Damocles: Warhammer 40,000

Space Marine Battles

By: Phil Kelly, Guy Haley, Ben Counter, Josh Reynolds

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Length: 15 hrs and 5 mins

Publisher's Summary

Two centuries ago, the Imperium of Man and the upstart Tau Empire fought to a standstill in the Damocles Gulf.

Now, as the 41st millennium draws to a close, the tau have returned. As the world of Agrellan falls under attack, the White Scars and Raven Guard rush to its defence, but with the skilled Commander Shadowsun leading the alien forces, the Space Marines and their allies are hard pressed. Kor'sarro Khan, Huntmaster of the White Scars, swears that he will win the day in the most direct way possible - by taking Shadowsun's head.

©2014 Games Workshop Limited (P)2014 Games Workshop Limited

I love the Tau but...

A few spoilers ahead.

Overall it was good. The narrator is really good, but some of the story was... not right. Not in a canon way, I'm not a 40K expert. But like why where the tau constantly caught in close combat? Why did the 2 war leaders constantly fall for each other's traps when they knew each other were always setting traps? Why did shadowsun seem incompetent when she's the leader of the entire 3rd sphere expansion?

I get that there would not be much to write about if the tau did what they do and just smear the enemy from a mile away, but everyone just seemed incompetent at times and it took a lot away from an otherwise great few stories.

Audio is low

They have great stories but the audio is very low I wish they had it turned up a bit

Unbearably bad "chinese" accent for the Tau

The reader decided to do an awful chinese accent for the Tau and I cannot listen to this. It's causing me near physical pain to listen to it.

Pretty Decent

White scars were portrayed as more inept, which got on my nerves, but good book.

Good book, with some minor flaws

Good book, but it's a Warhammer book so don't expect a moving masterpiece, but a fun romp, action, and some solid lore. The story with the imperial guard does stand up insanely well to Warhammer standards, and stands up well to traditional sci fi as well.

The voice performance on this book is good, but is a little jarring at first due to the Asian accent the narrator puts on, it makes sense with the Tau though. It was a little bit confusing, however, since he puts in the same accent for several of the space marine chapters, with variations in them. So initially, it's hard to tell which race is talking.

But if you're into Warhammer, or Tau, or just want a solid but light action novel, definitely give this a try.

Very fun. excellent narrator. No foul language.

A very fun , fast paced intro to the 40k world. For the Greater Good!

Audio bad.

Audio is so bad that I couldn't even here at full volume. Wasted money and am disappointed.

3 out of 4 Ain't Bad

After finishing Blade of Damocles, I picked this up for more. These stories take place 200 or so years later. I really enjoyed the first 3 books. 4th was okay. I never engaged with it much and it follows much of the same story already been told earlier. Jonathan Keeble as always was awesome. Over all, would recommend to anyone who read Blade and enjoyed it.

narration is just all around horrible.

the different voices were honestly annoying. usually I like that but combined with the childish dialog it was awful and I have enjoyed others books by the same authors and narrators.

Overall good, some stories better than others.

So broken down into its 4 parts I would give:
1 White scars vs Shadowsun: 4 stars
2 Human soldier turned Tau: 5 stars
3 Ultramarines & Jade Dragons: 3 stars
4 White Scars vs Shadowsun pt 2: 3-4 stars

Part one reads like some anime fight scenes, Pretty engaging.

Two I found the most interesting as it gives human perspective on Tau culture.

Three I was bored with the whole story line.

Four was decent, but the white scars seemed somewhat incompetent. Some action was just generally described and I had a hard time understanding exactly how many troops were involved. Most of the time it felt like 3 marines vs a battle suit as far as scale. The ending was good, though.

The audio quality was low, and I generally had to listen with volume all the way up.

Keeble does a good job being the voice of 40K as always. The problem I have is when both the white scars and tau are East Asian inspired, there’s only so many voices you can do and most of the characters sound the same. I feel like he should have just not committed to a certain accent so he could have given more characters distinct voices.

a good story, but the voices are painful

Just straight up racist. Every variation of the White Scars and Tau characters voices are just different flavours of lazy racist accents by a white man , disappointing.

not great

series of short stories, well read but the plots are a bit pants. save your credit for something else!

This is what Warhammer 40k should be

Brilliant work by Keeble and the authors. This was a better time in 40k fiction. No pandering to Twitter ghouls, no awkward romance subplots, no current-day politics.

5*

Great insight of the war

Several different perspectives of the war in the Damocles. And several surprises that catch you off guard to entertain you. The rivalry between Shadow Sun and the white scars captain is great with mutual respect for one another. The idea of friendship between them is nice and I hope for a future book of them teaming up to fight.

Tau fans will like this

As a fan of the Tau, I have to say, this is an enjoyable book. Although I wished they cover more on the Tau action in the latter part of the book, it was still nevertheless still good.

I also find some of the latter actions a tad favouritism towards the Space Maries, even though they took more casualty. I do not see how a super tech suit and tech can be outgunned so easy sometimes, plus no way will a SM get in range of a Tau suit.

All in all, I will give it a 3 star because of how I feel there was favouritism towards the SM even though this is more a Tau story.

Too quiet

The story is great but needs a sound engineer to turn the volume up so you can hear properly

Some gems, some decent.

Tau voice acting overall was subpar, as was that of the white scars. Very generic 'asian' . The View of tau empire from within was very interesting, particularly the tale of the human auxilliary. Lots of bolter porn, some of it done well.

For the Tau'va

If you want to learn more about the Tau start here. Broken Sword is an amazing insight into the world of the Tau Empire.

Difficult listen

Guy Haley and Ben Counters contributions are very good other two mediocre at best

Volume low

The volume of the item is too low to listen to while driving. Even with the phone at max volume.