If there’s anything that Warhammer’s Storyforge team is good for, it’s their ability to take a small tidbit of a story, and zoom in like it’s a picture on a cell phone. They’ve proven it during Hammer and Bolter, as well as Interrogator. This new look into a different part of the Grim Dark Future of the 41st Millennium gives an entirely brand new look into things.
I would never describe myself as a Warhammer lore librarian. I’m still very ignorant to the ins and outs of a lot of what’s been going on throughout the 35 years of lore. From experience, if you think Star Wars has an expansive lore catalog, do not pick up Warhammer. That said, the great thing about Warhammer, just like the greatest space opera of all time, you can pick a moment and location, and just start writing. More than likely, it’s canon or fits right inside the canon.
And that’s where we find ourselves in Iron Within, the latest feature from Warhammer Studios and Storyforge. We have nameless battle #394584235 between Drukhari raiders and the remnants of the Astra Militarum force defending this planet. The governor of the planet is a coward, and was letting the Drukhari ransack the planet so he can live. The priest let everyone who was left know of an old ritual that was going to call back the “angels of death” that would help in humanity’s darkest hour. The governor was killed, and the priest got to work trying to get the saviors to the planet.
However, this day was the day to play the worst game of “fuck around and find out,” because what the Astra Militarum remnants got were definitely Space Marines. However, they were not the Blood Angels, nor were they the Dark Angels. What they got were one of the original 20 legions of the Chaos Space Marines, the Iron Warriors. And god damn, did the writers really fuck with me.
So, from when you see the flares in the sky, you think that these are the saviors of humanity, and the upholders of xenophobia and genocide. But alas, you realize something is wrong real fast. As these as of yet unidentified Space Marines start cutting through the Drukhari, you start to see these Space Marines start to encounter humans, and that’s where you see shit isn’t right. The humans salute the…”soldiers”… and the Space Marine just swats the human away, revealing the Chaos insignia. So that’s where the Astra Militarum leadership retreats back to the castle.
The rest of the story is an absolute banger that went exactly where you thought, except for the end. Storyforge knows exactly where to go with their plot, and has made the Franchise Story Team at Lucasfilm look inadequate by comparison. Even though the animation arm of the lore comes out in a drip feed, they have decades of novels, video games and table top books to lean into. There’s so much to work with. Even if this is non-canon, it’s still worth a look, because it gives a look into how every facet of the universe manages to work.
That’s on top of how gorgeous the animation is, because while the quality isn’t quite photo realistic, it’s damn close. The Drukhari looked really sleek, like something out of an extraterrestrial Tron. The effects of the bolters and the swords from the Drukhari looked electric, and the riveted armor of the Iron Warriors looked rugged, like an old 1900’s era tank. I’m not sure how or where this fits into the lore, but honestly, I don’t think it needs to be. It’s just a fun watch to see a less talked about faction of chaos get some shine.