Gathering Storm: Fall of Cadia

Gathering Storm

by Games Workshop (Brand)

For ten thousand years Cadia has stood firm against the horrors spewed forth by the Eye of Terror. There are no records of how many valiant souls have fallen defending the fortress worlds of the Cadian Gate – but by their sacrifice, the tide of horror stemmed. But there is no sacrifice big enough to stop what is coming.

Abaddon has unleashed the full might of his thirteenth Black Crusade and little hope remains. On Cadia itself, Ursarkar Creed and manifold Imperial forces mount a desperate defence, and they are soon to be joined by the strangest and most powerful of allies. Their arrival spurs a chain of events that will change things forever – the pylons will fall, the Eye will open, and a storm will come.

The Book

Fall of Cadia is the first book in the Gathering Storm series. A 136-page hardback narrative campaign book, it introduces the Triumvirate of the Imperium – Celestine, the Living Saint, Tech-priest of Mars Archmagos Dominus Belisarius Cawl, and Inquisitor Katarinya Greyfax of the Ordo Hereticus – and chronicles the bitter battle to protect Cadia from the grasp of Abaddon the Despoiler.

Genres: 40k, Science Fiction, Fiction

136 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2017

About the author

Games Workshop Group PLC (often abbreviated as GW) is a British miniature wargaming manufacturing company. Games Workshop is best known as developer and publisher of the tabletop wargames Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000 and The Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game.

Reviews

[Taddow · Rating 3 out of 5]

So the Warhammer 40,000 Gathering Storm series reminded me of Games Workshop’s Warhammer Fantasy’s End Times Series- both depicting a major event(s) that would change their respective settings for the long-term. Luckily, unlike what happened to Warhammer Fantasy’s transition to the Age of Sigmar setting, Warhammer 40,000 remained, for the most part the same type of game with the same lore. The first book of this three-part series deals with the Fall of the Cadia- the Imperium’s fortress world/sector that holds the line against the open conduit to the Warp- the Eye of Terror. There will be some spoilers ahead.

I was a bit confused by the timeline for these events, and I had to search through the internet to get some clarifications for speculations on when these events occur, which appear to be a few years after/during Abaddon’s Thirteenth Black Crusade, which was addressed years earlier by GW in their Eye of Terror supplement (which ended with the Imperium victorious). It appears that was only Abaddon’s first strike and he launches a second strike with seemingly overwhelming forces against an already weakened and decimated foe. Alas, in the end, Cadia falls, but it’s an epic back and forth battle with heroic sacrifices, desperate actions and strange unusual alliances between the Imperium and (one) Necron and the Eldar.

Without going into grand detail about the book’s events, I will instead talk about what I enjoyed and what I did not. Regardless if you disagree or not, I think that many Warhammer 40K fans will like what the book has to offer.

Likes:
I’m glad that GW finally (After All These Decades) advanced the Warhammer 40K timeline. While I might not like some of the directions this has gone (I suspect some of it was to justify the sale of more products, which I get, GW is a business) because some of the lore that is used to justify some of these events seems weak and convenient (i.e lazy) to me, I still appreciate that we have seen some definite advancement and not just not more hints at potential things to come or highlighting more ongoing battles/struggles that don’t mean nothing in the overall scheme of the universe.

I also liked the layout and content of the book. The book is a great blend of story narrative (a lot of which I thought was well-written and did a great job of producing a nail-biting back and forth drama of Cadia’s fate), artwork (some of which appears to be original work created for the series), and game rules for the three special characters, new wargear and rules for replicating the battles in the book.

Dislikes:
Abaddon (who I enjoyed using as a model in my Chaos Armies and his lore background) is either incompetent or suffers the worse luck. With seemingly limitless resources at his disposal, he cannot destroy Cadia and it’s defenders, even after the Imperial forces have suffered tremendous loses. I understand that this was probably for dramatic effect but I got a little irritated how every time Abaddon loses the individual conflicts in the book. Even when he finally destroys Cadia, it’s seems like a mercy win (we know you can’t really win this Abaddon, despite being a warrior for all these thousand of years, serving with the Warmaster Horus himself, being the chosen of Chaos and having what seems like unlimited forces at your disposal, but we feel bad that you suck so we’ll just give you a win).

