Tag Archives: Imperial Fists

QUICK REVIEW: Champion of Oaths – John French

John French’s Horus Heresy short story Champion of Oaths is a characterful little vignette portraying two key moments in the life of Sigismund, who would become First Captain of the Imperial Fists. In the drift camps of the Ionus Plateau, a scared boy stands against a vicious gang of youths preying upon terrified orphans, defending his fellows. In the Temple of Oaths, a warrior faces two hundred of his brothers in a trial of combat, one after the other – should he defeat every one of them, he will be proved worthy to lead his brotherhood as the First of Templars.

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Fist of the Imperium – Andy Clark

The sixth instalment in Black Library’s Space Marine Conquests series, Andy Clark’s Fist of the Imperium gives the boys in yellow their moment in the post-Dark Imperium spotlight. The mining world of Ghyre is protected by an Imperial Fists honour guard, but when rising unrest prompts a call for reinforcements from the Chapter, a cult worshipping the mysterious ‘Father’ rises up in planet-wide rebellion. Forced by circumstance into taking command of the Imperial forces, Primaris Librarian Aster Lydorran has to contend with not just a coordinated and well-equipped insurgency driven by a prodigious psychic presence, but also Ghyre’s pampered, dithering, divided ruling elite. Moving quickly to take control of the situation, he rapidly realises that there’s more to this uprising than just initial appearances suggested.

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QUICK REVIEW: Now Peals Midnight – John French

A quiet, measured short story that could only have come from John French, Now Peals Midnight is the calm before the storm, in which Rogal Dorn and the loyal defenders of Terra take a last, deep breath before the Siege of Terra begins. As the ever-present unrest in the Sol system fades away leaving an eerie sense of quiet, Dorn orders the final preparations knowing that Horus is only hours away. Across the breadth of the Imperial Palace, defenders wait…from conscripts huddled in the darkness to Primarchs standing proud on the walls. At last, the wait is almost over.

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QUICK REVIEW: Duty Waits – Guy Haley

The worst part is the waiting…right? In his Horus Heresy short story Duty Waits, Guy Haley explores the effect on Dorn’s Imperial Fists of the interminable waiting as they man the walls of the Imperial Palace in expectation of Horus’ armies reaching Terra. With security tighter than ever after the Alpha Legion’s infiltration of Terra (you’ve read Praetorian of Dorn, right?), and civilians suffering the side-effects of a total focus on war, tensions are high and an outlet is going to be needed, sooner or later. For Captain Maximus Thane (sound familiar?) the enemy can’t come soon enough.

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Forgotten Texts: Space Marine by Ian Watson

“What shelter could there be from an insanity which existed only a membrane away from the ordinary world?”

Originally published in 1993, before Black Library even existed as a publishing house, Ian Watson’s Space Marine was his second 40k novel and went on to be something of a seminal work, influencing countless stories to follow. These days it’s really not ‘canon’ (more on this later) but there’s no doubt about its story credentials. The tale of three Necromundan youths raised to become Imperial Fists from wildly differing backgrounds, it follows Biff, Lexandro and Yeremi as they progress through the trials required to become a Space Marine, and then various missions as first Scouts and then full battle brothers.

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Praetorian of Dorn – John French

The seventh Horus Heresy book of 2016, the thirty-ninth in the main numbered series, and John French’s first ‘full’ novel in the series, Praetorian of Dorn comes with high expectations. Not least because it’s set in the Solar system, where the Alpha Legion launch a coordinated attack on Terra’s outer defences, testing the resolve and skill of Rogal Dorn and his Imperial Fists. With legion operatives, both human and legionnaire, activating across the system, Dorn and Archamus – Master of the Huscarls – are pulled two ways as they attempt to maintain Terra’s defences and stop the Alpha Legion.
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Templar – John French (audio drama)

So far in the Horus Heresy series, the Imperial Fists haven’t had a huge amount of the spotlight. Presumably that’s going to change the closer things get to the Siege of Terra, but in the meantime there’s John French’s audio drama Templar to whet the appetite of 7th Legion fans. It follows First Captain Sigismund, leading a mission to cleanse an enclave of Word Bearers that still remains within the Solar system. As he faces the prospect of killing his own kind for the first time, he considers the nature of his duty in light of the changing face of the galaxy.

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QUICK REVIEW : The Dread Sentinels of Dorn – Rob Sanders

On the twentieth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…an Imperial Fists short story by Rob Sanders. The Dread Sentinels of Dorn sees Captain Kontrador of 5th Company investigating the unexplained silencing of one of the Imperial Fist-manned star forts on the border of Segmentum Solar. When the fate of the star fort and its garrison becomes clear, as a tyranid hive ship threatens his own vessel, Kontrador realises that far more is at stake than just the lives of him and his warriors.

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