, here we actually see how it would be like.

The series being written completely from a non-Ork POV. Reading Orks from their own POV will inevitably turn them into comedic relief, what with the funny accents and all, but here it was nicely demonstrated that they are anything but comedic to everyone else.

The Inquisitor and assassin plotlines added some nice diversity to the somewhat tiring bolter porn scenes.

Some scenes - like the stomach turning ending of the Proletarian Crusade and the Auschwitz-like planet the Snake Bites were running - left me impressively disturbed, haven't had such an effect by a BL novel in a while, if ever.

What I didn't like:

The Iron Warriors plotline that ultimately led to absolutely nothing other than a couple of Marines we had never heard about and will never hear about again switching sides. They could have left it completely out.

The other Marine chapters and the Imperial Guard seem strangely passive during the series. It's like they are expecting Koorland and the IF successor chapters to micromanage literally everything. I understand you can only introduce so many POVs though.

The complete non-interaction between Vulkan and the Salamanders. I mean, not even a token scene?

The way the Beast was finally defeated honestly felt like a MMORPG dungeon raid to me, where the party keeps going back to the same level for multiple tries and the final boss is patiently waiting in the same room every single time. I mean the guy has a galactic war of conquest to run, doesn't he honestly have something better to do than sitting around, KNOWING that the Imperials know he is there? And what with the other five Beasts, does the "Prime" Beast literally keep them in the basement? It sure felt that way.
Also, a single overcharged Weirdboy wipes out an entire planet with a bajillion Orks? What's even stranger is that the Beast/s had apparently not taken any precautions whatsoever to avoid just such a scenario, despite the fact that it happens twice in a row.

All day this. I agree with all of these points but in particular the stomach turning scenes and non-Ork POV are key, for me.

I remember a particularly story arc in one of the books that centred on (and was told from the perspective of) a high ranking human female character that ended up fighting her way through a fair few Big Orks on the premise of extraction, then getting told she and her tea, had to "heroically" activate a Virus Bomb to "save" the planet from getting taken over by Orks. She was pregnant when activating the device. It was brilliantly done and very harrowing. Worse when a few chapters later you found out the sacrifice had quite literally no impact on the Ork advance or the Imperial position.

I also liked the way the Orks still had their dark humour but when we saw it from the perspective of a third party it was suitably horrific. As it should be.

I've been keeping my eye on this for a while to pick up the series.
Would you say its worth getting them all? I see there are 3 book bundles now for 20 euro each which seems decent?

 Ratius wrote:
I've been keeping my eye on this for a while to pick up the series.
Would you say its worth getting them all? I see there are 3 book bundles now for 20 euro each which seems decent?

I'd recommend getting the Beast Arises Omnibuses. Make sure that the second one has the correct Volume 2, as when it first went out Throne World was replaced with one of the earlier books by mistake (Because Throne World shared the name as the first chapter of one of the books).

For me the best parts were the Ork combat sections and political intrigue. Most of the book highlights how each fighting force differentiates. (Imperial Guard, Imperial Navy, Imperial Fist/Successors, Orks, Custodes, Sisters of Silence, etc..)

It’s the first one that’s got book 5 instead book 4. I got the original print of it :(

phillv85 wrote:
It’s the first one that’s got book 5 instead book 4. I got the original print of it :(

If you contact GW support they will send you a replacement copy.

I think I need to send it back to Amazon. When I spoke to Amazon customer service, trying to explain it was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. I ended up with misprinted copies twice before the phone call, and I just ended up giving up. I’ll just keep it as a curio

 Esmer wrote:

The way the Beast was finally defeated honestly felt like a MMORPG dungeon raid to me, where the party keeps going back to the same level for multiple tries and the final boss is patiently waiting in the same room every single time. I mean the guy has a galactic war of conquest to run, doesn't he honestly have something better to do than sitting around, KNOWING that the Imperials know he is there? And what with the other five Beasts, does the "Prime" Beast literally keep them in the basement? It sure felt that way.
Also, a single overcharged Weirdboy wipes out an entire planet with a bajillion Orks? What's even stranger is that the Beast/s had apparently not taken any precautions whatsoever to avoid just such a scenario, despite the fact that it happens twice in a row.

This is true and my main gripe with the series.

I liked the Vangorich story though it needed to be more detailed, it develops pretty slowly and then everything happens at once in the last book. They could have really made some song of ice and fire style intrigues there, but the whole arc seems to be forgotten in some books and up until the last book you don't even know the first name of most of the high lords, let alone what their intentions are, why they are in their position or why they behave the way they do.

The inquisition story was good, Wienand and Veritus are probably the most interesting characters in the series.

I really liked the Iron Warriors side arc as they seemed to be the most rational SM in the whole series (and I'm a Chaos fan) and they really made a point about how the Black Templars behave exactly like Word Bearers. As someone not being that familiar with the Templars before I thought: Oh, so these guys are the Klingons in 40K?

The whole Deathwatch arc was interesting as it also showed that Imperial Fists aren't the only Space Marines in the galaxy.

I liked when they portrayed the orcs as cruel and cunning like they do in the first books. The first books of the series really emphasize the thread of the orks - which then falls flat in the second half. Why did that attack moon not simply wipe out terra? Why is the beast waiting to get killed? Why does the same plan work the second time when all other, much more surprising plans, fail before that because the orks are too clever for the Imperium?

Some books become pure, boring bolter porn, I think it's especially the two books after Vulkan is found. Those were very boring to read, as it's not even interesting bolter porn, simply SM slaughtering orks with their bolters by the hundreds for 200 pages.

The eldar plot - what was the point of it? It seemed to me to be a bad cliffhanger: oooh Eldar - and then in the next book: Yeah, there's Eldar, but it's not important. Let's just go on and forget that arc until the very last page in book 12....

Overall the series didn't really convey the feeling of being 32K, unfortunately. Everybody had everything they have in 40K as well. It could've easily been 39K or the middle of M40 and nothing would have had to be changed aside from Vulkan. Even the imperium was already as byzantine as it is later on. In the end the whole thing happens much too fast for my taste. They could've at least said the crisis lasts 10 or 20 years without changing much, but making it far more credible how the orks overrun half of the imperium.

the bit with the eldar I think was done purely to toss the eldar (and custodes) into the mix just a bit. I really felt that each of the books tried to shine a light on differant aprts of the setting, even in cases where they proably shouldn't have bothered

BrianDavion wrote:
the bit with the eldar I think was done purely to toss the eldar (and custodes) into the mix just a bit. I really felt that each of the books tried to shine a light on differant aprts of the setting, even in cases where they proably shouldn't have bothered

As someone who loves Eldar it was rather disappointing. I'm not actually sure removing them completely from the narrative would have made much difference.

i didn't like books 2 or 3. and eldar story is pointless, though it was nice seeing a familiar face, Eldrad Ulthran

i liked
Vangorich and Veritus' story and i liked Vulkan's introduction.
i liked the iron warriors and exemplars story
while it did feel very 41st millennium like, i did get to see the early days of the inquisition, death watch, and hints of grey knights.
without spoiling anything, i like how everyone's story resolves at the end

Read all but the last 2i think.
Someone spoil how they won for me please...

you're two books away. you can do it!

in regards to how the imperial fists and orks story line ended, Esmer summed it up pretty well

 Esmer wrote:


The way the Beast was finally defeated honestly felt like a MMORPG dungeon raid to me, where the party keeps going back to the same level for multiple tries and the final boss is patiently waiting in the same room every single time. I mean the guy has a galactic war of conquest to run, doesn't he honestly have something better to do than sitting around, KNOWING that the Imperials know he is there? And what with the other five Beasts, does the "Prime" Beast literally keep them in the basement? It sure felt that way.
Also, a single overcharged Weirdboy wipes out an entire planet with a bajillion Orks? What's even stranger is that the Beast/s had apparently not taken any precautions whatsoever to avoid just such a scenario, despite the fact that it happens twice in a row.

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
Read all but the last 2i think.
Someone spoil how they won for me please...

Sister of Silence magic they never ever do again for some reason. You'd think a weapon that stops all Waaghs would be used again but there you go.

pm713 wrote:

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
Read all but the last 2i think.
Someone spoil how they won for me please...

Sister of Silence magic they never ever do again for some reason. You'd think a weapon that stops all Waaghs would be used again but there you go.

Now you know how the Adeptus Mechanicus feel about Tyranids. (i.e. there was a planet that figured out how to set fire to the atmosphere and destroy all Tyranid spores without damaging a planet and population, but the technology was lost because Ad Mech filed the schematics incorrectly).

DontEatRawHagis wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
Read all but the last 2i think.
Someone spoil how they won for me please...

Sister of Silence magic they never ever do again for some reason. You'd think a weapon that stops all Waaghs would be used again but there you go.

Now you know how the Adeptus Mechanicus feel about Tyranids. (i.e. there was a planet that figured out how to set fire to the atmosphere and destroy all Tyranid spores without damaging a planet and population, but the technology was lost because Ad Mech filed the schematics incorrectly).

Even that makes more sense considering the amount of people involved in the SoS thing. You'd think someone would have brought it up.

DontEatRawHagis wrote:

pm713 wrote:

 usernamesareannoying wrote:
Read all but the last 2i think.
Someone spoil how they won for me please...

Sister of Silence magic they never ever do again for some reason. You'd think a weapon that stops all Waaghs would be used again but there you go.

Now you know how the Adeptus Mechanicus feel about Tyranids. (i.e. there was a planet that figured out how to set fire to the atmosphere and destroy all Tyranid spores without damaging a planet and population, but the technology was lost because Ad Mech filed the schematics incorrectly).

That ranks among the most 40k of 40k lore snippets I have ever read.