The Phalanx. What the heck is this thing doing here? Did the Imperial Fists not learn from the Beast Arises series. Your main job is defending Terra. Sure, you got to send forces out to deal with threats to the Imperium and get your forces some training and experience, but you should probably keep some of your forces (And Your Homeworld Flagship) at Terra where they can protect it from whatever tries to attack it out of the blue (didn’t a large Chaos force just manage to manifest itself on your sacred ship?). I felt like this was just a convenient way to get the Imperial Fists and their legendary ship into the Cadia conflict (they could have just said there were some Imperial Fist forces already entrenched amongst the plethora Space Marine Chapters already participating in the conflict. It just felt a bit forced and unnecessary.

These are my personal stand-outs for Likes and Dislikes for this book. I’m looking forward to seeing how the interaction with the Eldar progresses (I know enough spoilers on how series proceeds to have good and bad opinions on that as well, but I want to see how it’s depicted in the subject material to see if that will change my mind).

[Lean Ramos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing Celestine Rulz

[Harry Parkhill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enjoyable short Sci Fi from Games Workshop... You really need to know a bit about the 40K universe to enjoy (i'd guess) but a great read nontheless

[Jake · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was really excited to read this, I loved the End Times books for Warhammer Fantasy, particularly the early ones (even though they killed my favorite game). I kept seeing this was the 40k equivalent to that, though with not game ending consequences.

Honestly, I was disappointed. Fall of Cadia feels like it has started at the end/climax of a pre-existing story. Cadia is basically already screwed, and it repeatedly makes it clear that it is going to fall (the title is also a give away).

Where End Times took time to establish the major players, give them some rising action (Balthezar Gelt has some amazing development in End Times), and take time away from just battles to play with the characters some, Fall of Cadia is mostly just one enormous battle. If you don't know who the players are, you don't get to know them further, their motivations, their goals, and even their personalities are often glossed over for page upon page of action.

I knew a little bit about the characters in the story (minus the Saint) and I have to confess I just felt very unattached to them. The writing doesn't compel you to care, at all, because our characters never have the space or time to make you care. It is one shooting scene after another and the writing on the wall makes it clear the end is inevitable.

It tries to give our leading Cadia boi a crisis of faith, but there is next to no time spent grappling with this, or even really exploring it, because again, the end is here.

This felt like the end of a arc, rather then the beginning it is pitched as, but even worse then that, it mistakes endless action for entertaining writing.

There are some compelling scenes, and luckily it isn't very long, but overall, just read a quick synopsis, as the prose is not worth the time.

[Stefan Koepeknie · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Cadia had been lost but the war continued."

[Javier Pascual · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maneja bien la épica militarista exagerada de 40k, pero la narración es demasiado caótica.

[Igc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh

[J.P. Harker · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun bit of 40k fluff, no more no less

[Callum Shephard · Rating 3 out of 5]

So, here we are again at Armageddon. Several editions on from the Thirteenth Black Crusade, almost a decade since Games Workshop attempted to push the timeline forwards, and the company stands ready to make another attempt at reshaping the setting. For good or ill, the Warhammer 40,000 the fans know will likely end here, and with it perhaps many of the armies they have long loved.

Abaddon the Despoiler's latest crusade - perhaps his final crusade - batters the walls of Cadia. Having long stood against the invasion of the Traitor Legions, having braved assault after assault, the planet is key to the balance of power within the galaxy. If it holds, the bulk of Abaddon's forces will remain trapped within the Warp maelstrom known as the Eye of Terror. If it falls, he will be ready to take revenge upon Holy Terra itself, and perhaps even crown himself as the new master of mankind.

This is the way a world dies, with the scream of a billion lasguns and the laughter of tyrannous gods.

Whatever the result here, the bravery of this action cannot be understated. Perhaps it will be a mistake, perhaps this will be the moment Games Workshop kills the golden goose, but it takes bravery to look back at an event which almost tanked the company and say "Let's give it another shot, and let's do it right this time." Okay, perhaps bravery and stupidity in equal parts, but the company does seem to have learned from its past lessons and - whatever else might be said for their quality - experimented with this formula repeatedly with War Zone books before taking another stab at it.

Did it pay off? Well, read the sections below and find out for yourself.

The Good

Let's begin with one major improvement here - The padding. Oh, not the fact there is padding (because we unfortunately still have a fair amount of it) but because it's considerably scaled back from previous works. There are still splash pages, full page artworks and over-sized images, but they have been pushed aside to make more room for the written lore, and compliment the work rather than overwhelm it. There's no moment akin to the split-second meeting seen Curse of the Wulfen, the one the book tried to hide being rushed through by adding a gigantic splash page directly above it, and the events themselves are vastly better planned out.

