Thoughts after beating the campaign [SPOILERS]

[Coldhands]

Man, the Ultreamarines really won that without cost, didn't they. I knew GW wouldn't let them kill Calgar, but Titus lived, Gadriel lived, Charon lived, Scottish Captain lived, even that dreadnaught who popped up at the end lived (and dreadnaughts almost always show up to die being awesome). The only guy who died was Charon's secret boyfriend, and he was only in the game for about two minutes. Otherwise, they wiped out about 25% of the Thousand Sons legion and put down Imurah no sweat.

And is nobody concerned that the burial world the game ended on is clearly a Necron tomb world? I kept expecting a late game twist where all the ruckus with Project Aurora wakes up a Tomb Lord and he's none too pleased to find humans trying to stuff the Warp into one of his ancient devices. But I guess they sleep pretty soundly on Demerium.

Overall, SM2 was a fun, dumb romp through archetypal 40k. It got a little too chest poundy For the Emperor at the very end, and if you took a shot every time somebody said "brother" you'd be dead by the third mission, but otherwise the spectacle was great, the gameplay was solid, and story was the kind of turn-you-brain-off fun I expect from anything staring Space Marines. Good game. Hope we see some Necrons next time.

[Oro]

They lost almost an entire company, lmao.

[Coldhands]

Originally posted by Oro:

They lost almost an entire company, lmao.

Mooks killed the background, or as casualties mentioned in dialogue are a statistic, not a cost. Their deaths have no meaning or impact on the story, the characters, or the player. Just saying they lost almost a whole company of Smurfs has no weight when there's no evidence it happened in game. Of all the characters who were actually given any development at all, only Red Helmet Guy died or made any kind of sacrifice. So it was basically a flawless victory; all they lost was the Red Shirt.

[Oro]

👍

[w10-20-2000]

I actually have no idea why this game is about Ultramarines, for a legion known for being pragmatic and strict we have:

-Gabriel who ♥♥♥♥♥ and demand something from his superior breaking chain of command

-Chairon who abandons his brothers to chase chaos forces in the name of some personal vendetta, completely losing his composure to the point of becoming unresponsive when his brother try to call out

-And lastly Titus the best of them all, he has clear insubordination in his squad, signs of aggression and threats, he ignores it all to the point of nearly being shot in the head by Gabriel. AND STILL DOESN'T report it

This is not ultramarines, it's a bunch of guardsman who is too drunk on Amasec to be scared, but still just as dumb and undisciplined.

To me the longer i think about the story the worse it gets, so i try to concentrate on aesthetic and operations

[Soji]

I definitely was hoping maybe we get some kind of extra exposition about the tomb world the Chaos Operation they're adding but I'm not so sure. I guess there's still a chance it might. More than likely it'll be a plot point in SM3 whenever that comes out. Maybe expand on if that really was the Emperor talking to Titus as well, which would be pretty big. I enjoyed the campaign a lot tho even tho I do agree it was full of plot armor considering the IP this game is from, but I guess I also didn't expect Titus or any of these new characters to die.

[noSense]

Originally posted by w10-20-2000:

I actually have no idea why this game is about Ultramarines, for a legion known for being pragmatic and strict we have:

-Gabriel who ♥♥♥♥♥ and demand something from his superior breaking chain of command

-Chairon who abandons his brothers to chase chaos forces in the name of some personal vendetta, completely losing his composure to the point of becoming unresponsive when his brother try to call out

-And lastly Titus the best of them all, he has clear insubordination in his squad, signs of aggression and threats, he ignores it all to the point of nearly being shot in the head by Gabriel. AND STILL DOESN'T report it

This is not ultramarines, it's a bunch of guardsman who is too drunk on Amasec to be scared, but still just as dumb and undisciplined.

To me the longer i think about the story the worse it gets, so i try to concentrate on aesthetic and operations

I guess, I just don't expect anyone in WH 40k to be really coordinated and pragmatic, especially not Space Marines, since all battle doctrines of all sides are made to be entertaining for wargame, not rational or remotely realistic.

At least in this game they are more busy with special tasks, breakthrough support and precision strikes against high value targets rather than wasteful frontal assaults.

