The Return of Karlsen

[bfmusashi]

On page 229 of the Big Rule Book there's a vignette staring Brother Captain Karlsen. On the surface it's not a big deal but it is a reprint of one of the greatest battle reports of my wee hobby life. It was from a game of Space Marine (epic 40k) told from the perspective of a Thousand Sons Legionary. In the battle they were lead by Magnus ('cause the primarchs didn't always just sit on their thumbs) in 'person' taking on Blood Angels and a Titan Legion and would periodically describe what was happening to the Thousand Sons forces during the battle. He shows up again later describing the rituals the Thousand Sons use to deal with having a millennia of memories in their heads.
This is kind of a big deal to me, even if they erased any mention of his affiliation from the story as it reminds me of a time the Imperium truly seemed doomed. Not because the Imperium was beset by myriad threats, or was a calcified husk and parody of a government, but because Magnus the Red and a large scale Chaos invasion was a regular occurrence. This was Tuesday in the Imperium and was likely viewed as a snow day by the kids. I kind of miss this attitude, where the grim dark isn't a brooding place but made of *****ing guitar riffs. A canvas for awesome to happen.
I think this may be why I cut Ward some slack. In exchange for sloppy writing and some bizarre ideas about the value of being internally consistent I get codexs that throw reason out the window. It's Real Ultimate Power all the time. And that's what 40k is, it's a universe that makes little sense and can not survive any kind of scrutiny beyond the Rule of Awesome and the Check of Rad.
I celebrate the return of Karlsen and I hope it represents a return of tone. With the Chaos Space Marine codex around the corner I can only hope they embrace the loud, discordant, jerk store nature of Chaos Marines: their hate and desire to make the world burn instead of their contempt of metal boxes and their impotent sobbing at losing their shrines.

[Xenith]

I totally agree, it made me so happy reading that:

I saw 'Karlsen' and thought "that's familiar"...then 'metal tentacles' cranked it right up to awesome. Was that whole excerpt from an actual battle report?

I have only read the memories part, where he is staring at Terra (was it?) from his cruiser.

[bfmusashi]

Aye, it was. If memory serves that Warhound blew up in the last turn taking out the Blood Angels Devastator Company. In an earlier excerpt Karlsen watchs a compatriot with a mutation that mirrored his primarch's take a round and go down. He notes this is a bad omen, and it proves true until the final turn when everything goes horribly awry for the forces of order. He also mentioned that it wouldn't keep him down for long implying they were bound in eternal service to Tzeentch. The later bit on memories just showed up in a White Dwarf later. I was hoping he'd get Felix and Gotrek'd up into a model after reading that but instead he's just a dust filled suit of armor now

[JamesP]

That was a great era for Epic battle reports, there was that Chaos/Blood Angels one, Eldar vs. Guard (with the obligatory Thunderhawk full of marines to take out their deathspinners) and, my personal favourite, Yarrick & Squats vs Ghazghkull's Orks on Golgotha.

I think Karlsen was a Bill King creation - at least, there's a post on Matt Farrer's blog to that effect. Great to see him back.