Review: Warhammer 40K – Angels of Death “Rage”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

The tech-priest is able to flee, the Sword of Baal is able to fight off their opponents, and the Blood Angels defeat the Tyranids and Genestealer cult, but at the cost of their remaining soldiers.

OUR TAKE

Well, as expected, the Blood Angels meet their bloody, angel-y ends in this episode, though not without a savage fight down to the last man. Can’t say I’m surprised, since the other options were either having the Tyranids win, which seems needlessly mean-spirited, or the Sword of Baal being taken first and stranding the Blood Angels on the planet, which has the same problem. But having the intended soldiers die fighting and still save their side even at the cost of their lives seems like a fitting conclusion to the story, especially since none of these guys were particularly well adjusted anyway and were probably better off dead. Still, getting to see them all go down in a blaze of glory was cool to witness, even if I have some notes about how exactly they all went out. I ended up feeling very little when Orpheo met his end, mainly due to the fact that he’s had considerably less involvement in the story despite being the whole reason they came down to the planet in the first place. More appropriately, there was a helmeted soldier whose head was bitten clean off by the giant monster who was clearly just there to show its threat level.

As the closest thing we had to a protagonist in this series, I was glad that Kazarion got to call upon the spirits of his fallen comrades to summon the strength to fight the big gene monster (including my boy Raphael with his giant skull face), so it was then a real shock that he gets rather easily taken down soon after. Instead it’s Ancaeus, someone who I have never had reason to refer to by name until now because of how much he has blended into the background, who gets to kill off both the genestealer boss lady AND the big monster, the latter by tapping into what I think is the Black Rage that the Blood Angels have at their disposal, really submerging himself in the madness…and then also dies rather suddenly. I don’t even remember when he got hit, and I think it might have served them better to let him wait to die for the finale, but yeah, he’s gone too. I guess that closes the book on the Tyranid threat and that part of the Blood Angels, with the Sword of Baal allowed to make its escape, though not without its own losses. I have no idea what to expect for the finale, aside from maybe a wrap up of these events and possibly set up a second season if that’s in the cards, but we’ll find out next week. May the wings of Sanguinius lay these angels to thy rest, or some such weird stuff.