There is more of a direct narrative arc to this book, with more of the natural twists and turns you would expect of a campaign than the almost mechanical three act structure of past works. You know the kind, where they follow the usual plot format so predictably that you've guessed the general thematic twists for the story long before they happen. As such, it helps to sidestep many of the inherent problems of these books. Even with it openly advertising that Cadia itself will fall before Chaos, the writers handle the subject matter well enough to keep you guessing when, where and how it will happen. Hell, even after it is finally conquered, the book is good enough to ask "so, what then?" and show some of the immediate circumstances. Not too many admittedly, but enough to keep you hooked for the next story.

Another factor well worth adding is that, despite the sheer number of characters involved, Fall of Cadia does a vastly better job of balancing the importance of characters and armies than other tales. They do unfortunately still hijack the plot and a substantial chunk of the story nevertheless focuses more upon the heroes than the troops themselves. That said however, there is far more here to help focus upon the wider galaxy than you might think. The entire introductory section focuses far more upon Cadia itself than any individual character, and even when Creed is mentioned it is only to reflect the measures he is pushing to defend the planet. In fact, large chunks of the book do pause to look into the more secondary elements of the story or areas which would otherwise seem as if they're needless. However, by including them, it prevents the usual funnel vision problem which afflicted previous books, turning campaigns into stories focusing upon just a few key individuals.

These moments tend to be akin to the description of the initial assault during Know No Fear - particularly the shipyard sequence - some of the larger battles, or even moments reserved to cover an entire battle in full. It certainly pulls away from the core of the action, but it's welcome thanks to just how much it fleshes out events. A personal favourite takes place during the retreat from Cadia itself, where several paragraphs are spent outlining the tactics used, fleet formations and the ships Emperor's Wrath and Dominus Victor, both of who suffer a particularly sadistic fate. Plus it gives the book an excuse to show void battles, which is always a bonus in these sorts of stories.

In all honesty, even when the book does become character focused, ways are introduced to make the armies themselves feel important. Their individual regiment names, positions and roles, details which would have otherwise been skipped in most releases, are all put at the forefront of various pages. It might not be much, but it is a reminder that these are armies with a long history behind them rather than mere fodder for the important people. Hell, even when they are being used as fodder, they're given enough dignity to put up a standing fight before going down, such as during Urkanthos' rampage through the Cadian ranks.

Much of the focus here is on the Imperium first and foremost, but oddly enough this actually works here. It helps that the ending makes it very clear that this is a battle which is far from over, and combined with enough awesome Chaotic moments it's enough to define this as their book, with the Traitor Legions' moment in the spotlight to follow later on. Well, that and the fact that the Traitors earn their victory here. This isn't the overdone curb-stomping some people feared, and while it does lean a little too heavily in Chaos' favour at points it's by no means another Mont'Ka. By focusing this upon the losing side and giving them enough moments to shine, and making it clear that this is the start of a new conflict, it sidesteps the old problems which tend to bring about such bad blood. No one feels as if they are losing out, and even when the Imperium is depicted as failing and retreating, there are enough awesome moments to show them putting up a fight.

The book doesn't leave such moments purely down to the characters however, but uses them carefully to help augment each battle. As much as these reviews might have ragged on their presence, it was usually only in books where they dominated what should have been an army's story. Here though? They're a storytelling device, used to push or maneuver the plot about, and to augment the grander elements of the storyline; each working itself deeper into the tale and about the armies involved. So, when the Cadian 8th makes a stand alongside the Sororitas and astartes, that moment still takes precedent, and the character driven battles which follow are more a punctuation mark added onto the end. An exceptional one to be sure - and there is no small amount of satisfaction in seeing Celestine being given the glory she has long deserved - but it is never enough to overwhelm the book.

Perhaps, what is most notable more than anything else, however, is how it weaves the character pieces and larger text together. Past books have usually had some difficulty trying to balance out the small segments written in a manner akin to novels, and the larger overall text. Often it seemed as if a writer had a certain quota to fill by adding in so many ones per book rather than any exact plan, and while Traitor's Hate and a few others had some great scenes, a number of moments still felt out of place. Here though, many have been almost perfectly placed time and time again, often coinciding or expanding upon certain events. While the core story will tell you the essentials to a satisfying degree, and will still provide enough details for you to go by that alone, the character segments add more context to certain scenes. For example, the finale features a major battle between the Vengeful Spirit and an Ark Mechanicus warship, and focuses upon the battle. This initially looks as if it is simply due to their constant hunt for their enemy, but a side text provides more context for this action.

