We All Died At Hill 937: A Warhammer 40k Story

Self-Published

Community Rating

Description

Cadet Commissar Karl Waino wanted to be a war hero. After years of schooling, he finally got his chance on the planet Banshee, attached to an Imperial Guard regiment to prove he had what it took to lead men into battle. What started as a simple reconnaissance mission becomes the ultimate fight for survival as Karl Waino learns just how horrible war is in the 41st millennium.

Information

Status: Completed
Year: 2023
Author: Majorian

Royal Road Stats

Rating: 4.8/ 5.0
Followers: 122
Views: 15,584

Chapters(8 total)

Reviews

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Community Reviews(4)

Frozen Over The MoonRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
God, where the hell do I even start with this? I'll be honest, this was a review swap. As fellow authors, we agreed to review each other's works.
However, I found myself so completely engrossed in the story that I forgot what my purpose was when reading this! Yes, I do have a bias because I love Warhammer 40k, but Majorian's way of telling a story is so well done!
From the start till the end, the story knew its purpose and delivered it solidly. There is nothing about this that I can say is wrong or needs to be changed. From the words he uses to the descriptions of the combat, Majorian knows his stuff when it comes to 40k Lore! You can just tell how well-researched and articulated he is through the pages! He held immense respect for the source material and delivered something great.
All the characters felt real in their motivation, way of speech, and their desires, hopes, and dreams. By the end, I grew attached to every one of them, as if I was fighting alongside them as a fellow Vanquisher.
Honestly, I don't even feel like calling this fanfiction, because it certainly shouldn't be categorized with other fanfics I have read (which were absolutely garbage). This reads more like an official side-story Games Workshop Group cooked up.
As for the negatives, I did see a few grammatical and spelling mistakes here and there in the later chapters, but this does not really take away from the actual story in any way!
Overall, a 5/5 stars from me. Some may say this score was biased due to it being a review swap, I say screw you and your dumb opinion. Read the damn thing and you will also think the same as me. You don't even have to be a 40k fan to enjoy this, he has made it understandable enough that even someone unfamiliar with the lore can pick it up easily.
Also, Majorian, make a damn sequel, or else im sending a Slaneshi psyker to torture you in your sleep.
IDontKnowItRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
Here is my honest review. It’s a short novel which could probably use a bit of polishing, but it doesn’t really need it. It’s a story about the guard and it’s built like one too. The story is tight, sharp and to the point, there isn’t too much fat on it and in the end it will win you over with it’s grit and personality. A great novel and I look forwards to seeing more by this writer.
Mithradates EupatorRoyal Road
★★★★★ 5.0
++56/vi mu(µ) 3 DESPATCH VIA LOGIS ASTROPATH ++ Encryption: Hyacinth ++
PRE NOTAM AD COMPLETIO: Previous missives on this subject matter have been terminated. Internal cause pertaining to suspicion of inappropriate intoxication on duty, and have been dealt with according to Prefectum Art.0844/76b
BYWORD OF THE DAY: Long and arduous is the path of the true believer, never fall into temptation to stray from temperance; that way is the causeway of heresy.
AD: Commissar-General Theofania Sabbatine van Tirellian af Helixia
APUD: Inquisitor Lord Araldus Andradon
++LOGIS TEXT BEGINS++
By the benevolent grace of the immortal and most sacred God of the Holy Throne of Terra, hail.
Examinations of the battlegrounds termed by Astra Militarum logis devices as "HILL 937" have been completed, and has returned unsatisfactorily. Ergo, much emphasis has instead been placed on the most senior Imperial officer present, one (at the time [DATE REDACTED]) Officio Prefectum Cadet Weino, K.
Commissar-Cadet (using the linguistic shorthand of the commonly deployed Astra Militarum soldiery) Karl Weino has been instrumental in the uncovering of [REDACTED] cult operations on the world of Banshee in the [REDACTED] system of sub-sector of Elytheira, Segmentum Ultima.
Immediately Cadet Weino makes his attempts to ingratiate himself with the troops under his command, but in several cases, he manages to undermine his own authority by claiming he is "merely" a cadet officer of the Prefectus, instilling the idea in the common soldiery that he has no authority over them. This might have been a very clever idea to make the average lasmen inconsiderate towards him, making him able to much more effectively invoke articles 3645/67k and 4710/13h.
Cadet Waino, embedded into a regiment dressed and indoctrinated according to the Cadian tradition (Hail Stalwart Cadia, that most noble and saintly of worlds, who stood against the Arch-Traitor and His legions), was made to lodge with a full rifle company of the Fae
Triangle TollRoyal Road
★★★★ 3.5
We All Died At Hill 937 does indeed have a face of true Imperial Guardsman. Stout, expendable and forgettable. Not exactly what you'd want from a gritty war story with quite a catchy name. Let's debrief this exercise in wordplay, shall we?
The story holds itself together on surface level, but right under it there's one of the causes why it doesn't exactly connect. We are watching it all through the lens of a soon-to-be Commissar, too young to lead men into their last bayonet charge. This move immediately shoots the story in the foot since it strips him of almost all agency a protagonist could really use. You won't find lots of tough calls with harsh consequences within. Instead, there's gritting one's teeth and enduring whatever happens to just happen through the course of eight chapters. Passive, reactive protagonists make weak plot structures since all the major turns need to be delivered externally.
The exact style of this novel is hard to pinpoint because of its lack of focus on anything. Staple Warhammer elements give way to a generic Vietnam war feeling. Frequent POV rotations want to paint the fight as something personal to everyone, but in the span of 25k words such depth can't possibly be achieved. Shifting the focus away from Cadet-Commissar therefore spreads it too thin across the entire cast and works to the novel's detriment.
I also want to give a mention to the depiction of the Archenemy. Making the cultists so verbose was a mistake in my opinion. It does nothing but take away from their supposed twisted nature and make them look like your default horror asylum patients. Among the Chaos Gods, the Dark Prince is the one who'd be the most inclined to show, not tell. Abandon your faith and heed the writing advice from She Who Thirsts.
The main qualm with characters that I have is that there's too many of them. It's the continuation of the focus problem I mentioned before. By trimming the cast even a little, one could have given more proverbial screentime