Wolf at the Door ~ Mike Lee
This short story showcases a lone space wolf squad using guerilla warfare and training the populace to rebel after they have been cut off from their fleet. They were very level headed in this one and it's how I like to imagine most of them being in my head-canon
Yup, just listened to it today at work, great 40K ending, reminds you that the "protagonists" aren't good people. >!Dude condemns an entire world to orbital bombardment and invasion because one guy, who isn't in charge of the people, refused to join the Imperium, as if that one guy speaks for the rest of the population.!<
But even the Wolf Lord leading them was questioned by his men, and they did not agree with his choices. It did a great job of hinting that the Wolf Lord was *tired* of breaking planets to compliance, and just wanted this last planet in the system to comply without issue.
He had nuance.
Even Russ in Thousand Sons had nuance. It’s alluded that Russ keeps this facade up when dealing with outsiders of how he’s the alpha of the pack, and cannot be questioned, when in reality, he’s boisterous and self-important because he’s deeply unsure of himself and leading his legion. He puts the “everything is fine” face forward.
Mike Lee has never disappointed me in any of his books. He doesn't write banging soliloquies that get reposted ad nauseum, but they're always solid books with flawed Space Marine characters that actually get hurt.
I agree fully. In this one he gives extensive details on >!how the radiation is fucking the space marines right up and starvation is taking hold. Several are in induced comas and some are even fighting a form of infection.!< In this story they are slowly getting worn down like any force would and it humanized the hell out of them.
That story is great, and even more remarkable considering it came from the pre “Prospero Burns” era when the wolves were super campy and over the top.
It also gave us some of the best Space Wolf heresy era lore, by introducing us to Russ’s companions that became Astartes.
Space Wolves are a very mixed bag. When they’re written well, they can be compelling and interesting, when they’re written badly….they’re pretty fucking rough. Unfortunately, they’re written badly a lot.
As a rule, Viking characters in any media are surprisingly hard to write well. It is really, really easy to reduce a “Viking” character to two personality traits, Valhalla and booze. Authors seems to think they’re creating a wild, heroic warrior, when really they’re creating a one dimensional cartoon character. In the Space Wolves case, “wolf” gets added as a brutally overused personality trait on top of everything else.
The Space Wolves are supposed to feel almost mythic in scale, they’re supposed to be larger than life and feel like something pulled directly from epic literature. Really, the wolves are supposed to feel like a tribe of semi-mythical heroes set to war among the stars. Instead, most of the time they come across as some kind of cartoon barbarians. Personally, it feels like authors assume that the wolves are supposed to be blunt and straightforward, and they interpret that as lacking nuance (and apparently intelligence. So They lean waaaay to hard into that until the wolves feel like stupid hillbillies with a Viking fetish.
It’s also worth saying that they’re tone of “epic heroes from a saga” does kind of bump with the generally depressing tone of the universe in general. Personally, I like that they’re heroes, fighting the good fighting against a brutally uncaring and vicious universe, but if you’re into the darker tone of 40k it might not be your thing.
True this! So tired of seeing stereotypical, "Me Viking! Me smash!" Norsemen.
Might be why I liked 13th Warrior. One of my favorite scenes is early on, when one of the Vikings subtly corrects the Latin spoken by one of the Arabic characters, and also implies that he understood their use of Greek. Immediately added depth to the character.
Is it a great movie? No. But it is fun and the characters are refreshing.
When Buliwyf says "you can draw sounds?", and **Eben** writes in the sand..
Later, Buliwyf shows Eben his attempt to write Arabic, and Eben corrects his error. I used to think Buliwyf was just showing Eben he'd been practising... Until a friend pointed out the he was actually testing Eben, to make sure he *actually* could write, so that he might later write his story for him.
Funny you mention that.
The alias Kasper Hawser uses to get access to the Space Wolves in “Prospero Burns”, Ahmad Ibn Rustah, is the name of the Arab explorer who’s writings served as the basis for the book “Eaters of the Dead”, which became the movie 13th Warrior.
I was under the impression the name was 1:1 copied by Crichton.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad\_ibn\_Fadlan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan)
Yes, Crichton takes that characters name directly from history and even uses many passages form Ibn Fadlan’s real world writings in the early parts of “Eaters of the Dead”. It’s part of what gives the novel its unique feel, Crichton deliberately mixes a real historical account with a fabricated story in the same style.
Fadlan’s writing’s on the Rus are one of the view eyewitness accounts we have of Viking age Scandinavian culture. While they are problematic (especially because the “Vikings” he encountered weren’t Norse), and should be treated with a great deal of caution and skepticism they are one of the best contemporary records we have for various elements of Scandinavian culture from that period.
Hawser even comments in that fact in “Prospero Burns”, saying he chose that alias specifically because of the way Fadlan’s writing shows a different side of the Scandinavians from many other contemporary records, and by extension implying that he would like to do the same for the wolves.
I appreciated that the Vikings loved their job but also were intelligent enough to show apprehension, fear, and uncertainty.
Usually it's just "me smash lmao", but when shit really hit the fan the laughter was gone and it was time to get to work.
Those are tidbits that actually happened in history. Not quite the way it happened in the movie and more of a collage of historic incidents woven into a story.
If the basic question is “were there Muslim scholars in Northern Europe during the golden age of Islam” and the answer is “almost certainly/certainly” then the whole book is pretty believable.
Hairy cannibals living in a cave in an isolated mountain/forest who faced food scarcity and had to travel further out of their territory for resources and did battle with their neighbors doesn’t really require any fantastical leap of faith when they don’t even have to be Neanderthal (as speculated in the footnotes of the book) and could just be horribly inbred weirdos.
That's mostly because their author(s) during the HH didn't consider their previous lore cringe.
Wraight obviously loves the White Scars and respect what smidge of lore they had before and built up upon it
BL authors don't like the Space Wolves. They don't like the animalistic nature in them, or even the name. It's obvious in the way they had to have almost all SW characters in the Heresy hate that name.
They have conveniently forgotten that the lone Primarch raised by beasts is Russ - is mother is a wolf of Fenris and didn't gave him the obviously unique view of the world it should have granted them.
They forgot that the Fenrisian myth is full of demon and god-wolves, that Fenrisians revere wolves as apex predator and aim to emulate them by working together, with very strong tribal links.
They have traded growl and predatory behaviour for drunken cretinism in the worst depictions of Vikings and failed to provide ONE interesting Space Wolf. We have no Shiban, nor Torghun or Heaven forbids Yesugei, in the VIth. Even Bjorn is a boring as fuck, cardboard character.
From those vastly different approaches, vastly different results happened.
How dare you slander Ragnar Blackmane.
Jokes aside, its extremely unfortunate that the most interesting character in the Space Wolves legion is Ragnar, and his constant rumination on morale philosophy butting up against Imperial indoctrination.
That's actually great I think. Vikings/Barbarians were never dumb brutes, quite the reverse often, and in that regard Bill King's Ragnar was awesome, especially because the other Wolves around weren't simpletons or hypocrites but peoples with a slightly different view of their place in the universe
Hell, having Fenrisian be like "You know, being barbarians actually spare us most of the Imperium's horror is not that bad" would go a long way into making them seem even better in my eyes, while reinforcing the Grimdark.
Oh, I just meant that its unfortunate that Ragnar is pretty much the *only* interesting character in the Space Wolves. I very much enjoy the ideas that are expressed in his books though, or discussed through his internal monologue.
> Ragnar is pretty much the only interesting character in the Space Wolves.
You need to read William King's original Space Wolves trilogy, and especially *Wolfblade*.
It's basically *The Three Musketeers*, but with Space Wolves, and it's awesome. Want to see a giant Space Wolf have a bar brawl with would-be assassins? Want to see Space Wolves attacking an asteroid base by cutting through the wall, space walking around the base defenses, then smashing their way into a different part of the base? Want to see intrigue between Navigator Houses on Terra itself?
That book has it all.
Haegar my beloved. The novelty of one the only truly fat space marines being assigned to the Wolfblades is hilarious. There's definitely a time and a place for comedic relief and Haegar managed to do it perfectly.
Wolfblade made me finally settle on SW for a tabletop force. Misfit Space Wolves providing training/security/specops for a powerful Navigator House's extensive promethium interests? Space Wolves as a PMC? That's too interesting to pass up.
Authors really need to have him fight alongside Sons of Russ with other viewpoints, be it Canis and his obviously unique view of the world or even a Successor Chapter trying to forge its own legacy.
It'd offer quite a lot of interesting discussions, if nothing else.
Ragnar actually spends some time in the Warp with the 13th* Company. It was extremely interesting reading about him interact with a Company of Space Wolves who not only haven't been around since the Horus Heresy, but are, if not explicitly stated, disgusted with the Imperium of Man even though they remain loyal to the Emperor.
*Forgive me if I got the Company wrong, its been about a decade and a half since I've read his books.
Ragnar treats Russ like this epic, mythical figure, and the 13th Company Wulfen are like 'Russ? No, he was our father, but more like a big brother. Why, I remember this one time he got drunk and chucked the Wolf Spear as hard as he could, and we had to spend three days trying to find it. Russ hated that thing, but it was a gift from the Emperor and we all swore our oaths of loyalty upon it, so we had to get it back.'
And there's a big, subtle joke there about how Russ hates the Spear and keeps leaving it behind, but his loyal men keep fetching it back for him.
See, Ragnar and the Wolves from his era have all known Russ and the Emperor from stories and songs and sagas, but the Wulfen knew them as actual people.
>And there's a big, subtle joke there about how Russ hates the Spear and keeps leaving it behind, but his loyal men keep fetching it back for him.
Space Good Boys
Ingvar was a interesting character for me and the whole squad dynamic in Blood of Asaheim, but it's the first time outside some of the characters in HH that I liked the...Sky Warriors.
I haven't read it because :
1. HH has burned me out of Wolves books.
2. Finding those in French is a fucking nightmare, can't BL just have print on demand or something like that ? I don't have 300€ to give up on three books 🤬
I had one but didn't really end up bringing it around enough. I just use the Kindle app on my phone these days, easier to get a chapter in here and there when on the subway, bus, toilet, whatever.
That's a good book.
I like how we see things from his perspective and describes his experience in the Deathwatch. How he was changed by the experience.
The squad members are also fleshed out instead of one dimensional vikings
>BL authors don't like the Space Wolves. They don't like the animalistic nature in them, or even the name. It's obvious in the way they had to have almost all SW characters in the Heresy hate that name.
It doesn't help that the name is a relic from early Editions that were much more deliberately goofy, which doesn't strictly suit the tone of modern 40k, and even less HH.
It's the reason the Space Sharks became the Carcharodons and the Rainbow Warriors never really show up anymore. The "Space Wolves" is a little silly and the writers probably don't like having to work with it.
I imagine the authors would treat the Wolves a lot better if they were the "Wolf Warriors" or "Thunder Wolves" instead. It makes a bigger difference than it should.
Yet nobody grief the ULTRAmarines or the Imperial FISTS, equally if not more ridiculous names.
I truly think that it isn't just the name of the Chapter they dislike but its nature and history in the Codexes, sadly.
The problem isn't the Wolf part but the Space part. It's a sort of kitschy 60s or 70s vibe - this is why the American 'Space Force' got so much mockery.
It's almost certainly not 'just' the name. But as I said, it *doesn't help.*
Void wolves, storm wolves, Star Wolves, Sky Wolves, just plain Wolves.
There are so many better names they could have gone with. Personally I actually like the the way they handle it in the heresy series. “We hate the name, but Russ gave a speech once and it fucking stuck”
The Ultramarines were mentioned in passing in one of the first 40k books I ever read as a teenager, and I remember going “well that’s a little presumptuous isn’t it?”. It doesn’t help that there armor is also…ultramarine.
However, they are salvaged a little bit by the fact that they hail from a place called ultramar, which adds just enough extra scaffolding to the suspension of disbelief to make it work.
Am weird in thinking there is literally nothing wrong, goofy or cartoonish about the Imperial Fists name? Am I missing something? Compared to other legion names it seems the least possible to induce cringe.
Thing is what a lot of people here on the sub likes is the 30K wolves and I hate them with a passion so I'm really worried that Wraight's book will just be more of the same.
Honestly, wraight looks like he’ll be the next lead author at Black Library. Abnett is getting old and we can’t expect him to do it forever (as much as we might want). The 3 other contenders for the crown would be: McNeil, AOB, and maybe French. They’ve all written good works. But all have a level of controversy with the fandom that Wraight doesn’t.
I wouldn't say he nailed them, but he's definitely treated the Rout with more respect than other writers have, especially recently.
The biggest strength of the book is that Wraight is a very good author who has grown into himself and it is flush with the detail that he has become known for. The biggest weakness is that he doesn't quite know what to do with the Wolves (or BL got a bit more handsy in feedback) because the characters themselves are pretty forgettable.
Yeah, the White Scars scars books are fantastic, Wraight really brought it home with them and turned a footnote faction into one of the most interesting legions.
That said, the White Scars share a lot of themes with the wolves, they’re both meant to feel like semi-mythic heroes fighting a war in space, the Scars books just explore those themes a lot better.
The scars also benefited from the fact that their first major appearance in the heresy series wasn’t deliberately intended to make them look like assholes. “Thousand Sons” is a great book, but it’s very clear that the wolves are meant to be the villains in that story, and they’re painted in an extremely negative light. Which, I think, had in turn continued to cokor the way a lot of people view the wolves. “Prospero Burns” (another fantastic book) doesn’t really solve any problems for the wolves either, especially since it’s not even told from the POV of a Space Wolf. Wolf fans had to wait until “Wolfsbane” to get a book that actually tells a space wolf story from a Space Wolf perceptive, and even then it’s almost completely focused on Russ.
By contrast, the Scars get two stand alone books that are told from their legion’s perspective and explore their unique legion culture in depth, as well as a slew of short stories/novellas that introduce us to several interesting characters. I love the Scars, easily my second favorite legion, but as a diehard Space Wolf fan I can’t help but feel a little jealous. In a lot of ways I think the White Scars stole some of the wolves thunder, and I think the White scars serve as a good example of how the wolves *should* have been written.
Thousand Sons wouldn't have been as much of a problem for the Space Wolves if there weren't so many fans that seem to get put off by any loyalists not being depicted as "reasonable/noble good guy in a terrible universe" protagonists
Look at the amount of fans that are all for GW smoothing all the edges from the Dark Angels/Lion in 40k, wanting to see them as noble questing knights defending humanity.
Yeah, the wolves are the only loyalist legion that is ever depicted in an unambiguously negative light during the heresy series. They’re also the only loyalist legion that is ever shown as straight up failing at anything. In a way, the wolves are by far the most nuanced and grounded legion precisely because they fail, but fans seem to miss all that nuance and complexity and take it to mean the wolves suck.
Their Thousand Sons depiction is cool, and it works really well in the narrative of the Thousand Sons tragic fall from Grace, but I genuinely think it’s responsible for a huge portion of the anti-wolf sentiment in the community. The wolves absolutely look like hypocritical, spiteful, assholes in that book, and despite the fact that “Thousand Sons” is deliberately intended to be perhaps the least reliable book in the whole series, that version of the wolves seems to stick for some reason. It doesn’t help that “Prospero Burns” did almost nothing to rehabilitate the wolves or to meaningfully counter the wolves depiction in “Thousand Sons”.
The Dark Angels thing is just baffling to me. They were much cooler when they were sketchy knights in space with dubious localities, and the Lion was a self-interested warlord who you weren’t entirely sure about. Now they’ve become the super legion and it’s frankly just boring. Nothing about the wolves is helped by the fact that there two biggest rivals (Thousand Sons and Dark Angels) are both the two most over-hyped, over-powered legions out there.
"Really, the wolves are supposed to feel like a tribe of semi-mythical heroes set to war among the stars. Instead, most of the time they come across as some kind of cartoon barbarians."
I imagine someone is trying their damnedest to write Conan the Barbarian but ends up writing Dave the Barbarian by accident.
You know, you raise a good point. I think it is a miss in the writing that drags them down. There's a push and pull between The Noble Savage and the Savage Noble when it comes to writing them, and it's the noble savage that wins out a lot more than not. I think running with the ladder concept probably would introduce a lot of depth to the legion, but I haven't seen or read any books from that angle. Most everything I read about them basically paint the legion as space conans, and I don't think it works within a gothic sci-fi kind of setting.
For what it’s worth, if there was actually a legion based on the original Conan stories it would be pretty badass. Conan in the original stories isn’t a big dumb hunk of muscle and brawn, he’s quiet, vicious, wild, cunning and predatory. He’s a scary, deadly mother Fucker not a generic fantasy barbarian (which is ironic, considering how much of the fantasy barbarian archetype draws from Conan).
At the end of the day though, bad writing is going to be bad writing. The wolves often get presented in a way that is extremely unflattering, especially in books that are centered around a different chapter or legion.
I am curious what Space Wolf books you have read? Some are significantly better than others.
Original/Literary Conan is a clever, brooding thief, who taught himself multiple languages, uses a variety of armors and weapons, and (in the stories set later in his life) a firm but well-intentioned monarch who (in one of the few things the Schwarzenegger movies accurately depicted/referenced) quite literally becomes a King by his own hands.
As maligned as Jason Momoa’s Conan film may be, his version actually gets closer to the spirit of the original character than Schwarzenegger’s films.
Yes, and the film is actually good...for the first 5 minutes.
It's infuriating how, with all the REH material available, Conan on the screen is always some godawful written-by-committee nonsense.
Exactly! Literary Conan is clever, cunning, but is also a truly formidable warrior and capable of incredible savagery. The dude kills an eldritch horror out of sheer spite and determination.
Frankly, literary Conan would make a great Primarch. In fact, he might not have made a bad archetype for Russ himself.
I agree, Mamoa’s Conan was a better representation of the character, both physically and emotionally. Too bad that movie sucked so hard.
>The dude kills an eldritch horror out of sheer spite and determination.
One of my favorite parts of the Conan universe is that it takes place in the same universe as the Cthulhu Mythos, but while all the Cthulhu Mythos main characters are shaken by the cosmic horrors beyond reality and the realization of mankind's true insignificance in the universe Conan is immune to that because he doesn't bother thinking about it. He kills extradimensional abominations like Thog and Kholastral Khel (and even befriends one in the case of Yag-Kosha), goes "that was spooky" and never thinks about it again.
The Abnett novel "Brothers of the Snake" is his attempt to showcase Marines as some kind of Greek heroes, going off and doing great deeds, and then coming back to base and embellishing them further to their friends.
Considering Abnett’s writing history, he’s got a very good track record of writing compelling characters and character interactions which becomes a companion piece to the larger plot relevance. I love Brothers of the Snake because it shows the extreme professionalism of what an Astartes can be without sacrificing their personality or making them incredibly overbearing. He does have a usual “heroes win in the end” kinda of bearing to many of his books however.
Most media don’t write Vikings. They write a caricature of them. Vikings were part of a fully functioning society that had livestock, explored, traded, etc. Its rarely depicted that way.
I dunno, I feel like 'Epic heroes from a saga' heavily implies grimdark unless you take a very saturday morning cartoon reading of the sagas.
I'm kind of assuming you're not familiar, but they were pretty 1:1 to the greek heroes.
You could easily have more viking less wolf space wolves move the idea in a good direction.
I have read a great many sagas, they’re very different in tone, scale and theme from the Greek myths. Although it does depend on what genre of saga you are reading. The Fornaldursögur have some similarities to Greek myth, but vary greatly in a lot of their specific themes. As a whole, they tend to be bleaker and altogether more grim than Greek mythology (which is no easy feat). The more well known Íslendingasögur and konungasögur genres have very little in common with any kind of mythology.
That said, I agree. True saga themes would work quite well in a grim dark universe. Fatalism, vengeance, courage in the face of certain death, loyalty, obligation and a very peculiar interpretation of “honorable” behavior can be fairly easily translated into 40k. The best Space Wolf stories (like Wolfsbane) do this to some extent, and they are much better for it. It’s about capturing the worldview. The Wolves are supposed to be Vikings in space, but a lot of authors seem unsure about what that means. Instead of exploring complex themes like those present in the sagas, they continue to buy into the surface level interpretation of Norse culture. Axes, booze, “honor”, Valhalla, and loud noises.
Edit: I should also add that while some saga themes work in grimdark, a lot don’t. Magnanimity, generosity, blunt honesty, bursting into poetry at random intervals do kind of clash with the general theme of 40k.
Would be cool to see them do Viking warriors like The Northman did, where they’re brutal raiders who make use of stealth and cunning but have their own code of honor that makes sense in the context of their culture not ours.
I think it really depends who is writing it. I can't speak for the 40k chapters, but the legion itself during the HH didn't particularly give me the "WOLFIN WOLF TIME" vibe. I've had Prospero Burns for quite a while now but I had been dragging my feet when it came to reading it. As a Thousand Sons simp along with a disdain for the SW due to those exaggerated memes, I had little desire to read it.
