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Wrath of the Lost
A Flesh Tearers Novel
Having secured Baal, the Flesh Tearers receive timely reinforcements from the Indomitus Crusade. In that moment of hope, however, they realise they've not heard from their now isolated homeworld of Cretacia in far too long…
READ IT BECAUSE
The Flesh Tearers are Sanguinius' wrath writ in flesh and blood. Spared extinction thanks to reinforcements from the Indomitus Crusade, they are the vanguard of the Angelic Host, securing Baal and its neighbouring worlds for the Great Angels and the Imperium. Yet in fulfilling their oath to the Lord of the Blood, they have isolated themselves from their homeworld, Cretacia – and there has been no word from the garrison left to hold it.
THE STORY
Ordered by Gabriel Seth to secure Cretacia, Chaplain Dumah and Apothecary Barachial set course for the Flesh Tearers' homeworld. But when they finally lay eyes on it once more, will they find a garrison standing firm, or a desolate wasteland scoured by their enemies? The Space Marines must walk in the footsteps of their chapter's mythic founder, and along the way they will learn what it means to embrace the Wrath of the Lost – or die trying.
Having secured Baal, the Flesh Tearers receive timely reinforcements from the Indomitus Crusade. In that moment of hope, however, they realise they've not heard from their now isolated homeworld of Cretacia in far too long…
READ IT BECAUSE
The Flesh Tearers are Sanguinius' wrath writ in flesh and blood. Spared extinction thanks to reinforcements from the Indomitus Crusade, they are the vanguard of the Angelic Host, securing Baal and its neighbouring worlds for the Great Angels and the Imperium. Yet in fulfilling their oath to the Lord of the Blood, they have isolated themselves from their homeworld, Cretacia – and there has been no word from the garrison left to hold it.
THE STORY
Ordered by Gabriel Seth to secure Cretacia, Chaplain Dumah and Apothecary Barachial set course for the Flesh Tearers' homeworld. But when they finally lay eyes on it once more, will they find a garrison standing firm, or a desolate wasteland scoured by their enemies? The Space Marines must walk in the footsteps of their chapter's mythic founder, and along the way they will learn what it means to embrace the Wrath of the Lost – or die trying.
452 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 14, 2023
23 people are currently reading
135 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
March 13, 2023
This book really missed a trick by not being written solely in all CAPS.
Its like Chris Forrester confused researching the Flesh Tearers with ANGRY MARINE memes.
Page after page of Marines yelling at each other, going out of there way to betray their comrades and engaging in casual MURDER RAGE.
We get it the Flesh Tearers walk a fine line between the nobility of there brothers and outright giving into the Black Rage but here they are just written worse than World Eaters.
That worst thing about this is that the books very well written, action scenes are tight, if slightly revised the characters would have been interesting and their battles against the Thirst/Rage would have been something for a reader to get behind but sadly the characterisation is so far off and the word BLOOD used so much it gets comical.
Its like Chris Forrester confused researching the Flesh Tearers with ANGRY MARINE memes.
Page after page of Marines yelling at each other, going out of there way to betray their comrades and engaging in casual MURDER RAGE.
We get it the Flesh Tearers walk a fine line between the nobility of there brothers and outright giving into the Black Rage but here they are just written worse than World Eaters.
That worst thing about this is that the books very well written, action scenes are tight, if slightly revised the characters would have been interesting and their battles against the Thirst/Rage would have been something for a reader to get behind but sadly the characterisation is so far off and the word BLOOD used so much it gets comical.
January 5, 2025
[DNF] 1/3 of the book done.
This is by far one of the worst Warhammer books I've ever read.
It has several issues:
1. The writing is uninteresting and repetitive. At some points you just read the same sentence over and over again but in different paragraphs. This is further amplified by convoluted language that attempts to make the book sound more grim, dark and epic but in reality just makes it a slog to read through.
2. The characters themselves are bland. Both the main characters are just always angry and always stupid. Every conversation becomes derailed by violence and a screaming fit of a toddler. It makes it seem like a conversation between kindergarten enemies.
3. Treatment of spacemarines - They are just so stupidly weak. The writer treats them like dumb cannon fodder that die from stray bullets. It destroys the fantasy of a super soldier and replaces it with a ravening animal.
4. The so called "good guys" are written as worse than the actual classic "bad guys" in the warhammer setting.
In conclusion:
It does no justice both to the franchise lore books in general.
Just skip it.
This is by far one of the worst Warhammer books I've ever read.
It has several issues:
1. The writing is uninteresting and repetitive. At some points you just read the same sentence over and over again but in different paragraphs. This is further amplified by convoluted language that attempts to make the book sound more grim, dark and epic but in reality just makes it a slog to read through.
2. The characters themselves are bland. Both the main characters are just always angry and always stupid. Every conversation becomes derailed by violence and a screaming fit of a toddler. It makes it seem like a conversation between kindergarten enemies.
3. Treatment of spacemarines - They are just so stupidly weak. The writer treats them like dumb cannon fodder that die from stray bullets. It destroys the fantasy of a super soldier and replaces it with a ravening animal.