IMO, if space marines were not prone to this kinds of behaviors, we would not have a heresy in the first place, so the whole setting kind of works on the even the best of humanity being able to be emotional, dumb and unpredictable even to themselves.

And Titus was always bad at working with subordinates significantly less experienced than he is. Being stuck in Inquisition dungeon and than serve with most experienced marines of them does not really help to develop this specific skill, even if it can help understand it's importance.

PS. After canonical heresy book where legendary warmaster Horus personally walks into obvious trap on downed IG capital ship without reconnaissance, preliminary bombardment and without backup, I don't have high expectations. This one at least makes general sense in itself.

[w10-20-2000]

Originally posted by noSense:

Originally posted by w10-20-2000:

I actually have no idea why this game is about Ultramarines, for a legion known for being pragmatic and strict we have:

-Gabriel who ♥♥♥♥♥ and demand something from his superior breaking chain of command

-Chairon who abandons his brothers to chase chaos forces in the name of some personal vendetta, completely losing his composure to the point of becoming unresponsive when his brother try to call out

-And lastly Titus the best of them all, he has clear insubordination in his squad, signs of aggression and threats, he ignores it all to the point of nearly being shot in the head by Gabriel. AND STILL DOESN'T report it

This is not ultramarines, it's a bunch of guardsman who is too drunk on Amasec to be scared, but still just as dumb and undisciplined.

To me the longer i think about the story the worse it gets, so i try to concentrate on aesthetic and operations

I guess, I just don't expect anyone in WH 40k to be really coordinated and pragmatic, especially not Space Marines, since all battle doctrines of all sides are made to be entertaining for wargame, not rational or remotely realistic.

At least in this game they are more busy with special tasks, breakthrough support and precision strikes against high value targets rather than wasteful frontal assaults.

IMO, if space marines were not prone to this kinds of behaviors, we would not have a heresy in the first place, so the whole setting kind of works on the even the best of humanity being able to be emotional, dumb and unpredictable even to themselves.

And Titus was always bad at working with subordinates significantly less experienced than he is. Being stuck in Inquisition dungeon and than serve with most experienced marines of them does not really help to develop this specific skill, even if it can help understand it's importance.

PS. After canonical heresy book where legendary warmaster Horus walks into obvious trap on downed IG capital ship without reconnaissance, preliminary bombardment and without backup, I don't have high expectations. This one at least makes general sense in itself.

The thing is this is Ultramarines, they are the only rational legion left and have privilege of having alive primarch who guides them. If this game was about Deathwatch and say Gabriel was from Dark Angels and Chairon from Space Wolves then i would had zero problem with whole plot and interactions between them. Hell we had heresy exactly because some legions had bad discipline or was too close to feeling emotions. I find it very hard to believe that Titus fresh from the clutches of inquisition was given such volatile squadmates.

Chairon is one step away from faling to Khorne, Gabriel almost killed his own lieutenant with zero evidence or ground for accusations of heresy. If chaos pay even a smallest attention to them they will fall immediately.

This is just very hard to picture coming from the legion known for following the guide to a fault, and what frustrates me even more we had perfect setup for story like that at the beginning, if the whole game was about Deathwatch we would even get explanation for different colors and EXTREMELY different personalities of operation mode characters. Do you believe that Heavy and Vanguard is from the same legion ? Or Assault and Sniper? They feel so alien to each other i cringe from their dialogue sometimes, any other legion could have this problem but again seeing Ultramarines mashing together all these Space marines and hoping for the best is silly

[Chief Spreading Bull]

Blame Matt Ward. This super duper uber Ultramarines crap started with him.

[Realigo Actual]

They are Ultramarines.

Why it would be any different?

[Hellsteeth30]

Without cost? They Kadaku (it seems), a large amount of brothers to the Thousand Sons, a large amount of Cadians and blew up a hell of a lot of infrastructure.

As an aside I really never understood what's special about Calgar.

[Nekros]

It was the least grim dark of a 40k game I’ve ever seen. That’s probably because they plan to keep using Titus and friends in the next game instead of showing how cruel and indifferent war is. Meet Varellus? Can already tell from a light year away that he’s being setup to die as soon as people start talking about how cool he is. Sure enough, he dies in the dumbest way possible to a friggin traitor guardsman about 20 minutes after you meet him. This outcome only surprises people who think marvel movies are actually good. On Demerium they put the bodies of space marines around the map but there’s no real impact. You never see anyone actually die beyond Varellus. It was very low stakes where even the holdout scene with the chapter banner was a generic “good guys prevail” moment. Usually those epic scenes in the artwork are showing a valiant last stand and every man knows he’s going to die but fights to the last regardless.

