Tag Archives: Phil Kelly

Farsight: Crisis of Faith – Phil Kelly

Phil Kelly’s Farsight: Crisis of Faith follows on from his 2016 novel Blades of Damocles, and continues to explore the career of the headstrong t’au Commander at a pivotal moment in time. As the T’au Empire rebuilds after the aborted Imperial crusade, Farsight is tasked with leading a massive expedition back across the Damocles Gulf to reconquer worlds lost to the humans. Uncomfortable with the role given to him by the ethereals, Farsight has to deal with conflicting emotions regarding his people’s leadership and secrets lurking within the expedition even as he faces up to the brutal, uncompromising might of the Imperium.

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The Wicked and the Damned – David Annandale, Phil Kelly and Josh Reynolds

One of the first batch of releases published by Black Library under the Warhammer Horror label, the Wicked and the Damned is a portmanteau story – a collection of three loosely linked novellas, by David Annandale, Phil Kelly and Josh Reynolds. On the mist-shrouded cemetery world of Silence, three strangers – a commissar, an officer and a priest – are brought together seemingly by random, surrounded by the dead with only each other and the sinister mortuary-servitors for company. Confused and unsettled, to try and understand what’s going on and why they’ve been gathered together they each tell the story of what they remember last, and what led them to Silence.

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Death Knell – Phil Kelly

Released under the Space Marine Heroes label, Phil Kelly’s novella Death Knell takes a close look at a single squad of Ultramarines in action against overwhelming Chaos forces led by the Crimson Slaughter. After a direct assault against the enemy-held island of St. Capilene fails miserably, the Ultramarines change tactics, with Sergeant Sevastus and his Tactical squad hoping that stealth will see them safely past the island’s outer defences. With a pair of guardsmen in tow, Squad Sevastus infiltrate the haunted island and seek out its defenders, but even for the hard-bitten Tactical Marines the odds of success are steep.

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QUICK REVIEW: The Battle of Blackthunder Mesa – Phil Kelly

A sequel to Blades of Damocles and a companion piece to the various Farsight stories, Phil Kelly’s short story The Battle of Blackthunder Mesa tells a tale of the fundamental differences between the T’au and Imperial ways of war. On the embattled world of Dal’yth Prime, the T’au forces are being pushed back by endless numbers of Imperial tanks, but Commander Bravestorm is determined to strike a telling blow before withdrawing. With a new weapon at his disposal – the Onager Gauntlet – he has a tool to do just that, but its use seems to go against the T’au’s very ethos.

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War of Secrets – Phil Kelly

The third instalment of the Space Marine Conquests series, War of Secrets sees Phil Kelly explore the integration of Primaris Marines into the ever-secretive, antagonistic Dark Angels Chapter. In battle against the t’au on the industrial world of Saltire Vex, Lieutenant Xedro Farren and his Primaris brothers find the Dark Angels under Interrogator-Chaplain Zaeroph to be less than welcoming. It’s not long before Farren sees hints of an ulterior mission and another shadowy enemy, whom Zaeroph will do anything to catch. Meanwhile within the ranks of the t’au a separate conflict is brewing, and loyalties on both sides are questioned.

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Blades of Damocles – Phil Kelly

The first full-length Space Marine Battles book from Black Library since 2015’s Damocles anthology, Phil Kelly’s Blades of Damocles takes us back to before the time of its predecessor to look at the events of the first Damocles Gulf Crusade. Here we see sergeants Numitor and Sicarius of the Ultramarines 8th Company, still young and prior to their ascension to company captaincy, taking the fight to the Tau on the sept world of Dal’yth. As the headstrong assault marine sergeants lead their forces into battle, Commander Farsight leads the Tau defence in the name of the Greater Good.
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QUICK REVIEW : Brethren – Phil Kelly

On the twelfth day of Christmas, Black Library gave to us…a Space Marine Battles audio short by Phil Kelly. Brethren looks back to an early conflict between the Imperium and the Tau Empire and offers a comparison of sorts between the two. As the Ultramarines descend upon the world of Vespertine and battle the tau, sergeants Numitor and Sicarius lead their assault squads in vicious close-quarters fighting against the disciplined and technologically advanced xenos.

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