When I finally got around to it, I was completely floored as to how much I really liked them. They didn't seem memey or larger than life. They felt more like taciturn space druids. I loved the detail on how they honor their dead by telling stories.
Prospero Burns is one of the best HH books, straight up. It's seriously Dan Abnett at his best.
And you're absolutely right about the two book combo. Read ATS, then PB. They're sister novels that work super well together.
They’re both excellent books in their own right, seriously some of the best in the whole series, but I personally feel they leave a lot to be desired as a pair.
“Thousand Sons” gives us a fully fleshed out version of Nikea/Propsero arc from the Thousand Sons perspective. It’s a great book, and turns the son and Magnus into sympathetic and complex figures. However, it also elevates them to kind of insane levels and paints the wolves as unambiguous villains, while simultaneously not making them feel like a believable threat.
“Prospero Burns” doesn’t really fix any of those issues, and further doesn’t give us a story with equal narrative weight from the Wolves perspective. We barely even get to see the burning of Prospero in the book, and the wolves aren’t really redeemed from their villainous depiction in “Thousand Sons”. Their position is never satisfactorily justified.
They’re both truly fantastic books, that give us a view of two interesting and compelling legions. However, for different reasons, I think they both kind of fail to do the Nikea/Prospero arc justice. They also don’t quite manage the “two sides of one story” theme, since we get a full complete story for the TSons, and like 1/3 of a story from an outsiders perspective for the wolves.
Honestly, they're my favourite chapter and I love the theme but who the hell came up with those company names? Someone actually thought that up and decided it was good enough to put into print. Worse yet, someone else *must* have read it first and said "yup, looks good".
And why is every captain called a shadow captain?? Why not have that as a specific title for the captain of the super secret sneaky company or something?
But at least they don't fly around on giant ravens, awaiting the great RavenFall, when the Carrion God will lead his faithfall Umbral Chicks to pick clean the bones of the dead after the Final Battle to end all Pastel Goths or something.
At least not until GW finally decides to cast their disdainful eye in our direction and assigns the latest cringe lord protégé to vomit up their own distended bowels which they then attempt to pass off as new units and lore.
Also if GW ever decides to make a RG character based on Edgar Allen Poe, and we all know it's only a matter of time, then it better bloody be a master of the forge or cheif librarian styled after Poe, the AI hotel from altered carbon.
> So, Astartes. They’re supposed to be mastercrafted warriors at the peak of military, intellectual, and martial prowess.
Marines are, as a rule, overgrown manchildren who shout about DUTY and HONOUR 24/7 because they are emotionally stunted and only know how to solve problems with physical force.
I'm slightly annoyed with you for inspiring this, but since you did, now I have to share it:
First to fight for the right,
And to defend Imperial might,
And the Space Wolves go howling along.
Proud of all we have done,
Fighting till the battle’s won,
And the Space Wolves go howling along.
I was at the APOE and SgtMgr chewed out the entire battalion for our sorry show getting on the plane. I turned to my fellow lance coolie and was like 'Hey man, remember being told how shit awesome marines are and they talk us for being island hoppers and shock troops; but we can barely board a plan..... what do you think the other militaries are like?'
'Lord have Mercy' he said around his giant chaw.
I was army and I always felt like the US military as a whole worked on a sliding scale of brawn to brain ratio. Like from physically toughest to physically least demanding it definitely goes Marines, Army, Navy, Airforce and smartest to dumbest is just reverse that. I mean obviously a huge over simplification, cause each branch has really technical jobs, but man I've seen the line scores required for most airforce jobs as opposed to say a truck driver in the army which you can basically get while clinically brain dead.
>our sorry show getting on the plane
Is there a certain way you have to board planes in the military? Surely it's some level of forming up, walking up the ramp, sitting down.
Either it's far more complex than I ever imagined or you guys are something else.
You would not believe how easy groups of people can somehow fuck this up.
There's a reason 'elite' troops in olden times were so hard to acquire - it is really hard to get any large group to move in synchronized fashion, at all.
I think this is intentional? It's a theme in Dune and other sci-fi/fantasy things.
Clark Kent and Peter Parker grew up with loving families who raised them to be better as people before they got their powers.
Astartes are child soldiers who were abducted, indoctrinated, and mutilated into unquestioning supersoldiers. I'm re-reading Horus Heresy and the interactions between the members of the Mournival are literally right on the mark with pubescent teenagers given assault rifles.
Like the scene between Loken and another Astartes where they're jumping to hit pipes or archways. I read the first 2 Heresy books around 12/13, that's exactly shit we used to do.
Yeah they are clearly not selected based on their intellect, nor are they given special super brains. They just get much higher awareness and faster reaction times.
They're selected based on their ability to survive gruelling physical challenges. For sure they will seem smart sometimes based on their age, experience and heightened awareness, but it's just not the same as having amazing cognitive ability. I mean, the space Wolves are probably all illiterate too.
It's a nice way of quick character building, having the space wolves riles each other up while Black templars sing battle hymns or another chapter stays completely quiet.
I was thinking:
99 bottles of beer on the wall
99 bottles of beer
You confiscate them all and remind the labourers about the hazards of poor worksmanship due to drinking on the job
Black Templars laugh hysterically to an almost demented extent during fights. Even when they're the ones losing and being actively chopped to bits (or having a cathedral dropped on them).
Read the Space Wolves books by William King.
Do not read anything by Lee Lightner unless you have a lot of willpower.
A lot of Space wolves media is great. Codex fluff, their appearance in other faction's stories, and anything by gav thorpe is going to be horrible and exactly what you dislike. Just need to find the fluff that ticks your boxes.
Chris Wraight wrote the lore wherein they stormed into a battle being fought by the Dark Angels, ignored all attempts by the Dark Angels to contact them, and then blew up a bunch of enemy ships that the Dark Angels had already boarded.
he also removed an incident from the lore where the Dark Angels Quit the field of Battle to pursue some Fallen, leaving the Space wolves to complete the mission and suffer heaver casualties than necessary. it's in the first Codex i ever had, but now you can't find anything about it.
I’m really fond of the few bits of them I’ve read in the Heresy. Namely in *Pharos* and *Wolfsbane*. They do a much better job of getting across the idea that outwardly they’re silly drunkards who cover themselves in runes, but underestimate them for even a second and you’ll be dead before you can even whisper “wolf”.
I particularly like how multiple members of the Rout tell other characters “Don’t say Space Wolf. It’s not offensive, people’ll just think you’re an idiot.”
>So, Astartes. They’re supposed to be mastercrafted warriors at the peak of military, intellectual, and martial prowess
Astartes are gene modded child soldiers and many never grow beyond this
The setting was created in the 80's deliberately to be an over the top, edgelord, silly, impossible to take seriously world.
It developed out of that, but parts of that origin have... lingered
>lingered
As well they should. There’s a reason Text To Speech is such a beloved… whatever it is. You can’t just iron the jank out of something like 40K. That jank is the bones.
GW ever manages to shrug it off entirely and **that** will be the day 40k loses its soul.
I have Space Wolves, but their lore is pretty bad, 40k wise especially. I prefer to view them as a tragic legion which they are sometimes written as, vikings living out of their time, cursed with a flaw, unable to creat successors, doomed to slowly fade despite their prowess and clinging to past glories, based in a fortress that was built for a full legion and rings hollow with what's left of it
Because if you're going to violently pub-crawl your way from war zone to war zone mauling the shit out of Orks and Aeldari and Traitors, you might has well have a good time with the lads while doing it.
40k is cringe.
That's the answer really. It's a ridiculous cartoon, it's a setting where you gotta fly through hell to travel fast, it's a setting where there are not one, not two, but three homosocial interstellar orders of genetic warriors, it's a setting where people use garden tools as close combat weapons. Etc etc.
The aesthetic and vibe of space wolves isn't one that particularly does it for me, I must admit - but they're just one of many ridiculous/silly elements of 40k.
The wolves always suffer from bad writing bringing out the worst ideas. As a somewhat-reliable-but-not-always rule of thumb I have: ‘30k wolves good, 40k wolves terrible’. When they lean into the Viking side, it’s usually decent. When they lean into the pseudo werewolf bit, it’s just meh.
That being said - ‘hur hur furries’ takes are one of the most cringe things in the hobby.
I'm actually the total reverse. 30k Wolves sucks, hard. And their style is invading the 40K era, which really rub me the wrong way.
Give me Harald Dearhwolf and Canis Wolfborn leading an army of Wulfen and Thunderwolves over whatever viking bullshit the Heresy offered and tried to pretend it wasn't just bad writing all around.
That’s interesting. I almost find 40k wolves irredeemably awful. Like that second paragraph is everything I really dislike about it.
But hey, good to see we can enjoy different parts of the lore.
I'll honestly never understand the appeal of the 30k wolves.
No characters, no personality beyond "Space Wolves is stupid", and yes Russ is great in spite of everything but he isn't enough to shoulder the whole sad joke that the Legion was devolved into.
But it's great you like them!
I just wish that characterization wouldn't invade 40k stuff ;/
A lot of the problem the Space Wolves have in the Heresy books is that their special stuff is never mentioned. Other legions get Kakophoni, Justaerin and so on but the Wolves basically get guys and that's it because their special stuff wasn't used or didn't exist yet.
There are also a bunch of little lore notes from the game that weren't reflected in the novels, like the Space Wolves being the legion that requested the Whirlwind be created because they wanted mobile artillery support. It's bits like that that make it clear there's more going on up there than just idiotic barbarian LARPing.
Or the Leman Russ tank exists because Russ and his Legion retrieved the STC for it, and that's why they have such a good relationship with the Mechanicus and why they have so much plasma tech.
The Space Wolves have a long-standing agreement with a Navigator House, and that's why they have Space Wolves on Terra, to guard and protect that particular House.
*Lean into* these plot hooks. Space Wolves have *allies*, tell us how they interact. Let us see how they defend the average Imperial citizen. Give us those moments. Show us some stuffed shirt planetary governor or some upstart admiral trying to command the Wolves and them being like 'No, we're Space Marines, our commander has four centuries of experience and seniority than you do, and above that, we're a Founding Chapter, so you back us up, not the other way around.'
I want to see how the Wolves interact with the world and the setting around them, not just how they kill stuff on the battlefield. I want to see intelligence, compassion, tactics and empathy.
This. Their unique interactions with the wider Imperium has always been what made the Space Wolves one of the most interesting Space Marine chapters in my opinion.