[Coldhands]

Originally posted by Hellsteeth30:

Without cost? They Kadaku (it seems), a large amount of brothers to the Thousand Sons, a large amount of Cadians and blew up a hell of a lot of infrastructure.

As an aside I really never understood what's special about Calgar.

What’s special about Calgar is that you can go to Warhammer dot com and buy a model of him. So, obviously, they gotta make that dude seem cool. : p

And again, deaths which don’t impact the characters, story, or player aren’t a cost. Red shirts die in Star Trek all the time, but it’s just so the story can have the illusion of stakes without putting its main cast in any real danger.

[Coldhands]

Originally posted by noSense:

After canonical heresy book where legendary warmaster Horus personally walks into obvious trap on downed IG capital ship without reconnaissance, preliminary bombardment and without backup, I don't have high expectations. This one at least makes general sense in itself.

Oh, the primarchs are morons. The HH books talk such a big game about their incredible genius, but then they’re all SO easily manipulated.

I actually really like, in that same book, the scene where a regular human is talking to Loken, and he’s like, “Wow. That Erebus guy really got Horus to dance to his tune without half trying.” And Loken doesn’t understand, so the guy has to carefully explain the very obvious manipulation from a previous scene.
It establishes that the Astartes aren’t smart, they just think they are. And that fits the grim dark, worst case scenario of 40k so well. Of course the beings in charge of humanity are idiots who’ll doom us all by making all the wrong choices in the end.

That revelation of these space marines the setting makes LOOK so cool and bad*** actually being dumb ****s really helped sell me on the satire of 40k lore. It’s one of my favorite aspects of the setting.

[w10-20-2000]

Originally posted by Coldhands:

Originally posted by noSense:

After canonical heresy book where legendary warmaster Horus personally walks into obvious trap on downed IG capital ship without reconnaissance, preliminary bombardment and without backup, I don't have high expectations. This one at least makes general sense in itself.

Oh, the primarchs are morons. The HH books talk such a big game about their incredible genius, but then they’re all SO easily manipulated.

I actually really like, in that same book, the scene where a regular human is talking to Loken, and he’s like, “Wow. That Erebus guy really got Horus to dance to his tune without half trying.” And Loken doesn’t understand, so the guy has to carefully explain the very obvious manipulation from a previous scene.
It establishes that the Astartes aren’t smart, they just think they are. And that fits the grim dark, worst case scenario of 40k so well. Of course the beings in charge of humanity are idiots who’ll doom us all by making all the wrong choices in the end.

That revelation of these space marines the setting makes LOOK so cool and bad*** actually being dumb ****s really helped sell me on the satire of 40k lore. It’s one of my favorite aspects of the setting.

I don't think it's a satire

And i don't thing Space Marines are cool in the lore. 99% of them are psychopaths raised as weapons in the universe who considers them abominations or alien. They can't connect to humans, they can't really connect to each other Heresy showed how fragile their bonds are. I mean they are forced into strict and violent set of rules where one wrong move means death. Even Salamanders came to kill their family without a single doubt on Isstvan V. Because if Emperor commands they spill blood no matter whose

If lifetime of death and bloodshed can be considered cool then yeah. But in their core all of them wish for praise from their gene father who views them as tools to get praise from his gene father, who is a god with no sympathy

[Chaoslord 87]

Originally posted by Coldhands:

What’s special about Calgar is that you can go to Warhammer dot com and buy a model of him. So, obviously, they gotta make that dude seem cool. : p

And again, deaths which don’t impact the characters, story, or player aren’t a cost. Red shirts die in Star Trek all the time, but it’s just so the story can have the illusion of stakes without putting its main cast in any real danger.

Now that I think about it, they very rarely if ever even lost a semi important character in the Novels.
Definitly not in the Uriel Ventris Book series as far as i´m aware.
And from the Horus Heresy series I can only think of Cestus from "Battle for the Abyss".