It's time.
The greatest travesty of Warmachines history, nay, since the conception of the Iron Kingdoms has occurred and is inviting endless pointless commentary. It is time for my authoritative, final and totally meaningful statements to render further discussion of the topic irrelevant for all time.
I write, as goes without saying, of that ultimate (ironic) blight, the Warcaster Chronicles of Venethrax titled "Wyrmbane"(1).
Yeah I know, its neither a batrep nor about that thing that happened, but I haven't slept and Computer games are making my eyes bleed.
Probably loads of Spoilers if that matters to you (2).
Some relevant perspective information, I love the hell out of some game setting based fiction. Even with my loathing of the 40k rule set, I buy loads of Black Library stuff, to the point that it took four books for to realise I hate everything Sandy Mitchell has ever touched, down to his favourite pair of jodhpurs (3).
For those who don't know, PP have a subsidiary company, Skull Island Expedition, licensed to sell short stories as pdfs. The format is normally a rolling form of series with different story sizes dependent on the characters value in the fluff (i.e Warcasters get novellas, Gorman and friends get what is legitimately a short story).
The standard is actually quite good once you accept the relative status quo of the setting (You buy for Iron Kingdoms detail, specific character goals and interplay, not world shattering plot or true high stakes). Even the books with the characters I regard with the same affection as a strangers loogie landing on my shoe are acceptable reads (4).
Wyrmbane was the first of these Novellas I couldn't read in one setting. Normally it's a quick skim through for a bit of the arvo, a quick afterglow of enjoyment then some painting or list Dojo, whichever factor was more inspired.
Instead, after my spirits were getting comprehensively corkscrewed like my third metacarpal (5), I elected not to headbutt a wall and instead re-installed Kotor 2 and put the expanded content fan patch on.
I then went and spent a day fighting distraction to finish the story, and now will try to distill what I hated so much about something that really doesn't matter (6).
Two key set pieces first: Immediately prior to Wyrmbane, I read Face Value, which is the story of Venethrax' Skarlock. I liked it, but ominously not where it involved Venethrax. If only I'd taken the hint. The second point is that this is the blurb:
Lich Lord Venethrax has spent over a millennium hunting Toruk’s
rebellious spawn. With magic, might, and a vast network of spies, he has
pursued the most dangerous creatures in Immoren. But now, on the eve of
Cryx’s greatest invasion of the Iron Kingdoms, Venethrax has learned
something unsettling—reports have surfaced of a new dragon on the
mainland, one that has inconceivably escaped his notice.
With a handpicked group of fearsome dragon hunters and helljacks,
Venethrax will use Cryx’s invasion of Cygnar as cover for a secret
expedition, one that will further prove his devotion to Toruk and affirm
his own reputation as the bane of dragons.
Sounds alright yeah? I'm not having delusions of expecting adequacy?
We've got a magical necromantic Terminator hunting the settings nearest equivalent to Gods on Earth at the behest of his boss who might as well be the devil. I'm expecting something epic, or at least revelatory stuff about Dragons.
Your Honour, I call the accused to the stand. I present unto you the paragraph, witnessed in the locale of page 54 of 102, that finally rendered the reading apparatus of my brain torpid:
Grendov chose that moment to return. Smoothing his face, he knelt before Venethrax.
“I have inspected some fifty trees.”
“Sufficient for now. What did you find?”
“Moss grows on each. Looks very normal. No sign of blight.The bark beneath is healthy and strong.”
As Grendov reported, Venethrax eyed the two ants. Theycontinued to act mindless.
Is that not a magnificent display of magic, might and a vast network of spies in action?
That's halfway through the book. It's not a small representation either, many pages either side of that paragraph consume the novella in the Cryx expedition recounting the boring portions of David Attenboroughs life.
Right, the specific issues:
First - You're told Venethrax is scary, rather than him being those thing with his words and actions.
Throughout the Novella, it is frequently inserted that Venny is weawwy scawy. The main carriage for this is his loyal minions expecting death, which is entirely undercut by the fact he does nothing to them and his minions disobey him constantly.
