Really enjoyed this one, very evocative I could feel the awkward tension in the room. The Chief Strategist is obviously respected and seeing him like this is hard on those that respect him.
Excellent delivery of "this isn't part of the plan" too.
Truthfully you span a fantastic narrative, great imagery, believable characters and dramatic events. In particular the end where Gujner settles in for the heroic sacrifice, then immediately bolts when he doesn't have to was golden.
In particular I liked the description of Orcs going more brown with age and young Orcs being considered 'ripening'. It gave the exact concept without further explanation. Really well done.
Really enjoyed this, echoing other comments that the imagery is great and the ideas fantastic. Feels like you took the Battle Brother and Robot Legion concepts then made them your own.
I really liked this, you could possibly have foreshadowed the poisoned food a bit early on but ultimately you revealed things at the right times. It was intriguing and engaging.
I also liked the positivity in the ending :) great read.
I do love me some Starhost goodness. First models I saw were the Geckos with shields on a YouTube battle report with goobertown. Dived in a bit recently, got the free files waiting to come off supports. Planning on a full force (feel they missed a trick with not calling the heavy dinos Tankylosaurus but there we are).
Might have to write more on these space lizards in the next jam :)
There's a lot of good elements here, I liked the interactions between the characters. You showed that the sergeant was really just a prison officer, the bickering on number of ratmen. The general feeling of disorganisation felt like this was a bit of a penal unit rather than a fully fledged combat squad.
Nah, I'm happy with the warhammers in general. It takes a lot to throw off my suspension of belief. I honestly loved the greatsword inclusion too. The atmosphere was good, there were good interactions between the Wardens. I could genuinely see they were a close-knit unit. Loved how the seeing stone completely backfired too, I'm a fan of situations where characters are like "ok, let's get out quietly...........balls." and you really delivered there.
I kept having to go back and check which Warden was who. For example when one of them stood with their greatsword out I liked that imagery, then two more readied warhammers. Then a fourth (that I had forgotten about) swung his warhammer in combat but because I went from the warhammers and the fourth didn't have their names my first thought was "wait, didn't he have a sword?" So I had to skip back to confirm names and numbers.
It's possible that I didn't pick up enough on the unique aspects of each character which is why I struggled. On its own I wouldn't worry too much about what I'm saying, get a broader perspective.
If most people follow just fine then the issue is with me and not your writing ;)
Oh it was definitely close enough to count, you effectively captured the mood in one image. It's actually what made me want to read it and I was quite excited when it popped up on my randoms.
This was really cool. You evoke great imagery with your writing.
Sometimes it feels like you're giving too much information unnecessarily. Like "Her blue eyes, now red" that would be enough. It's a great visualisation, continues the theme of transformation throughout the story "due to her vampiric condition" wasn't needed, you had honestly made that clear from the writing before. Not a problem in itself but you're better than you seem to think you are, if that makes sense.
Really loved the twins emerging from either side and the rearing horse with a flaming mane. Felt like I was part of the force about to crush those boney abominations.
I have to admit that I didn't get tripped up by the same things. It flowed really nicely and I grasped the presented concepts with relative ease.
"Rub my own" I picked up it was his eyes with no issue.
"Stamped under his boot" yeah, dude stamped down and squashed the cigar under his boot. No problems there.
"Pen pusher" definitely have heard this before, googled to check and it's established slang. Interchangeable with paper pusher, it tends to be someone who does the writing rather than something like data entry, filing or reviewing.
"Something reached between us." Reached, I believe, was used to link back to Private Jonan's words "something reached out to me". Made sense, made me damn suspicious.
Generally when giving feedback you want to avoid suggesting how you would write something. Personal preference is very subjective and each writer has their own style.