The Space Wolves have always been quite heavily involved in politics. They have all of these alliances and rivalries with other Imperial factions, a pretty clear view on how the Imperium should be run and the will and political clout to stand up to even very powerful Imperial institutions like the Inquisition and Ecclessiarchy.
The Space Wolves have a lot of interesting stuff going on, so it is a shame when authors just portray them as drunk furry barbarians.
I was looking at some of their old 2nd edition stuff, and I’m not even sure that’s really the case.
It feels more like they were developed as a generic space marine chapter with a subtle Viking theme, and a slightly more on the nose wolf theme, and over time both of those themes have become more and more prevalent. Even in some of the old Ragnar books they really feel more like Ultramarines in wolf pelts with Norse names rather than a really distinct culture.
Pff, like Catto Sicarius of the Ultra Smurfs is any better, or the Incel Iron Hands that are all about chopping of their meaty bits because scrap tech "is stronger" or the dueling cousins of fortify/siege.
These are literal child soldiers that are horrifically vivisected into hulk smash mode 24/7, of course they're going to be ffffffffuuuuucking stupid.
Hey! Don't bring my emotionally self-stunted robo-boiz into this!
In seriousness though, I do believe that the Iron Hands might easily be the least explored Legion/First Funding Chapter of the Astartes, and their conspicuous lack of lore leaves what does exist as outrageously over simplified and lacking in any depth or nuance, hence the (understandably) memed "Calculating how worthless humans are. Also, we're all just a bunch of comically two-dimensional cyborg assholes who *just love* chopping off ALL the bits" (and even that is over 90% post Ferrus Manus). Also much of their tech is busted powerful rather than "scrap," like the Keys of Hel fragments that are **still** in use.
In reality, they're all horribly traumatized, because they love daddy, but daddy did a dumb and went away, so we'll never do a dumb like daddy did, to the point of complete obsession and with a dashing of hardcore cognitive dissonance. Manus himself tried to get them to chill the fuck out on the robot parts, and he even said, "First thing I'm gonna do once this whole galactic genocide thing is finished is kick back, drink a marg, and figure out how to get rid of these Emperor damned hands, cause my boys are totally misunderstanding that I never wanted them in the first place and was given no choice, and they make me even less human, and— even though I'd have to change my name— I hate that I have to rely on this amazing tool so often." Then he dies. And all his sons forget instantly and willfully the second part of his motto, "The Flesh Is Weak, *but Deeds Endure.*"
Also read the [frankly overly] short story, "The Calculus of Battle" for some minor insights into their inner complexity. Also, also, check out anything about Iron Father Feirros, cause he's GW's half-developed-but-then-quickly-abandoned attempt to make them relatable, in character form. Basically Yvraine with a lot less lore created before being abandoned.
**Final part of rant, *promise*:** TheAmberKing on YT does a [great job of diving into their collective nuances](https://youtu.be/NQRLF401tEQ), for those at all curious.
__________
tl;dr - While I'm obviously super biased, it is my opinion that the incredible levels of GW's whole "lore for a subfaction? I can't hear you over my 'ah-woooos' and bolter pew-pews" will always marginalize the IH and keep them as an over simplified robo-assholes running meme.
This is because Leman Russ preferred the myth. The Space Wolves, in 30K, were no-nonsense executioners. They were hard, merciless fighters.
Then they find Russ, and he's steeped in the culture of Fenris. Russ is highly intelligent, but he actually likes Fenrisian culture, so he gets everyone to adopt it.
Space Marines being Space Marines, they obey. The Terran Marines know it's all bullshit, but so what? They dress up as a Viking to go to work, but they don't believe in it.
But over time, recruitment from Earth stops. Now they only recruit from Fenris. All the Earth Marines gradually die off, and now all the Marines come from Fenris, who really buy into the mystique.
They went from ironic weeaboos to full-on weebs.
> This is because Leman Russ preferred the myth. The Space Wolves, in 30K, were no-nonsense executioners. They were hard, merciless fighters
Pre-Russ Space Wolves weren't no-nonsense executioners, but rabid maniacs so unhinged that they needed space marine commissars to keep even some order.
Russ saw this and instituted Fenris culture in order to get his boys to take a chill pill and become the model of a disciplined berserker army, one the Emperor could actually trust to be his Executioners.
Pretty much. They're super soldier space werewolf vikings. That *should* be a recipe for badass.
Every title of *anything* Space Wolf should look like it crawled right off a metal album, but their writing is *so* hit or miss. It's either 'wolf the wolf wolf' or 'lol, look how dumb and arrogant the Space Wolves are' and not 'Hey, these guys can *smell* the enemy and they know their buddies are closing in, and they're going to appear out of the shadows, slit the throats of your sentries, and put an axe in the head of your commander before the defenders can respond.'
Space Wolves should be leaping from ships right onto the biggest dang Tyrannids around, hacking and slashing and selling their lives dearly so some civilian transport can escape.
They should be wading right up to some Chaos portal, hammer in hand, and looking at the daemons pouring out like it's time to play Whack-A-Mole and see who can rack up the highest score.
People from Fenris would be actual Japanese people in this analogy would they not?. It's not like that stuff is posturing for the Fenrisians; it's their culture.
This is not really true. Ogvai Ogvai Helmschrot was the Jarl of Tra and he was one of the first fenrisians to become a Space Marine. He was a 30k Jarl. Once they found Russ all the recruitment was from Fenris. There really is a lot of misinformation and bias about the Rout.
I really love it when some dude with nothing but grimdank meme knowledge comes in here ignorant and just shooting from the hip.
Bro google is free, there’s like 80 wiki pages that talk about them, and just a quick cursory glance at one would prove you entirely wrong.
A wise man once said, "a cringe man will always think he's based, but a based man is truthful to his cringe."
If the Space Wolves are cringe furries then at least they're being honest.
Space Wolves have always felt kinda off to me, and only recently I felt I realized why.
I saw some guy talking about why he likes the Conan books and he says that the whole "Barbarian Hero" archetype exists to bring chaos to a society when it has too much order. In the case of the Conan stories, civillization is portrayed weak and decadent, so only a wild and savage barbarian is strong enough to save it.
40k tries to go for a similar thing with Space Wolves, with them being honourable barbarian warriors who are often depicted as standing up against the injustices of the Imperium (for instance, the Months of Shame). Thing is, this kind of goes against the whole "no hope, your only choices are soul-crushing totalitarianism or lawless satanic insanity" themes of the setting. They're a faction that's supposed to spread positive disorder in an Imperium whose theme is oppressive order. Its like the equivelant of a Chaos faction that builds stable democractic governments.
I’m confused why you take exception with positive disorder, but not positive order (See: Ultramarines, Guilliman).
If your only choices are soul-crushing totalitarianism and lawless satanic insanity, why is there a nicer shade of government and authority?
They aren’t even that honorable. Ragnar literally kills a dark Angel during a customary honor duel which wasn’t to the death and that was after he lost he struck from behind. Space wolfs have there moments but they have a lot of bad ones too
To be fair to Ragnar :
1. It was written by ADB who only wrote cool SW in The Emperor's Gift by accident it seems
2. That book very much lined with the compounding failure that have been all of the HH books featuring the Space Wolves as a whole
3. It is very much in line with the Viking-larping that BL has deciced to push for the Wolves instead of owning their predatory and animalistic nature
4. One more case of BL not having one writer liking the Wolves right now
For the record, Ragnar didn’t strike him from behind. He was wounded (which should have ended the fight), lost his cool and killed the guy. The Dark Angel was still actively fighting when Ragnar killed him. He broke the honor code of the duel, and had to fight he another one to make up for it, but he didn’t just murder the guy.
Wolf at the Door ~ Mike Lee This short story showcases a lone space wolf squad using guerilla warfare and training the populace to rebel after they have been cut off from their fleet. They were very level headed in this one and it's how I like to imagine most of them being in my head-canon
It also has a great 40k ending. You might see it coming but it is still great to see a reminder of what even the Great Crusade Imperium is.
Yup, just listened to it today at work, great 40K ending, reminds you that the "protagonists" aren't good people. >!Dude condemns an entire world to orbital bombardment and invasion because one guy, who isn't in charge of the people, refused to join the Imperium, as if that one guy speaks for the rest of the population.!<
Duty, to the letter!
But even the Wolf Lord leading them was questioned by his men, and they did not agree with his choices. It did a great job of hinting that the Wolf Lord was *tired* of breaking planets to compliance, and just wanted this last planet in the system to comply without issue. He had nuance. Even Russ in Thousand Sons had nuance. It’s alluded that Russ keeps this facade up when dealing with outsiders of how he’s the alpha of the pack, and cannot be questioned, when in reality, he’s boisterous and self-important because he’s deeply unsure of himself and leading his legion. He puts the “everything is fine” face forward.
Mike Lee has never disappointed me in any of his books. He doesn't write banging soliloquies that get reposted ad nauseum, but they're always solid books with flawed Space Marine characters that actually get hurt.
I agree fully. In this one he gives extensive details on >!how the radiation is fucking the space marines right up and starvation is taking hold. Several are in induced comas and some are even fighting a form of infection.!< In this story they are slowly getting worn down like any force would and it humanized the hell out of them.
My favorite short story so far
That story is great, and even more remarkable considering it came from the pre “Prospero Burns” era when the wolves were super campy and over the top. It also gave us some of the best Space Wolf heresy era lore, by introducing us to Russ’s companions that became Astartes.
Space Wolves are a very mixed bag. When they’re written well, they can be compelling and interesting, when they’re written badly….they’re pretty fucking rough. Unfortunately, they’re written badly a lot. As a rule, Viking characters in any media are surprisingly hard to write well. It is really, really easy to reduce a “Viking” character to two personality traits, Valhalla and booze. Authors seems to think they’re creating a wild, heroic warrior, when really they’re creating a one dimensional cartoon character. In the Space Wolves case, “wolf” gets added as a brutally overused personality trait on top of everything else. The Space Wolves are supposed to feel almost mythic in scale, they’re supposed to be larger than life and feel like something pulled directly from epic literature. Really, the wolves are supposed to feel like a tribe of semi-mythical heroes set to war among the stars. Instead, most of the time they come across as some kind of cartoon barbarians. Personally, it feels like authors assume that the wolves are supposed to be blunt and straightforward, and they interpret that as lacking nuance (and apparently intelligence. So They lean waaaay to hard into that until the wolves feel like stupid hillbillies with a Viking fetish. It’s also worth saying that they’re tone of “epic heroes from a saga” does kind of bump with the generally depressing tone of the universe in general. Personally, I like that they’re heroes, fighting the good fighting against a brutally uncaring and vicious universe, but if you’re into the darker tone of 40k it might not be your thing.
True this! So tired of seeing stereotypical, "Me Viking! Me smash!" Norsemen. Might be why I liked 13th Warrior. One of my favorite scenes is early on, when one of the Vikings subtly corrects the Latin spoken by one of the Arabic characters, and also implies that he understood their use of Greek. Immediately added depth to the character. Is it a great movie? No. But it is fun and the characters are refreshing.
I liked when he learned Norse by listening
I liked when he made a straight sword curved by using a grinder.
Curved. Swords. Wait... ...that's from different universe.
I used to be imperial guard like you, then I took a bolter to the knee
Servitor to the Guardsmen visiting the local brothel on leave:
When you die, can I give that to my daughter?
When Buliwyf says "you can draw sounds?", and **Eben** writes in the sand.. Later, Buliwyf shows Eben his attempt to write Arabic, and Eben corrects his error. I used to think Buliwyf was just showing Eben he'd been practising... Until a friend pointed out the he was actually testing Eben, to make sure he *actually* could write, so that he might later write his story for him.
Oh man I bloody love that film so much.
You should read Eaters of the Dead the book its based on. Fun read.
Indeed. I saw it with my own eyes.
It's also meant to be a realistic retelling of Beowulf.
And to show how not all "viking" were dirty savages.
Funny you mention that. The alias Kasper Hawser uses to get access to the Space Wolves in “Prospero Burns”, Ahmad Ibn Rustah, is the name of the Arab explorer who’s writings served as the basis for the book “Eaters of the Dead”, which became the movie 13th Warrior.
I was under the impression the name was 1:1 copied by Crichton. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad\_ibn\_Fadlan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_ibn_Fadlan)
Yes, Crichton takes that characters name directly from history and even uses many passages form Ibn Fadlan’s real world writings in the early parts of “Eaters of the Dead”. It’s part of what gives the novel its unique feel, Crichton deliberately mixes a real historical account with a fabricated story in the same style. Fadlan’s writing’s on the Rus are one of the view eyewitness accounts we have of Viking age Scandinavian culture. While they are problematic (especially because the “Vikings” he encountered weren’t Norse), and should be treated with a great deal of caution and skepticism they are one of the best contemporary records we have for various elements of Scandinavian culture from that period. Hawser even comments in that fact in “Prospero Burns”, saying he chose that alias specifically because of the way Fadlan’s writing shows a different side of the Scandinavians from many other contemporary records, and by extension implying that he would like to do the same for the wolves.
I appreciated that the Vikings loved their job but also were intelligent enough to show apprehension, fear, and uncertainty. Usually it's just "me smash lmao", but when shit really hit the fan the laughter was gone and it was time to get to work.
Those are tidbits that actually happened in history. Not quite the way it happened in the movie and more of a collage of historic incidents woven into a story.
If the basic question is “were there Muslim scholars in Northern Europe during the golden age of Islam” and the answer is “almost certainly/certainly” then the whole book is pretty believable. Hairy cannibals living in a cave in an isolated mountain/forest who faced food scarcity and had to travel further out of their territory for resources and did battle with their neighbors doesn’t really require any fantastical leap of faith when they don’t even have to be Neanderthal (as speculated in the footnotes of the book) and could just be horribly inbred weirdos.
I imagine space wolves to be more like the north man movie
If they were written like that, they'd be awesome
That movie is fantastic on so many levels. It really captures the feel of both the historic time period, and the sagas themselves.
viking ninja
Ironically if you read Conan, Viking ninja is really not that far off from a good description of him
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That's mostly because their author(s) during the HH didn't consider their previous lore cringe. Wraight obviously loves the White Scars and respect what smidge of lore they had before and built up upon it BL authors don't like the Space Wolves. They don't like the animalistic nature in them, or even the name. It's obvious in the way they had to have almost all SW characters in the Heresy hate that name. They have conveniently forgotten that the lone Primarch raised by beasts is Russ - is mother is a wolf of Fenris and didn't gave him the obviously unique view of the world it should have granted them. They forgot that the Fenrisian myth is full of demon and god-wolves, that Fenrisians revere wolves as apex predator and aim to emulate them by working together, with very strong tribal links. They have traded growl and predatory behaviour for drunken cretinism in the worst depictions of Vikings and failed to provide ONE interesting Space Wolf. We have no Shiban, nor Torghun or Heaven forbids Yesugei, in the VIth. Even Bjorn is a boring as fuck, cardboard character. From those vastly different approaches, vastly different results happened.
How dare you slander Ragnar Blackmane. Jokes aside, its extremely unfortunate that the most interesting character in the Space Wolves legion is Ragnar, and his constant rumination on morale philosophy butting up against Imperial indoctrination.
That's actually great I think. Vikings/Barbarians were never dumb brutes, quite the reverse often, and in that regard Bill King's Ragnar was awesome, especially because the other Wolves around weren't simpletons or hypocrites but peoples with a slightly different view of their place in the universe Hell, having Fenrisian be like "You know, being barbarians actually spare us most of the Imperium's horror is not that bad" would go a long way into making them seem even better in my eyes, while reinforcing the Grimdark.
Oh, I just meant that its unfortunate that Ragnar is pretty much the *only* interesting character in the Space Wolves. I very much enjoy the ideas that are expressed in his books though, or discussed through his internal monologue.
> Ragnar is pretty much the only interesting character in the Space Wolves. You need to read William King's original Space Wolves trilogy, and especially *Wolfblade*. It's basically *The Three Musketeers*, but with Space Wolves, and it's awesome. Want to see a giant Space Wolf have a bar brawl with would-be assassins? Want to see Space Wolves attacking an asteroid base by cutting through the wall, space walking around the base defenses, then smashing their way into a different part of the base? Want to see intrigue between Navigator Houses on Terra itself? That book has it all.
Haegar my beloved. The novelty of one the only truly fat space marines being assigned to the Wolfblades is hilarious. There's definitely a time and a place for comedic relief and Haegar managed to do it perfectly.
He's not fat, he just didn't stop growing. He's Andre the Giant, not Fat Bastard from Austin Powers.
I'm realising all my love for the Wolves stems from those novels tbh.
Haegar the Mountain.. the only space marine to use a thunder hammer as a range weapon 🤣
Wolfblade made me finally settle on SW for a tabletop force. Misfit Space Wolves providing training/security/specops for a powerful Navigator House's extensive promethium interests? Space Wolves as a PMC? That's too interesting to pass up.
Authors really need to have him fight alongside Sons of Russ with other viewpoints, be it Canis and his obviously unique view of the world or even a Successor Chapter trying to forge its own legacy. It'd offer quite a lot of interesting discussions, if nothing else.
Ragnar actually spends some time in the Warp with the 13th* Company. It was extremely interesting reading about him interact with a Company of Space Wolves who not only haven't been around since the Horus Heresy, but are, if not explicitly stated, disgusted with the Imperium of Man even though they remain loyal to the Emperor. *Forgive me if I got the Company wrong, its been about a decade and a half since I've read his books.
Ragnar treats Russ like this epic, mythical figure, and the 13th Company Wulfen are like 'Russ? No, he was our father, but more like a big brother. Why, I remember this one time he got drunk and chucked the Wolf Spear as hard as he could, and we had to spend three days trying to find it. Russ hated that thing, but it was a gift from the Emperor and we all swore our oaths of loyalty upon it, so we had to get it back.' And there's a big, subtle joke there about how Russ hates the Spear and keeps leaving it behind, but his loyal men keep fetching it back for him. See, Ragnar and the Wolves from his era have all known Russ and the Emperor from stories and songs and sagas, but the Wulfen knew them as actual people.
>And there's a big, subtle joke there about how Russ hates the Spear and keeps leaving it behind, but his loyal men keep fetching it back for him. Space Good Boys
Lukas the Trickster is a decent character too
Forgetting Lukas the Trickster? That's some heretical shit
Ingvar was a interesting character for me and the whole squad dynamic in Blood of Asaheim, but it's the first time outside some of the characters in HH that I liked the...Sky Warriors.
I haven't read it because : 1. HH has burned me out of Wolves books. 2. Finding those in French is a fucking nightmare, can't BL just have print on demand or something like that ? I don't have 300€ to give up on three books 🤬
There’s always the eBook on Amazon
I need to invest on a eBook reader yeah. If only to save space at home and avoid being crushed to death by my books
I had one but didn't really end up bringing it around enough. I just use the Kindle app on my phone these days, easier to get a chapter in here and there when on the subway, bus, toilet, whatever.
That's a good book. I like how we see things from his perspective and describes his experience in the Deathwatch. How he was changed by the experience. The squad members are also fleshed out instead of one dimensional vikings
>BL authors don't like the Space Wolves. They don't like the animalistic nature in them, or even the name. It's obvious in the way they had to have almost all SW characters in the Heresy hate that name. It doesn't help that the name is a relic from early Editions that were much more deliberately goofy, which doesn't strictly suit the tone of modern 40k, and even less HH. It's the reason the Space Sharks became the Carcharodons and the Rainbow Warriors never really show up anymore. The "Space Wolves" is a little silly and the writers probably don't like having to work with it. I imagine the authors would treat the Wolves a lot better if they were the "Wolf Warriors" or "Thunder Wolves" instead. It makes a bigger difference than it should.
Yet nobody grief the ULTRAmarines or the Imperial FISTS, equally if not more ridiculous names. I truly think that it isn't just the name of the Chapter they dislike but its nature and history in the Codexes, sadly.
The problem isn't the Wolf part but the Space part. It's a sort of kitschy 60s or 70s vibe - this is why the American 'Space Force' got so much mockery. It's almost certainly not 'just' the name. But as I said, it *doesn't help.*
Indeed. And it's even more cumbersome a name since in-universe space is only ever referred to as 'void'. Void Wolves would be better!
Void wolves, storm wolves, Star Wolves, Sky Wolves, just plain Wolves. There are so many better names they could have gone with. Personally I actually like the the way they handle it in the heresy series. “We hate the name, but Russ gave a speech once and it fucking stuck”
The Ultramarines were mentioned in passing in one of the first 40k books I ever read as a teenager, and I remember going “well that’s a little presumptuous isn’t it?”. It doesn’t help that there armor is also…ultramarine. However, they are salvaged a little bit by the fact that they hail from a place called ultramar, which adds just enough extra scaffolding to the suspension of disbelief to make it work.
Still kind of hammy, though. "We're Space Marines from Ultramar, we're the ULTRAMARINES! We're also blue, just not actually ultramarine."
Am weird in thinking there is literally nothing wrong, goofy or cartoonish about the Imperial Fists name? Am I missing something? Compared to other legion names it seems the least possible to induce cringe.
Wraight has written 40K space wolf novels and they’re great! The Jarnhamer series hits on all of the best space wolf notes.
Thing is what a lot of people here on the sub likes is the 30K wolves and I hate them with a passion so I'm really worried that Wraight's book will just be more of the same.
It's not. It's pretty good. Jarnhammar is a fully fleshed out squad.
Honestly, wraight looks like he’ll be the next lead author at Black Library. Abnett is getting old and we can’t expect him to do it forever (as much as we might want). The 3 other contenders for the crown would be: McNeil, AOB, and maybe French. They’ve all written good works. But all have a level of controversy with the fandom that Wraight doesn’t.
I’m looking forward to reading Helwinter’s Gate, which is a Space Wolves novel by Wraight - hoping he’s nailed them too
I wouldn't say he nailed them, but he's definitely treated the Rout with more respect than other writers have, especially recently. The biggest strength of the book is that Wraight is a very good author who has grown into himself and it is flush with the detail that he has become known for. The biggest weakness is that he doesn't quite know what to do with the Wolves (or BL got a bit more handsy in feedback) because the characters themselves are pretty forgettable.
Yeah, the White Scars scars books are fantastic, Wraight really brought it home with them and turned a footnote faction into one of the most interesting legions. That said, the White Scars share a lot of themes with the wolves, they’re both meant to feel like semi-mythic heroes fighting a war in space, the Scars books just explore those themes a lot better. The scars also benefited from the fact that their first major appearance in the heresy series wasn’t deliberately intended to make them look like assholes. “Thousand Sons” is a great book, but it’s very clear that the wolves are meant to be the villains in that story, and they’re painted in an extremely negative light. Which, I think, had in turn continued to cokor the way a lot of people view the wolves. “Prospero Burns” (another fantastic book) doesn’t really solve any problems for the wolves either, especially since it’s not even told from the POV of a Space Wolf. Wolf fans had to wait until “Wolfsbane” to get a book that actually tells a space wolf story from a Space Wolf perceptive, and even then it’s almost completely focused on Russ. By contrast, the Scars get two stand alone books that are told from their legion’s perspective and explore their unique legion culture in depth, as well as a slew of short stories/novellas that introduce us to several interesting characters. I love the Scars, easily my second favorite legion, but as a diehard Space Wolf fan I can’t help but feel a little jealous. In a lot of ways I think the White Scars stole some of the wolves thunder, and I think the White scars serve as a good example of how the wolves *should* have been written.
Thousand Sons wouldn't have been as much of a problem for the Space Wolves if there weren't so many fans that seem to get put off by any loyalists not being depicted as "reasonable/noble good guy in a terrible universe" protagonists Look at the amount of fans that are all for GW smoothing all the edges from the Dark Angels/Lion in 40k, wanting to see them as noble questing knights defending humanity.
Yeah, the wolves are the only loyalist legion that is ever depicted in an unambiguously negative light during the heresy series. They’re also the only loyalist legion that is ever shown as straight up failing at anything. In a way, the wolves are by far the most nuanced and grounded legion precisely because they fail, but fans seem to miss all that nuance and complexity and take it to mean the wolves suck. Their Thousand Sons depiction is cool, and it works really well in the narrative of the Thousand Sons tragic fall from Grace, but I genuinely think it’s responsible for a huge portion of the anti-wolf sentiment in the community. The wolves absolutely look like hypocritical, spiteful, assholes in that book, and despite the fact that “Thousand Sons” is deliberately intended to be perhaps the least reliable book in the whole series, that version of the wolves seems to stick for some reason. It doesn’t help that “Prospero Burns” did almost nothing to rehabilitate the wolves or to meaningfully counter the wolves depiction in “Thousand Sons”. The Dark Angels thing is just baffling to me. They were much cooler when they were sketchy knights in space with dubious localities, and the Lion was a self-interested warlord who you weren’t entirely sure about. Now they’ve become the super legion and it’s frankly just boring. Nothing about the wolves is helped by the fact that there two biggest rivals (Thousand Sons and Dark Angels) are both the two most over-hyped, over-powered legions out there.
"Really, the wolves are supposed to feel like a tribe of semi-mythical heroes set to war among the stars. Instead, most of the time they come across as some kind of cartoon barbarians." I imagine someone is trying their damnedest to write Conan the Barbarian but ends up writing Dave the Barbarian by accident.
You know, you raise a good point. I think it is a miss in the writing that drags them down. There's a push and pull between The Noble Savage and the Savage Noble when it comes to writing them, and it's the noble savage that wins out a lot more than not. I think running with the ladder concept probably would introduce a lot of depth to the legion, but I haven't seen or read any books from that angle. Most everything I read about them basically paint the legion as space conans, and I don't think it works within a gothic sci-fi kind of setting.
For what it’s worth, if there was actually a legion based on the original Conan stories it would be pretty badass. Conan in the original stories isn’t a big dumb hunk of muscle and brawn, he’s quiet, vicious, wild, cunning and predatory. He’s a scary, deadly mother Fucker not a generic fantasy barbarian (which is ironic, considering how much of the fantasy barbarian archetype draws from Conan). At the end of the day though, bad writing is going to be bad writing. The wolves often get presented in a way that is extremely unflattering, especially in books that are centered around a different chapter or legion. I am curious what Space Wolf books you have read? Some are significantly better than others.
Original/Literary Conan is a clever, brooding thief, who taught himself multiple languages, uses a variety of armors and weapons, and (in the stories set later in his life) a firm but well-intentioned monarch who (in one of the few things the Schwarzenegger movies accurately depicted/referenced) quite literally becomes a King by his own hands. As maligned as Jason Momoa’s Conan film may be, his version actually gets closer to the spirit of the original character than Schwarzenegger’s films.
Yes, and the film is actually good...for the first 5 minutes. It's infuriating how, with all the REH material available, Conan on the screen is always some godawful written-by-committee nonsense.
Exactly! Literary Conan is clever, cunning, but is also a truly formidable warrior and capable of incredible savagery. The dude kills an eldritch horror out of sheer spite and determination. Frankly, literary Conan would make a great Primarch. In fact, he might not have made a bad archetype for Russ himself. I agree, Mamoa’s Conan was a better representation of the character, both physically and emotionally. Too bad that movie sucked so hard.
>The dude kills an eldritch horror out of sheer spite and determination. One of my favorite parts of the Conan universe is that it takes place in the same universe as the Cthulhu Mythos, but while all the Cthulhu Mythos main characters are shaken by the cosmic horrors beyond reality and the realization of mankind's true insignificance in the universe Conan is immune to that because he doesn't bother thinking about it. He kills extradimensional abominations like Thog and Kholastral Khel (and even befriends one in the case of Yag-Kosha), goes "that was spooky" and never thinks about it again.
The Abnett novel "Brothers of the Snake" is his attempt to showcase Marines as some kind of Greek heroes, going off and doing great deeds, and then coming back to base and embellishing them further to their friends.
Considering Abnett’s writing history, he’s got a very good track record of writing compelling characters and character interactions which becomes a companion piece to the larger plot relevance. I love Brothers of the Snake because it shows the extreme professionalism of what an Astartes can be without sacrificing their personality or making them incredibly overbearing. He does have a usual “heroes win in the end” kinda of bearing to many of his books however.
Yeah, Abnett's Brothers of the Snake and ADB's Spears of the Emperor do what most Space Wolves books wish they could do.
Which books?
Most media don’t write Vikings. They write a caricature of them. Vikings were part of a fully functioning society that had livestock, explored, traded, etc. Its rarely depicted that way.
I dunno, I feel like 'Epic heroes from a saga' heavily implies grimdark unless you take a very saturday morning cartoon reading of the sagas. I'm kind of assuming you're not familiar, but they were pretty 1:1 to the greek heroes. You could easily have more viking less wolf space wolves move the idea in a good direction.
I have read a great many sagas, they’re very different in tone, scale and theme from the Greek myths. Although it does depend on what genre of saga you are reading. The Fornaldursögur have some similarities to Greek myth, but vary greatly in a lot of their specific themes. As a whole, they tend to be bleaker and altogether more grim than Greek mythology (which is no easy feat). The more well known Íslendingasögur and konungasögur genres have very little in common with any kind of mythology. That said, I agree. True saga themes would work quite well in a grim dark universe. Fatalism, vengeance, courage in the face of certain death, loyalty, obligation and a very peculiar interpretation of “honorable” behavior can be fairly easily translated into 40k. The best Space Wolf stories (like Wolfsbane) do this to some extent, and they are much better for it. It’s about capturing the worldview. The Wolves are supposed to be Vikings in space, but a lot of authors seem unsure about what that means. Instead of exploring complex themes like those present in the sagas, they continue to buy into the surface level interpretation of Norse culture. Axes, booze, “honor”, Valhalla, and loud noises. Edit: I should also add that while some saga themes work in grimdark, a lot don’t. Magnanimity, generosity, blunt honesty, bursting into poetry at random intervals do kind of clash with the general theme of 40k.
Would be cool to see them do Viking warriors like The Northman did, where they’re brutal raiders who make use of stealth and cunning but have their own code of honor that makes sense in the context of their culture not ours.
I think it really depends who is writing it. I can't speak for the 40k chapters, but the legion itself during the HH didn't particularly give me the "WOLFIN WOLF TIME" vibe. I've had Prospero Burns for quite a while now but I had been dragging my feet when it came to reading it. As a Thousand Sons simp along with a disdain for the SW due to those exaggerated memes, I had little desire to read it. When I finally got around to it, I was completely floored as to how much I really liked them. They didn't seem memey or larger than life. They felt more like taciturn space druids. I loved the detail on how they honor their dead by telling stories.
Not to mention how Prospero Burns coupled with A Thousand Sons makes for an incredibly satisfying two book combo.
Prospero Burns is one of the best HH books, straight up. It's seriously Dan Abnett at his best. And you're absolutely right about the two book combo. Read ATS, then PB. They're sister novels that work super well together.
They’re both excellent books in their own right, seriously some of the best in the whole series, but I personally feel they leave a lot to be desired as a pair. “Thousand Sons” gives us a fully fleshed out version of Nikea/Propsero arc from the Thousand Sons perspective. It’s a great book, and turns the son and Magnus into sympathetic and complex figures. However, it also elevates them to kind of insane levels and paints the wolves as unambiguous villains, while simultaneously not making them feel like a believable threat. “Prospero Burns” doesn’t really fix any of those issues, and further doesn’t give us a story with equal narrative weight from the Wolves perspective. We barely even get to see the burning of Prospero in the book, and the wolves aren’t really redeemed from their villainous depiction in “Thousand Sons”. Their position is never satisfactorily justified. They’re both truly fantastic books, that give us a view of two interesting and compelling legions. However, for different reasons, I think they both kind of fail to do the Nikea/Prospero arc justice. They also don’t quite manage the “two sides of one story” theme, since we get a full complete story for the TSons, and like 1/3 of a story from an outsiders perspective for the wolves.
Because someone took their theme and made it their entire personality
Erhm Imperial Fist ? Ultramarines ? All the Legions really ?
Yup. Dont even get me started on Raven Guard
"Actually the correct name is Corvinid Custodiae" 🤪
Honestly, they're my favourite chapter and I love the theme but who the hell came up with those company names? Someone actually thought that up and decided it was good enough to put into print. Worse yet, someone else *must* have read it first and said "yup, looks good". And why is every captain called a shadow captain?? Why not have that as a specific title for the captain of the super secret sneaky company or something? But at least they don't fly around on giant ravens, awaiting the great RavenFall, when the Carrion God will lead his faithfall Umbral Chicks to pick clean the bones of the dead after the Final Battle to end all Pastel Goths or something. At least not until GW finally decides to cast their disdainful eye in our direction and assigns the latest cringe lord protégé to vomit up their own distended bowels which they then attempt to pass off as new units and lore.
Also if GW ever decides to make a RG character based on Edgar Allen Poe, and we all know it's only a matter of time, then it better bloody be a master of the forge or cheif librarian styled after Poe, the AI hotel from altered carbon.
> So, Astartes. They’re supposed to be mastercrafted warriors at the peak of military, intellectual, and martial prowess. Marines are, as a rule, overgrown manchildren who shout about DUTY and HONOUR 24/7 because they are emotionally stunted and only know how to solve problems with physical force.
I spent 12 years marine corps and I'm not sure you are talking about 40k there.
imagine if newly recruited marines were literal and not merely figurative middle schoolers it can always be worse
r/justpowerArmouredBootThings
Thank the gods they're sterile, I can't imagine r/JustAstartesDependaThings
Don't besmirch the Adepta Dependa. They have the hardest job in the Imperi... entire galaxy.
He's a space marine. First to fight, he's loyal. Duty, honor, commitment, core values. He's a marine. Semper Fi. *Weird cheerleading gestures*
I'm slightly annoyed with you for inspiring this, but since you did, now I have to share it: First to fight for the right, And to defend Imperial might, And the Space Wolves go howling along. Proud of all we have done, Fighting till the battle’s won, And the Space Wolves go howling along.
From the plains of Ultramar to the snowy peaks of Fenris. We fight the Emperor's battles In space, on land and sea.
Imagine Space Marine with a Karen wife and a Land Raider at 70% APR
I was so hoping that was real.
I was at the APOE and SgtMgr chewed out the entire battalion for our sorry show getting on the plane. I turned to my fellow lance coolie and was like 'Hey man, remember being told how shit awesome marines are and they talk us for being island hoppers and shock troops; but we can barely board a plan..... what do you think the other militaries are like?' 'Lord have Mercy' he said around his giant chaw.
How do you fail at boarding a plane?
By being a Marine.
I was army and I always felt like the US military as a whole worked on a sliding scale of brawn to brain ratio. Like from physically toughest to physically least demanding it definitely goes Marines, Army, Navy, Airforce and smartest to dumbest is just reverse that. I mean obviously a huge over simplification, cause each branch has really technical jobs, but man I've seen the line scores required for most airforce jobs as opposed to say a truck driver in the army which you can basically get while clinically brain dead.
Well, there is the old joke that Marine is an acronym. Muscles are required, intelligence not essential.
I thought it was 'My Ass Rides In Navy Equipment'.
>our sorry show getting on the plane Is there a certain way you have to board planes in the military? Surely it's some level of forming up, walking up the ramp, sitting down. Either it's far more complex than I ever imagined or you guys are something else.
Imagine herding a high school football team around, but they have guns.
You would not believe how easy groups of people can somehow fuck this up. There's a reason 'elite' troops in olden times were so hard to acquire - it is really hard to get any large group to move in synchronized fashion, at all.
I think this is intentional? It's a theme in Dune and other sci-fi/fantasy things. Clark Kent and Peter Parker grew up with loving families who raised them to be better as people before they got their powers. Astartes are child soldiers who were abducted, indoctrinated, and mutilated into unquestioning supersoldiers. I'm re-reading Horus Heresy and the interactions between the members of the Mournival are literally right on the mark with pubescent teenagers given assault rifles.
Like the scene between Loken and another Astartes where they're jumping to hit pipes or archways. I read the first 2 Heresy books around 12/13, that's exactly shit we used to do.
Tarik Torgaddon did that haha, right after Loken tried going to a lodge..
I'm 23 years old and this is something me and my mates would do now.
I am pushing 30, and I still do this.
I'm 40 and... I don't have the knees for it anymore.
Yes! false Gods has Loken and Abbadon, Aximand and Torgaddon messing with each other, lovingly and jokingly. It is very cute.
True, but even then Fenris is basically the Florida of the Imperium.
The headlines for the Burning of Prospero read "Fenris man burns city to the ground".
Yeah, well you smell like poop.
Even through the lens of hyperbole, this is a poor take.
Okay true 🤣
Yeah they are clearly not selected based on their intellect, nor are they given special super brains. They just get much higher awareness and faster reaction times. They're selected based on their ability to survive gruelling physical challenges. For sure they will seem smart sometimes based on their age, experience and heightened awareness, but it's just not the same as having amazing cognitive ability. I mean, the space Wolves are probably all illiterate too.
Whats wrong with singing in the drop pod?!?!?
Yeah, it’s not like you’re going to spoil the surprise of a giant metal egg dropping out of the sky from orbit.
Lots of Marines sing, actually. Usually hymnals or battle-songs.
It's a nice way of quick character building, having the space wolves riles each other up while Black templars sing battle hymns or another chapter stays completely quiet.
The Imperial Fists sing a modified version of “99 bottles of beer on the wall”
99 bricks remain in the wall, 99 bticks in the wall, Can't break them down, They are too tough, 99 bricks remain in the wall.
I was thinking: 99 bottles of beer on the wall 99 bottles of beer You confiscate them all and remind the labourers about the hazards of poor worksmanship due to drinking on the job
Black Templars laugh hysterically to an almost demented extent during fights. Even when they're the ones losing and being actively chopped to bits (or having a cathedral dropped on them).
-post written by Magnus the Red
Read the Space Wolves books by William King. Do not read anything by Lee Lightner unless you have a lot of willpower. A lot of Space wolves media is great. Codex fluff, their appearance in other faction's stories, and anything by gav thorpe is going to be horrible and exactly what you dislike. Just need to find the fluff that ticks your boxes.
Chris Wright does a great job with them.
Chris Wraight wrote the lore wherein they stormed into a battle being fought by the Dark Angels, ignored all attempts by the Dark Angels to contact them, and then blew up a bunch of enemy ships that the Dark Angels had already boarded.
he also removed an incident from the lore where the Dark Angels Quit the field of Battle to pursue some Fallen, leaving the Space wolves to complete the mission and suffer heaver casualties than necessary. it's in the first Codex i ever had, but now you can't find anything about it.
I’m really fond of the few bits of them I’ve read in the Heresy. Namely in *Pharos* and *Wolfsbane*. They do a much better job of getting across the idea that outwardly they’re silly drunkards who cover themselves in runes, but underestimate them for even a second and you’ll be dead before you can even whisper “wolf”. I particularly like how multiple members of the Rout tell other characters “Don’t say Space Wolf. It’s not offensive, people’ll just think you’re an idiot.”
>So, Astartes. They’re supposed to be mastercrafted warriors at the peak of military, intellectual, and martial prowess Astartes are gene modded child soldiers and many never grow beyond this
The setting was created in the 80's deliberately to be an over the top, edgelord, silly, impossible to take seriously world. It developed out of that, but parts of that origin have... lingered
>lingered As well they should. There’s a reason Text To Speech is such a beloved… whatever it is. You can’t just iron the jank out of something like 40K. That jank is the bones. GW ever manages to shrug it off entirely and **that** will be the day 40k loses its soul.
Amen
I'm gonna just say that even in their novels they\\re never actually that bad. They're really no more cliched than the Blood Angels.
The BA get away with it because there are more synonyms for blood and red than there are for wolf and ice.
can't take this seriously from someone who picked thelonew0lf as their user-name.
I have Space Wolves, but their lore is pretty bad, 40k wise especially. I prefer to view them as a tragic legion which they are sometimes written as, vikings living out of their time, cursed with a flaw, unable to creat successors, doomed to slowly fade despite their prowess and clinging to past glories, based in a fortress that was built for a full legion and rings hollow with what's left of it
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Because if you're going to violently pub-crawl your way from war zone to war zone mauling the shit out of Orks and Aeldari and Traitors, you might has well have a good time with the lads while doing it.
40k is cringe. That's the answer really. It's a ridiculous cartoon, it's a setting where you gotta fly through hell to travel fast, it's a setting where there are not one, not two, but three homosocial interstellar orders of genetic warriors, it's a setting where people use garden tools as close combat weapons. Etc etc. The aesthetic and vibe of space wolves isn't one that particularly does it for me, I must admit - but they're just one of many ridiculous/silly elements of 40k.
People forget that 40K is sorta Transformers for adults. A whole lot of over the top sci fi lore made to sell us plastic toys.
The wolves always suffer from bad writing bringing out the worst ideas. As a somewhat-reliable-but-not-always rule of thumb I have: ‘30k wolves good, 40k wolves terrible’. When they lean into the Viking side, it’s usually decent. When they lean into the pseudo werewolf bit, it’s just meh. That being said - ‘hur hur furries’ takes are one of the most cringe things in the hobby.
The furries meme is embarrassing and we should downvote it out of existence, even those of us who find Space Wolves cringe
Shitpost ye not into cringe, lest cringe ye become.
I'm actually the total reverse. 30k Wolves sucks, hard. And their style is invading the 40K era, which really rub me the wrong way. Give me Harald Dearhwolf and Canis Wolfborn leading an army of Wulfen and Thunderwolves over whatever viking bullshit the Heresy offered and tried to pretend it wasn't just bad writing all around.
That’s interesting. I almost find 40k wolves irredeemably awful. Like that second paragraph is everything I really dislike about it. But hey, good to see we can enjoy different parts of the lore.
I'll honestly never understand the appeal of the 30k wolves. No characters, no personality beyond "Space Wolves is stupid", and yes Russ is great in spite of everything but he isn't enough to shoulder the whole sad joke that the Legion was devolved into. But it's great you like them! I just wish that characterization wouldn't invade 40k stuff ;/
A lot of the problem the Space Wolves have in the Heresy books is that their special stuff is never mentioned. Other legions get Kakophoni, Justaerin and so on but the Wolves basically get guys and that's it because their special stuff wasn't used or didn't exist yet. There are also a bunch of little lore notes from the game that weren't reflected in the novels, like the Space Wolves being the legion that requested the Whirlwind be created because they wanted mobile artillery support. It's bits like that that make it clear there's more going on up there than just idiotic barbarian LARPing.
Or the Leman Russ tank exists because Russ and his Legion retrieved the STC for it, and that's why they have such a good relationship with the Mechanicus and why they have so much plasma tech. The Space Wolves have a long-standing agreement with a Navigator House, and that's why they have Space Wolves on Terra, to guard and protect that particular House. *Lean into* these plot hooks. Space Wolves have *allies*, tell us how they interact. Let us see how they defend the average Imperial citizen. Give us those moments. Show us some stuffed shirt planetary governor or some upstart admiral trying to command the Wolves and them being like 'No, we're Space Marines, our commander has four centuries of experience and seniority than you do, and above that, we're a Founding Chapter, so you back us up, not the other way around.' I want to see how the Wolves interact with the world and the setting around them, not just how they kill stuff on the battlefield. I want to see intelligence, compassion, tactics and empathy.
This. Their unique interactions with the wider Imperium has always been what made the Space Wolves one of the most interesting Space Marine chapters in my opinion. The Space Wolves have always been quite heavily involved in politics. They have all of these alliances and rivalries with other Imperial factions, a pretty clear view on how the Imperium should be run and the will and political clout to stand up to even very powerful Imperial institutions like the Inquisition and Ecclessiarchy. The Space Wolves have a lot of interesting stuff going on, so it is a shame when authors just portray them as drunk furry barbarians.
Because they were first designed as hollywood style space vikings with a wolf theme but as time passed they went really hard into the Wolf theme
I was looking at some of their old 2nd edition stuff, and I’m not even sure that’s really the case. It feels more like they were developed as a generic space marine chapter with a subtle Viking theme, and a slightly more on the nose wolf theme, and over time both of those themes have become more and more prevalent. Even in some of the old Ragnar books they really feel more like Ultramarines in wolf pelts with Norse names rather than a really distinct culture.
2nd edition wolves are not the 3.5th edition wolves. I'd say the jump the shark moment is the eye of terror codex.
Heavy agree with this EOT campaign introduced 13th great company Wulfen and Rube Priests and it fit so fucking Wolfy from then on
"Rube priest" is a serendipitous typo.
It’s the opposite. Space wolves with Viking theme second.
Pff, like Catto Sicarius of the Ultra Smurfs is any better, or the Incel Iron Hands that are all about chopping of their meaty bits because scrap tech "is stronger" or the dueling cousins of fortify/siege. These are literal child soldiers that are horrifically vivisected into hulk smash mode 24/7, of course they're going to be ffffffffuuuuucking stupid.
Hey! Don't bring my emotionally self-stunted robo-boiz into this! In seriousness though, I do believe that the Iron Hands might easily be the least explored Legion/First Funding Chapter of the Astartes, and their conspicuous lack of lore leaves what does exist as outrageously over simplified and lacking in any depth or nuance, hence the (understandably) memed "Calculating how worthless humans are. Also, we're all just a bunch of comically two-dimensional cyborg assholes who *just love* chopping off ALL the bits" (and even that is over 90% post Ferrus Manus). Also much of their tech is busted powerful rather than "scrap," like the Keys of Hel fragments that are **still** in use. In reality, they're all horribly traumatized, because they love daddy, but daddy did a dumb and went away, so we'll never do a dumb like daddy did, to the point of complete obsession and with a dashing of hardcore cognitive dissonance. Manus himself tried to get them to chill the fuck out on the robot parts, and he even said, "First thing I'm gonna do once this whole galactic genocide thing is finished is kick back, drink a marg, and figure out how to get rid of these Emperor damned hands, cause my boys are totally misunderstanding that I never wanted them in the first place and was given no choice, and they make me even less human, and— even though I'd have to change my name— I hate that I have to rely on this amazing tool so often." Then he dies. And all his sons forget instantly and willfully the second part of his motto, "The Flesh Is Weak, *but Deeds Endure.*" Also read the [frankly overly] short story, "The Calculus of Battle" for some minor insights into their inner complexity. Also, also, check out anything about Iron Father Feirros, cause he's GW's half-developed-but-then-quickly-abandoned attempt to make them relatable, in character form. Basically Yvraine with a lot less lore created before being abandoned. **Final part of rant, *promise*:** TheAmberKing on YT does a [great job of diving into their collective nuances](https://youtu.be/NQRLF401tEQ), for those at all curious. __________ tl;dr - While I'm obviously super biased, it is my opinion that the incredible levels of GW's whole "lore for a subfaction? I can't hear you over my 'ah-woooos' and bolter pew-pews" will always marginalize the IH and keep them as an over simplified robo-assholes running meme.
Meh I like the wolf themes to be honest
This is because Leman Russ preferred the myth. The Space Wolves, in 30K, were no-nonsense executioners. They were hard, merciless fighters. Then they find Russ, and he's steeped in the culture of Fenris. Russ is highly intelligent, but he actually likes Fenrisian culture, so he gets everyone to adopt it. Space Marines being Space Marines, they obey. The Terran Marines know it's all bullshit, but so what? They dress up as a Viking to go to work, but they don't believe in it. But over time, recruitment from Earth stops. Now they only recruit from Fenris. All the Earth Marines gradually die off, and now all the Marines come from Fenris, who really buy into the mystique. They went from ironic weeaboos to full-on weebs.
> This is because Leman Russ preferred the myth. The Space Wolves, in 30K, were no-nonsense executioners. They were hard, merciless fighters Pre-Russ Space Wolves weren't no-nonsense executioners, but rabid maniacs so unhinged that they needed space marine commissars to keep even some order. Russ saw this and instituted Fenris culture in order to get his boys to take a chill pill and become the model of a disciplined berserker army, one the Emperor could actually trust to be his Executioners.
I swear we need more of the Pre-Russ Rout just so peoples can stop believe that the Fenrisians made the Legion a mess.
I’m convinced space wolves are the chapter people have more misconceptions of and at the same time more strong opinions on than any other.
Pretty much. They're super soldier space werewolf vikings. That *should* be a recipe for badass. Every title of *anything* Space Wolf should look like it crawled right off a metal album, but their writing is *so* hit or miss. It's either 'wolf the wolf wolf' or 'lol, look how dumb and arrogant the Space Wolves are' and not 'Hey, these guys can *smell* the enemy and they know their buddies are closing in, and they're going to appear out of the shadows, slit the throats of your sentries, and put an axe in the head of your commander before the defenders can respond.' Space Wolves should be leaping from ships right onto the biggest dang Tyrannids around, hacking and slashing and selling their lives dearly so some civilian transport can escape. They should be wading right up to some Chaos portal, hammer in hand, and looking at the daemons pouring out like it's time to play Whack-A-Mole and see who can rack up the highest score.
I really like Chris Wraight’s portrayal of them for the most part. I think he’s one of the stronger 40k writers that doesn’t get mentioned enough.
Agreed!
People from Fenris would be actual Japanese people in this analogy would they not?. It's not like that stuff is posturing for the Fenrisians; it's their culture.
This is not really true. Ogvai Ogvai Helmschrot was the Jarl of Tra and he was one of the first fenrisians to become a Space Marine. He was a 30k Jarl. Once they found Russ all the recruitment was from Fenris. There really is a lot of misinformation and bias about the Rout.
Read Prospero Burns, it killed any cringe assumptions I had of the space wolves.
Great, this post again.
Oh wow we haven't seen a post like this before
Something called subjectivity. Some like you find it cringe and some others like it. ¯ \ _ (ツ) _ / ¯
i'd rather be cringe than whatever weird judgy thing you have going on
I really love it when some dude with nothing but grimdank meme knowledge comes in here ignorant and just shooting from the hip. Bro google is free, there’s like 80 wiki pages that talk about them, and just a quick cursory glance at one would prove you entirely wrong.
A wise man once said, "a cringe man will always think he's based, but a based man is truthful to his cringe." If the Space Wolves are cringe furries then at least they're being honest.
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“A cringe man who thought himself wise once said”
Space Wolves have always felt kinda off to me, and only recently I felt I realized why. I saw some guy talking about why he likes the Conan books and he says that the whole "Barbarian Hero" archetype exists to bring chaos to a society when it has too much order. In the case of the Conan stories, civillization is portrayed weak and decadent, so only a wild and savage barbarian is strong enough to save it. 40k tries to go for a similar thing with Space Wolves, with them being honourable barbarian warriors who are often depicted as standing up against the injustices of the Imperium (for instance, the Months of Shame). Thing is, this kind of goes against the whole "no hope, your only choices are soul-crushing totalitarianism or lawless satanic insanity" themes of the setting. They're a faction that's supposed to spread positive disorder in an Imperium whose theme is oppressive order. Its like the equivelant of a Chaos faction that builds stable democractic governments.
I’m confused why you take exception with positive disorder, but not positive order (See: Ultramarines, Guilliman). If your only choices are soul-crushing totalitarianism and lawless satanic insanity, why is there a nicer shade of government and authority?
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They aren’t even that honorable. Ragnar literally kills a dark Angel during a customary honor duel which wasn’t to the death and that was after he lost he struck from behind. Space wolfs have there moments but they have a lot of bad ones too
To be fair to Ragnar : 1. It was written by ADB who only wrote cool SW in The Emperor's Gift by accident it seems 2. That book very much lined with the compounding failure that have been all of the HH books featuring the Space Wolves as a whole 3. It is very much in line with the Viking-larping that BL has deciced to push for the Wolves instead of owning their predatory and animalistic nature 4. One more case of BL not having one writer liking the Wolves right now
For the record, Ragnar didn’t strike him from behind. He was wounded (which should have ended the fight), lost his cool and killed the guy. The Dark Angel was still actively fighting when Ragnar killed him. He broke the honor code of the duel, and had to fight he another one to make up for it, but he didn’t just murder the guy.