Grendov - His pet Skarlock, coming off his own short story (the point of which was that he has more personality than any other of his kind, and uses that freedom of will to do something he's banned from doing that V-man knew of and did nothing about just because) wanders into the opening section of the book and natters. Just natters. V-thrax threatens him twice, when he might as well have "This is the necessary exposition scene milord". That thing that bores audiences in movies. The sort of thing, in point of fact, that books don't need to awkwardly insert as statements the characters would never need to. I digress.
Dracia - Vaxes favoured Satyxis. Opening text for her first words:
“It’s time we got underway,” she snapped. Of all his servants, only Dracia could show such lack of respect in his presence and survive a moment longer. Her skills were that valuable.
Mid dangerous blockade running they'd embroiled in combat and she'd off a rival imperiling a mission, but whatever. Venny told her not to do it again.
Kankur - Vinthixes Necrotech, who flat out disobeys him by butchering a pair of Ogrun Guards for parts and gets warned not to do it again.
Reaper - Random Helljack that refuses to have its Tusk and rusting armour repaired, so Vendork decided a less efficient killing machine was sooo kewl and left it that way.
That's not interactions with your fearsome boss, that's how treat the idiot middle manager who doesn't actually contribute to the success of the workplace in any way.
Second - Venchump loses to trivial challenges.
This come out in three trivial ways, those being the aforementioned employees, his internal Cryx loserdom and those goddamn ants (7).
The Cryx internal issue is the small example of Lich Lord politics, were Ven Joyce gets schooled twice.
Initially, he rocks up to the Cryx blokes getting ready to punch the Swans in. Here's my sarcastic, shortened transcript:
Ven - Guys, I need dudes from your army to do stuff for the great Torukness
Terminus - A great Torukness to you to! Are we Liches not super kewl?
Ven - Truly, Cartman has nothing on us
*12 minutes of meaningless banter*
Ven - So....I need like....2 Bane Knight Units and one of Thralls
Terminus - W00t! I was ready for this. Here's a reserve battalion I prepared just in case you pulled this wankness!
Ven - That's....like....1 Unit and Thralls, thats not quite as much as I-
Terminus - Walk. Away. Now.
*Ven slinks off*
He then gets... not so much manipulated as lazily kneecapped by Daemortus, who was such an awesome Lich he got turned into a halberd. Essentially an opposing Skarlock freely and openly gets on Venlosers ship and lasts long enough to jeopardises the whole expedition before Ven-the-tardy finally kills him.
Finally, the worst part, the ants.
There are a number of fights in the book, some not so bad.
The worst one was exacerbated by the pages of slow paced boring Botany that preceded it.
A full on Lich Warcaster, Battlegroup and infantry get mauled and have to run the hell away from ants.
Blighted ants sure, but in an ant size. It was so surreal and demeaning to read from the awesome it should have been I spent an hour finding Cracked articles about how cool ants were to justify what I was reading.
http://www.cracked.com/article_19651_7-reasons-ants-will-inherit-earth.html
http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-we-should-be-way-more-scared-ants/
http://www.cracked.com/article/82_5-species-that-seem-to-be-trying-to-take-over-earth/
http://www.cracked.com/article_16762_the-6-biggest-assholes-in-animal-kingdom.html
http://www.cracked.com/article_21035_6-amazingly-complex-military-strategies-used-by-bugs.html
I failed, especially, with the lameness of this line involved :
Darkness surrounded Venethrax. Had he been a living creature, he would have suffocated from the dirt filling his mouth.
Just bam in the middle of this......"action" sequence. Don't forget readers, HE DOESN'T NEED TO BREATHE WHILE THE ANTS AND DIRT OVERWHELM HIS ARMY.
But seriously, I do own 98% of the Skull Island Books, all the rest I enjoyed thoroughly.
1 - Obviously you're reading this in 2023, when the aliens have appointed this script in its rightful holy place as the ultimate in human writery. The joke here is PP did an errata. Hail Xenu!
2 - Just realised I've listened to the same 3 tracks by The Wombats 23 times on loop. Huh.
3 - If he lacks a pair, I will continue to hate his imaginary jodhpurs.
4 - Shaw and Taryn. Can't deal with it.
5 - Seriously, wear your seat belt, it'll save your life and possibly give you some mad bruising.
6 - It's little metal and plastic dollies people, get real.
7 - This is a D&D 3.5 reference to that damn crab. You're not missing anything by not knowing about it.