Another particularly great example runs throughout most of the book, following a Dark Angels marine across multiple fronts. Each helps to show more of the battle away from the areas the heroes are focusing upon, along with providing an astartes character in the conflict, but also mitigates the book's limitations. We all know that this is going to be primarily focused upon the Guard, Mechanicus and Sororitas, so having a representative of another army showing up several times in the book helps to give some sense of a larger invasion force. It certainly helps that each of these segments is excellently written, and more often than not they exist as an excerpt of a bigger tale. As such, despite the minimal information, there's enough there to keep you interested and engaged from one moment to the next, even when days or hours are skipped at a time. It's an old trick to be sure, but one we've not seen done this well since the days of Mordheim.

Besides the more story-esque moments of Fall of Cadia, other segments opt to shed light upon the ongoing battles in another manner. For the first time in a very long time we have a few in-universe documents showing up in these books, featured in side columns as Cadia desperately calls for reinforcements. Using them is sadly something of a lost art these days, so to see them showing up here once again is a thing of sheer beauty. Even without the nostalgic kick however, these utterly nail the exact semi-mechanical semi-feudal style of a Servitor is a welcome addition to the atmosphere.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is how the book starts to work with a few old ideas. Having tried and failed to keep people interested with just a direct link from one story to the next, the writers opted to offer multiple hints and threads for potential future plotlines with this one. While we're going to leave most of these to the next book, let's just say that a few unexpected twists are in store for the galaxy. Some very big ones, which could change the expected outcome of the Long War for better or worse.

Unfortunately, there are some very definite problems which plague this book despite their best efforts, which we'll be getting into next.

The Bad

You might recall back during the initial thoughts article that I was worried this book simply wouldn't be large enough to cover the war surrounding Cadia. Specifically, that the actual conflict itself was too vast to properly reflect in any War Zone book, and that it wouldn't be able to cover all the armies involved. Well, unfortunately that is most definitely the case here, and despite the writers' best efforts it doesn't quite pull off the sort of narrative cohesion they were hoping for.

The most obvious issue which will hit you very early on is the fact this isn't showing the entire war. Rather than depicting the fight from beginning to end, Fall of Cadia jumps right to the last few days of the conflict, with Cadia already in ruins and most of its fleet breaking up in orbit. It's jarring at first glance to be sure, as the story rolls right into this event almost expecting the reader to be ready for this, and only an extremely brief explanation covering this fact. It's only made worse given how much the story itself relies upon reader familiarity with Cadia, the Eye of Terror and this big event, and how the explanatory page outlining the build up comes directly before this. So, in effect, what you get is this:

"There's going to be a big, big battle to decide the fate of creation, and we might not survive it. We need everything to stand in these last moments, to fight until their guns run dry and die screaming into the heavens.
...
So, here's the end of that battle right before we lose it!"

In complete fairness, what follows afterwards is solidly written and does do a good job of building up the dread towards this final onslaught, but you'd be forgiven for getting whiplash from the sudden jump. On its own this might be somewhat forgivable, but Fall of Cadia promptly bumps into the next two big problems; with the book trying to simultaneously set-up a vague hint of an incomplete cosmic plan by the Emperor and tie off a rather moronic storyline set up in an entirely different book.

The first is a hint at Saint Celestine, which is extremely vaguely written on her part and seems to suggest she is part of the Emperor's long standing plan. This comes completely out of nowhere with little to no prior establishment, and while it might have worked if the book had bothered to explain anything, what we're left with is a bunch of incredibly vague and infuriating non-answers or hints. A problem for sure given this sort of thing only tends to work if there's more of a definitive answer as it goes along. This goes hand in hand with the problem of seemingly re-writing what little there was about Celestine from the start, and treating her like an entirely new character. An issue which only becomes far, far worse later on as the battle progresses.