4. The so called "good guys" are written as worse than the actual classic "bad guys" in the warhammer setting.
In conclusion:
It does no justice both to the franchise lore books in general.
Just skip it.
July 26, 2023
The flesh tearers are one of the few loyalist chapters i actually enjoy but this book aint it. There are world eaters who are more coherent than the characters in this book.
October 29, 2023
I went into this book with knowledge of some of the observations made by other readers but I was ok with grimnes, with violence and with brutality driven bolter porn I was not ok however with whatever this is.
The setup of wrath of the lost is promising, having replenished the eternally undermanned flesh tearers chapter, the new primaris marines of the chapter face difficulties integrating into the old chapter. A chaplain and an apothecary marine take on role of shared lead character, both of whom fulfill critical roles in the blood marine successor chapters. Given a mission to take the fourth company back to the flesh tearer homeworld, reoccupy it and make ready the home base for further operations.
The problem however is that both chaplain Dumah and apothecary Barachiel are insufferable. Now to be fair I don't like chaplains as figures and have never read a chaplain I would like, they are notoriously difficult to write in any relatable and fun way given their stern mind set and zelous nature. But Dumah is especially insufferable and as a character is obsessing about two things, first making Barachiel's life miserable and second having his own death company. Barachiel on the other hand was for a while what made me keep on reading. I genuinely love apothecary marines but halass what goodwill he had he lost over half the book length, He wants to cure the blood marine curse of the black rage... like we know he is not going to do that right? It is such an integral part of the blood angel successors that to mess with that would be insane from a games workshop lore perspective. But he keeps droning on and on and on about it and whole sections of the book are devoted to him and Dumah just having the same fights over and over again, about the curse, about the death company about who's in charge, what is the point of the mission, back to the curse it goes on and on and on.
The story itself can be dived in three pillars. First a crossing the divide segment aka lets make the flesh tearers gruesome. I genuinly want to know if this is to be considered canon for these marines. Because ehmm yeah the border with heresy is really thin here people. More akin to the old revenant legion then anything else and these are supposed to be the improved Primaris marines? This descend in the red thirst madness too got old after a while. Secondly, the fight with the genestealers, pure filler you could cut that out and simply have the leadership issue start for a far simpler reason. But this does bring me to another big issue with the book. How weak are these marines? They die so freaking easy it is quite laughable and takes away all the tension and fun of reading about space marines. The attempt to make tension about how few there are left just made me say out loud, "yeah not shit they seem to die from stuff other marines get a bad migraine from). How any of them would ever make it past Ten year in service is a mystery..... These guys were underpowered for the plot, they had plot fake armor or something. Lastly there is the what happend the homeworld segment, at this point I was going on fumes and I can't really comment to deep on this. Do they explain where those death company marines came from? I don't recall neither do I recall the fight with the traitor marine as I was distracted with the lackluster conclusion of Barachiel's quest.
Despite a decent amount of goodwill at the start, wrath of the lost is just a bad warhammer book. It has excess fat that needed to be trimmed, it has shockingly weak space marines whose actions I cared little for after the halfway point and whose conclusion I could not be bothered with anymore. Avoid I say.
The setup of wrath of the lost is promising, having replenished the eternally undermanned flesh tearers chapter, the new primaris marines of the chapter face difficulties integrating into the old chapter. A chaplain and an apothecary marine take on role of shared lead character, both of whom fulfill critical roles in the blood marine successor chapters. Given a mission to take the fourth company back to the flesh tearer homeworld, reoccupy it and make ready the home base for further operations.
The problem however is that both chaplain Dumah and apothecary Barachiel are insufferable. Now to be fair I don't like chaplains as figures and have never read a chaplain I would like, they are notoriously difficult to write in any relatable and fun way given their stern mind set and zelous nature. But Dumah is especially insufferable and as a character is obsessing about two things, first making Barachiel's life miserable and second having his own death company. Barachiel on the other hand was for a while what made me keep on reading. I genuinely love apothecary marines but halass what goodwill he had he lost over half the book length, He wants to cure the blood marine curse of the black rage... like we know he is not going to do that right? It is such an integral part of the blood angel successors that to mess with that would be insane from a games workshop lore perspective. But he keeps droning on and on and on about it and whole sections of the book are devoted to him and Dumah just having the same fights over and over again, about the curse, about the death company about who's in charge, what is the point of the mission, back to the curse it goes on and on and on.
