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Nightfane
Arriving at a seemingly abandoned underwater rigging station on the moon of Bael, Aeonid Thiel and the Red-Marked discover a plot to devastate the 500 Worlds… Can they stop it in time?
After the war to save Ultramar from the traitor hosts of Horus ended, formerly disgraced Ultramarines Sergeant Aenoid Thiel believes that enemies still linger within the borders of the empire. Finding other men of purpose, fellow Space Marines known as the ‘Red-Marked’, Thiel wages a guerrilla war to root out these enemies and vanquish them for good. Following the threads of a previous mission, the Red-Marked arrive on the moon of Bael. There they find an underwater rigging station that has seemingly been abandoned. But this place and its secrets could hold the key to the so-called ‘Nightfane’, a mysterious plot intended to bring about the destruction of Ultramar and only Thiel and his men can stop it.
Written by Nick Kyme. Running time 1 hour and 13 minutes. Performed by Annie Aldington, Tom Alexander, Gareth Armstrong, John Banks, Steve Conlin, Andrew Fettes, Matthew Hunt, Jonathan Keeble, Gesella Ohaka & Richard Reed.
After the war to save Ultramar from the traitor hosts of Horus ended, formerly disgraced Ultramarines Sergeant Aenoid Thiel believes that enemies still linger within the borders of the empire. Finding other men of purpose, fellow Space Marines known as the ‘Red-Marked’, Thiel wages a guerrilla war to root out these enemies and vanquish them for good. Following the threads of a previous mission, the Red-Marked arrive on the moon of Bael. There they find an underwater rigging station that has seemingly been abandoned. But this place and its secrets could hold the key to the so-called ‘Nightfane’, a mysterious plot intended to bring about the destruction of Ultramar and only Thiel and his men can stop it.
Written by Nick Kyme. Running time 1 hour and 13 minutes. Performed by Annie Aldington, Tom Alexander, Gareth Armstrong, John Banks, Steve Conlin, Andrew Fettes, Matthew Hunt, Jonathan Keeble, Gesella Ohaka & Richard Reed.
Audiobook
Published January 12, 2019
About the author
Nick Kyme
284 books168 followersNick Kyme (b. 1977) writes mostly for Black Library. His credits include the popular Salamanders series and several audio dramas.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 23, 2023
I have real mixed feelings about this one.
The good:
It's a sublime full cast production with wonderful direction and restrained sound effects, at least compared to the ludicrous and extremity of other audio dramas.
The script is great and something a big different for a Kyme Thiel story, which is refreshing.
A nice, little contained story that could for the most part be just a 40K story, aside from the Red-Marked and Thiel, and the whole Nightfane premise.
The not so good:
The story is a little messy and disjointed, from the how's and whys of the mission to the narrative and events around it.
Apothecary reading very obvious Chaos shit out loud after having been fighting the Word Bearers for years now.
Nightfane itself. It's not fully explained what's going on. With the infiltration and corruption of the Ultramarines wounded, but the story is bookended with pseudoscience that amounts to calling it 'fucked up PTSD'. As extremely neurodivergent person with C-PTSD, this hit close to home and highlighted that, while it's absolutely possible to go some amazing cosmic horror and pyschic/ mental/ physical corruption from Chaos, it's very easy to get into ableism and other icks. This certainly isn't the worst and isn’t outright offensive, but it does make the harmful and unhelpful mistake of using real medical conditions as a basis and direct comparison. Their needs to be a clear delineation between how existing medical conditions and experiences are treated with how the interest with/ and fictional magical maladies. This has long been an issue with eldritch horror and certainly isn't unique to Warhammer.
I really had a good time with this one and I really wanted to rate this higher, but the PTSD thing really took me out of it and made me view the messy storytelling a bit more honestly. The performanced and production are absolutely banging though.
I will also say that I listened to this as part of the Treachery and Betrayal collection, which I had taken a big pauss in my listen through because I think they really made a mistake of having all the Kyme/ Thiel stories back to back, especially as their quality and my own personal enjoyment of them vacillates wildly (I honestly cannot explain why the extremely short one of Thiel and Guilliman just chatting about strategy that is setting up the writing it the Codex Astartes is my favourite, it's just written and performed so well and is such a tight story and production), but this was a decent way to wrap this mini series up at least.
The good:
It's a sublime full cast production with wonderful direction and restrained sound effects, at least compared to the ludicrous and extremity of other audio dramas.
The script is great and something a big different for a Kyme Thiel story, which is refreshing.
A nice, little contained story that could for the most part be just a 40K story, aside from the Red-Marked and Thiel, and the whole Nightfane premise.
The not so good:
The story is a little messy and disjointed, from the how's and whys of the mission to the narrative and events around it.
Apothecary reading very obvious Chaos shit out loud after having been fighting the Word Bearers for years now.
Nightfane itself. It's not fully explained what's going on. With the infiltration and corruption of the Ultramarines wounded, but the story is bookended with pseudoscience that amounts to calling it 'fucked up PTSD'. As extremely neurodivergent person with C-PTSD, this hit close to home and highlighted that, while it's absolutely possible to go some amazing cosmic horror and pyschic/ mental/ physical corruption from Chaos, it's very easy to get into ableism and other icks. This certainly isn't the worst and isn’t outright offensive, but it does make the harmful and unhelpful mistake of using real medical conditions as a basis and direct comparison. Their needs to be a clear delineation between how existing medical conditions and experiences are treated with how the interest with/ and fictional magical maladies. This has long been an issue with eldritch horror and certainly isn't unique to Warhammer.
I really had a good time with this one and I really wanted to rate this higher, but the PTSD thing really took me out of it and made me view the messy storytelling a bit more honestly. The performanced and production are absolutely banging though.
I will also say that I listened to this as part of the Treachery and Betrayal collection, which I had taken a big pauss in my listen through because I think they really made a mistake of having all the Kyme/ Thiel stories back to back, especially as their quality and my own personal enjoyment of them vacillates wildly (I honestly cannot explain why the extremely short one of Thiel and Guilliman just chatting about strategy that is setting up the writing it the Codex Astartes is my favourite, it's just written and performed so well and is such a tight story and production), but this was a decent way to wrap this mini series up at least.
February 25, 2020
This was a good short story and the audio drama (how I read the book) was well produced, and it effectively highlighted the potential grim dark corners of this universe. Some of the story felt a little over the top with the depictions of gore/horror but overall a very good story about the Ultramarines and especially the "red marked" marines.
August 1, 2025
Following the events of the short story “Red-Marked”, Sergeant Thiel and his Ultramarines are hunting down the traitor remnant in the 500 worlds of Ultramar. But could there be a traitor among their ranks?
I really enjoyed the voice performance of this audio drama. Exciting and action-packed. I was absorbed by it.
I really enjoyed the voice performance of this audio drama. Exciting and action-packed. I was absorbed by it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews