Review: Hammer and Bolter “A New Life”

Hammer and Bolter is a gem of a show. The episodes don’t come out often, and many used as filler in between other shows that are coming out. However, they give glimpses into little pocket areas of the greater 40K and Age of Sigmar. These boots on the floor stories don’t really get covered in the larger parts of the lore, or even in the games themselves.

And that’s where “A New Life” drops us off. A family is stuck in the midst of a Tyrranid invasion, with the Imperium shooting people on sight that leave their homes. The family knows that shit is going down, and need to leave as soon as possible. If you know anything about Tyrranids, they’re a hive mind that just swarm planets. And if you know anything about the Imperium of Man, you know these fascist scumbags don’t fuck around when they lay down the law.

So this family needs to get off world, and fast. There is an entire warzone these people have to traverse. None of them have a lot of experience. The elderly woman leaves them, so the rest can make it. The sacrifice hits hard, even though you don’t know who these people are. The sacrifice of the old to ensure the young’s survival is noble. You then see the Imperium shooting people trying to escape. They’re brutal, and it is the antithesis of what the assumptions are. You know, humans good, everyone else bad.

The Tyrranid are an ever present danger, but not as pressing as the Imperium. They’re survival by oppression model does nothing but instill fear and anger. Our main characters narrowly manage to escape the soldiers through a shady tunnel in the side of a wall. As soon as the group heads into the tunnels, this goes straight into an Aliens inspired escape from the Tyrranids in the tunnels, to a Starship Troopers-esque surface fight with the airborne Tyrranid.

The animation style is akin to Interrogator, but with more color and visuals. Seeing a lot of the Tyrranid models come to life is awesome, and the detail is brutal, bloody, and gruesome. Just like in Interrogator, you see every drop of blood from every shot. You see the bites from the Tyrranid swarm. Warhammer TV, Warhammer Storyforge, and Farside Features crafted a fantastic look into the boots on the ground viewpoint of a planetary invasion, and managed to create a fantastic twist at the end that I didn’t see coming. Hammer and Bolter delivers yet again.