The second, and far more eye-rolling issue however, is the inclusion of the Phalanx here. Yes, the Imperial Fists are showing up. Not a bad idea on the whole, and admittedly dropping a stonking great planetoid of guns atop of Abddon's fleet would serve as a solid deterrent to his assaults. However, this isn't just them showing up. No, this is them flying out of control fighting a bunch of daemons within the ship. Yes, apparently Fall of Cadia needed to dignify Sentinels of Terra by acknowledging its existence. Lord only knows why given it was one of those ruelbooks which would do a better job as bonfire fuel than actually developing the game's lore, but there we go. So, what we get is a very rushed explanation of how daemons suddenly arrived on the ship - making no more sense than it did in Sentinels of Terra - before they're abruptly dealt with by the Legion of the Damned. Then, the Phalanx arrives over Cadia having finished its brief jaunt through the Warp.

This event is so blatantly tacked on to help resolve that codex's shoehorned addition that it hurts the book more than helps it. It's just the first of what are likely to be a few big solutions to dangling plot threads we'll be seeing in the books to come, shoved in so the story can move forwards. While the Phalanx itself does have a couple of somewhat useful roles within the overall battle, little is really done with the Imperial Fists. Once again, they really just die a lot before being sidelined to a secondary role away from the story. Yes, apparently we're not done killing the sons of Dorn just yet, so even a company which has only just rebuilt its strength is tossed once more into the meat grinder so other characters can have glory moments. The story doesn't even throw in something which might make sense, like their presence justifying Lysander arriving given he was last seen striking Chaos strongholds on the fringes of the Eye. They just show up and die.

You'll keep running into bits like this throughout the book where certain things are crammed in purely to resolve all questions as fast as humanly possible. Take for example the old looming threat of the Blackstone Fortresses, the giant Warp driven Death Stars capable of soloing planets. Their capture was the whole point of the previous Black Crusade, and something needed to be done quickly to counter why they couldn't just nuke Cadia itself. The answer: The pylons, combined with some vague Imperial tech, can be used to block its main guns. Now, given they're effectively giant Warp rift guns, that's not a bad answer. It's concise, simple and resolves the big problem, but the story then just keeps going.

Partway through, one pylon is damaged, it looks like it could allow the Blackstones to be used, but a certain meddling xenos race promptly pops up and resolves it before leaving again. So, yes, the book had a moment for genuine drama, but took it out back and beat it to death, never to bring it up again. Reincorporation is a big part of any great story, so to have several such potentially game-changing events show up only to be abruptly addressed and never discussed again is just head-scratching. That or perhaps they were thrown in to address old fan arguments, though if this is the case they're certainly ones I have personally never heard of before.

On other occasions, certain secondary events just keep arising without much reasoning at all. It's to the point where you can start to see the gaps in the script where things must have been rushed, with time and space warping for the sake of plot convenience. Take for example Trazyn the Infinite's involvement in all this, who decides to ally with the Imperium out of continence. While he might be a complete bastard of a xenos - and gloriously so - he realises that Chaos is the bigger threat and needs to be taken down, and decides to talk to Archmagos Cawl (the Mechanicus head-honcho of the area) about turning the pylons into weapons against the Eye of Terror.

Now, while some of this is a little suspect, for the most part you can make some sense of it. Both are in a state of desperation with a much bigger evil on their doorstep, so old hatred or contempt being set aside in a rather nicely written conversation is all fine and good. However, when the pylons fire into the Eye, it's apparently akin to openly up a Warp plughole in the bathtub of the universe. With such speed it honestly stops becoming dramatic and suddenly devolves into absolute hilarity, the Eye of Terror begins shrinking light years at a time. Yes, really, it's not even a slow or gradual dissipation, but it just instantly starts falling back in upon itself at such a rate that anyone on Cadia and pick it out in a second.

So, what happens then? All of a sudden Abaddon knows exactly where Cawl is, and shows up to stop him. How does he know? Honestly, your guess is as good as mine, as it's mostly just there to justify steamy character on character combat. Well, that and have the final pylon be destroyed meaning the plughole is suddenly sealed, and Chaos opens up the faucet, allowing the Eye to suddenly engulf the planet. This goes back and forth within just a few pages. Were this delivered via the chapters of a novel it likely would have worked, and the descriptions do give some serious weight to the actions of the characters, but pressed in so close together it just seems rushed.

Again, at various points this sort of thing just keeps happening, where it just seems certain rules of the universe have been briefly lessened or narrative causality hijacks events to streamline things together. One or twice would have been fine and all, but when you run into moments like Inquisitor Greyfax entering a near perpetual bitching contest with Saint Celestine because she thinks she's a heretic (no, sadly that's not something I just made up) it weakens the overall tale.

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