Blades of Damocles

Space Marine Battles: Warhammer 40,000

By: Phil Kelly

Narrated by: John Banks

Length: 11 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

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.

Enjoying every moment from both sides of the war

I'm still fairly new to Warhammer 40k lore. As a Tau player, I enjoyed the combat between the imperium and the various forces of the Tau. The battlesuit combat was described in an excellent manner. Hats off to John Banks for the excellent narration and to Phil Kelly for the material itself.

On to the next book, For the Greater Good!

Farsight and the Ultramarines 8th Company

A well written book showing the perspectives of the Tau Empire and the Imperium of Man that takes place during the final months of the Damocles Crusade with interesting characters and heroes that develop well during the course of the story. This is a good audiobook to listen to. Overall I give this a 4.9 out of 5 if I could. Sometimes the accents / character voices do not stay consistent. The only complaint I have.

The Tau are definitely aliens

The author was able to make the Tau have enough differences in their speech, behaviors, and small actions to be distinctly alien but still totally relatable. It's really cool to read something like that.

pretty good

Barely getting into 40k and the Tau are the only faction that really interested me so this book was the perfect thing to start me off on my 40k journey :)

Incredible

this was a very enjoyable story. plenty of action and great insight into the Tau Empire.