The story itself can be dived in three pillars. First a crossing the divide segment aka lets make the flesh tearers gruesome. I genuinly want to know if this is to be considered canon for these marines. Because ehmm yeah the border with heresy is really thin here people. More akin to the old revenant legion then anything else and these are supposed to be the improved Primaris marines? This descend in the red thirst madness too got old after a while. Secondly, the fight with the genestealers, pure filler you could cut that out and simply have the leadership issue start for a far simpler reason. But this does bring me to another big issue with the book. How weak are these marines? They die so freaking easy it is quite laughable and takes away all the tension and fun of reading about space marines. The attempt to make tension about how few there are left just made me say out loud, "yeah not shit they seem to die from stuff other marines get a bad migraine from). How any of them would ever make it past Ten year in service is a mystery..... These guys were underpowered for the plot, they had plot fake armor or something. Lastly there is the what happend the homeworld segment, at this point I was going on fumes and I can't really comment to deep on this. Do they explain where those death company marines came from? I don't recall neither do I recall the fight with the traitor marine as I was distracted with the lackluster conclusion of Barachiel's quest.
Despite a decent amount of goodwill at the start, wrath of the lost is just a bad warhammer book. It has excess fat that needed to be trimmed, it has shockingly weak space marines whose actions I cared little for after the halfway point and whose conclusion I could not be bothered with anymore. Avoid I say.
January 23, 2023
One of the most popular words used in "Wrath of the Lost" are:
Blood (600 times)
Rage (195 times)
Death (189 times)
Wrath (158 times)
Kill (158 times)
Skull (157 times)
Fury (120 times)
Roar (112 times)
Assault (79 times)
Slaughter (58 times)
The book has some great moments but most of the time it's angry Flesh Tearers barely trying to control or failing to control their anger. Also the legendary Crimson Plate is used in a very controversial way.
+ Primaris Astartes use a Drop Pod in "Wrath of the Lost". If they can do it, why 40k players can't deploy Primaris in Drop Pods during 40k games? The rules don't allow it in all editions of 40k since the Primaris line launched.
Blood (600 times)
Rage (195 times)
Death (189 times)
Wrath (158 times)
Kill (158 times)
Skull (157 times)
Fury (120 times)
Roar (112 times)
Assault (79 times)
Slaughter (58 times)
The book has some great moments but most of the time it's angry Flesh Tearers barely trying to control or failing to control their anger. Also the legendary Crimson Plate is used in a very controversial way.
+ Primaris Astartes use a Drop Pod in "Wrath of the Lost". If they can do it, why 40k players can't deploy Primaris in Drop Pods during 40k games? The rules don't allow it in all editions of 40k since the Primaris line launched.
February 16, 2023
It was a save late in the game. The book begins with a lot of bickering and flailing about which makes the Flesh Tearers look less reasonable and focused than World Eaters. The overused trope of "character imagines violently butchering others and barely manages to restrain themselves" is basically all the character development. The final quarter of the story picks up in all respects: writing, details and revelations.
After the spotlight on Amit in Echoes of Eternity, I expected more new information but in the end I enjoyed Wrath of the Lost as a whole.
After the spotlight on Amit in Echoes of Eternity, I expected more new information but in the end I enjoyed Wrath of the Lost as a whole.
December 20, 2025
I'm seeing a fair amount of people dunking on this one, but honestly I thought it was quite good. The actual plot, and the resolution were interesting, and I thought the characters compelling in their way.
I think where it really missed the mark was just how long Act 2 drags out, and just how weird some of the chapters open. It'll go from one character doing one thing, then randomly pivot to a random insurrection that just isn't interesting to read.
Overall a decent book and better than most of the slop titles in this franchise.
I think where it really missed the mark was just how long Act 2 drags out, and just how weird some of the chapters open. It'll go from one character doing one thing, then randomly pivot to a random insurrection that just isn't interesting to read.
Overall a decent book and better than most of the slop titles in this franchise.
July 12, 2024
This feels like it should have been a novella. There's just so much filler. I lost count of how many times a Flesh Tearer descended into the Red Thirst or almost fell to the Black Rage and scared or killed a chapter serf because of it.
The two main characters (Dumah and Barachiel) are both profoundly unlikable. That isn't necessarily a problem, anti-heroes are a thing, but they're written in a way that makes it hard to care about their struggles.
The two main characters (Dumah and Barachiel) are both profoundly unlikable. That isn't necessarily a problem, anti-heroes are a thing, but they're written in a way that makes it hard to care about their struggles.
August 20, 2023
That was an absolutely savage and unflinching look into the Flesh Tearers. The novel shows how how violent and uncaring space marines can be when dealing with human beings. It’s kinda long. Also, the characters are appropriately anti-heroes and not very sympathetic. The Imperium and this chapter are NOT the ‘good guys’. It’s Warhammer; grow up.
November 30, 2023
Some okay stuff in part 1. I always enjoy the first born/primaris interactions. Falls apart pretty quickly afterwards. The GSC section is meaningless. Retreads ground we have seen a million times before. Give it a miss!
August 5, 2023
Entretenido. Pero ya al final termino fastidiándome un poco.
February 26, 2024
God awful.
Read
October 21, 2024Just... not an interesting character in sight. DNF.
February 25, 2025
The Black Rage is the unavoidable fate for all sons of Sanguinius. Only In this state can one experience their father's wrath in his final hours in its purest form. By the blood...absolution.
August 29, 2025
Fun for the lore it contains but it's mostly angry edgy bolter porn. A slog to get through.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews