Sanctus Reach

Space Marine Battles

by Ben Counter, Guy Haley, Cavan Scott

The Red Waaagh! has come to the Sanctus Reach. Grukk Face-Rippa, an ork warboss as cunning as he is brutal, leads a mighty invasion force to Alaric Prime and its sister worlds. As the earth shakes beneath their assault, the warriors of the Astra Militarum, the noble Imperial Knight houses of Alaric Prime and the savage Space Wolves lead the counter-attack – and Grukk faces a threat from within his ranks as Big Mek Mogrok plans to oust him and take control of the Red Waaagh! for himself.

Read it because
Waaagh! Ahem, sorry, got carried away. This collection contains tons of tales set during the ork invasion of the Sanctus Reach, including a first from Black Library, a novella told entirely from the point of view of the orks themselves... As well as that, these tales chart the death of a Space Marine Chapter, inquisitors and assassins on secretive missions and the thorny issue of what to do when Ragnar Blackmane gets lost in his rage and endangers his brother Space Wolves.

Genres: 40k, Fiction, Anthologies, Novels

416 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2015

About the author

Ben Counter, as well as making several contributions to Inferno magazine, has written the Soul Drinkers and Grey Knights series and two Horus Heresy novels for the Black Library. He is an ancient history graduate and avid miniature painter with a bronze demon under his belt.

Reviews

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun book. I think Guy Haley is quickly becoming one of my favorite Black Library authors (which is good, because the dude writes *a lot*), and his Ork-perspective novella was fantastic. The other stories in this anthology were fine... but Haley's were the clear stand-out winners here.

I do kinda feel like a lot of the Red Waaagh!/Hour of the Wolf events were glossed over too heavily though. There were a lot of interesting characters in the game events, that barely got a mention in this book, and some of the bigger moments in the campaign were completely glossed over. And... the thing with the Ork/Demon corruption at the end was, confusing. Did that happen in the campaign books? i honestly don't recall that. but whatever, it was a fine book.

[Ulzeta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quite boring.

[Kenneth · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Space Wolves faces the Orks led by a cunning possessed leader.

[Michael T Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of eight stories, in two-story bunches. Kind of a mixed bag.

Penumbral Spike by Ben Counter - The first of the two Obsidian Glaives short stories. The Waaaagh! hits a world before Sanctus Reach, with predictable results. Nothing memorable, but decent.
Black Gulch by Ben Counter - The fairly foreseeable end to the Glaives/ork interaction. Better than Penumbral Spike, but still ultimately forgettable.
The Fall of Hive Jensen by Josh Reynolds - Shockingly, by far the best story in here. I say shockingly because this is an anthology about Space Marines vs. Orks, and this story is weirdly about an Inquisition team working behind the scenes of the battle. Absolutely loved this story & hope that perhaps this team will show up again in some other anthology.
Death Mask by Cavan Scott - Another story set kind of behind the scenes, having to do more with the government. Sadly I couldn't make it through this one, even though there were some fun ideas, like the amusing image of a cult that wants the orks to turn them into orks when they arrive.
Evil Sun Rising by Guy Haley - Goddammit, Guy Haley, can you do anything wrong? I friggin hate orks, and this is a novella about orks, and I made it through it and overall enjoyed it. Basically we follow the difficulties of one of the ork engineer teams who run one of their ... titan analogues, can't recall what they're called ... because everybody wants their secrets. Fun little glimpse into the world of an orkineer.
Klaw of Mork by Guy Haley - Essentially tying up the loose ends from ESR
Blood on the Mountain & Iceclaw by Ben Counter - grouping these two together because a) they focus on the Space Wolves vs. orks, the main confrontation we've been waiting for here, and b) sadly, I couldn't make it through them. Something about the way Counter writes the Wolves just didn't work at all for me. I got maybe 15 pages into the first one, and just realized I didn't care. Oh well.

Overall, don't go into this expecting an entire anthology of Wolves vs. orks. Which is kind of good and kind of bad. Still, you might end up liking more than you thought you would.