Blades of Damocles

Space Marine Battles: Warhammer 40,000

By: Phil Kelly

Narrated by: John Banks

It is the 41st millennium, and an upstart alien empire has emerged on the Eastern Fringe. After a few skirmishes to retake human worlds from these blue-skinned invaders, the time has come to strike against the so-called Tau Empire.

At the forefront of the Damocles Crusade stand the Ultramarines, commanded by Captain Atheus, the Chapter's Lord Executioner. With his loyal sergeants Numitor and Sicarius by his side, Atheus vows to exterminate the aliens...but the cunning xenos commanders, Farsight and Shadowsun, have other plans.

©2016 Games Workshop Limited (P)2016 Games Workshop Limited

great SM vs tau battle book

The book with the well-memed cato sicarius curb-stop story.
Lots of SM vs tau action.
the voice actor does a great job. 10/10.

Decent book with some questionable choices

The book is good and John Banks has a nice voice most of the time, but he gives all the Tau a stereotypical Japanese accent which is irritating because while the Tau (and Farsight in particular) are somewhat based on samurai that doesn’t justify making half of the characters in the book have annoying and vaguely racist sounding voices. The volume also seems to change slightly throughout the book so be prepared to be adjusting your volume constantly.

Amazing reading but the plot shield

The voice acting for this book was awesome a performance that was clean and on point from start to finish.
The main weakness was the plot shield for tge main characters. Now you know that main characters live through the impossible but when this point is made pointed out time after time it stops veing impossible and just annoying, the characters are saved by a thousand last second saves, miracles, and random one shots. This can be done well but in this case it seems just lazy on the writters part.
The rest of the story was fun though seeing each sude adapt to the other. The advanced tech of thr Tau put against the ancient Tech of Mankind makes for some really great battles.

Enjoyable sci-fi

Always enjoyed a story about my man Farsight, Well narrated and well constructed story telling.

Good Entry Point for 40k newcomers

First book for 40k I've read. Enjoyed it a lot. Requires only the barest of background info to be know (What 40k is, what the Imperium of Man is, what Space Marines are, type of thing) but explains most of what you need.