'Titan's Bane' is about a super heavy tank crew who are campaigning as part of a multi-regimental army against Nurgle forces. The world's athmosphere they're on has been made so toxic that you can't step outside even with a respirator, so the entire story takes place inside the tank. The IG calls for a retreat and decides to evac to orbit when the enemy reveals that they got a titan. The protagonists are trailing behind the main body of the army, stuck inside their lumbering superheavy and have to find a way to either beat the titan to the evac zone, or take it out before it gets there and massacres the yet stranded imperial forces.
I thought the book was quite excellent.
A part of *Tallarn* is the same. The Life Eater virus spend on the planet make it impossible for anything to live outside with some power armour. And a lot of the book is described from the tank’s crew point of view, sealed/trapped inside the hull
The tank in the story was either a Shadowsword or Stormblade, I don't recall which.
But yeah, the tank in question was named 'Titan's Bane' because of its capabality to penetrate a Titan's voidshields.
Dan Abnett said in an interview with _Forge the Narrative_ that his inspiration for writing Titan crews comes from his reading and research of submarines, so _Titanicus_ might be worth reading!
Can confirm. Titanicus has some great, tense scenes of engine duels, with Titans hiding motionless in rubble watching and waiting for a sign on which direction to unleash their massive firepower. Turns out there’s a surprising amount of stealth and subtlety involved in building-sized heavy walkers slugging it out, especially when they have ruined cities and forges to play hide-and-seek in.
Read titanicus recently, it definitly felt like hunt for red October meets Gundam or something, I feel like there were more scenes of titans trying be sneaky and get the jump on eachother than I expected.
Man that’s weird. Subs and Titans have like nothing in common. Feels like battleships would have been a far better analog - big, slow, not particularly manoeuvrable, hard to take down…
According to Lore, most Titans can be very fast and are extremely manoeuvrable / agile for their size, which are both traits that separate them from the other big war machines like superheavies or the ad-mech ordinatii.
According to the same source (the decades old imperial armour books), Leman Russ tanks can reach up to 29 kph, a Land Raider kph, and Baneblade 18-25 kph.
The warhound lucius pattern is stated to reach 42-58 kph, which is insanely fast, compared to the other vehicles - especially given the Titans size and weight.
The siege of vraks books states that reavers can reach speeds of 20-27 kph, while 25+ meters tall and around 740 tonnes heavy.
(I also want to add that most sources contradict each other because, in the end, something goes as fast or slow as it needs to be, according to the author. Same for size, which can vary inconsistently even in the same sources.)
So glad you said this and I totally agree. Felt very much like a 40k version of Das Boot (the people who've read it will know what section I'm talking about)
Not necessary in the slighest. A couple of characters from the series appear very breifly at the end, but not in a way that needs you to have read the books they appear in.
Not actual submarines but Tallarn is about tanks, and some parts they are in a massive storm and can't even see their allies tanks, let alone the predator among them.
They had to use visual scopes, and couldn't leave the tank / their pressure suits or they would die very quickly.
In one of the Matthew Farrer Battle for Urdesh books there's an extensive bit about an insertion of Iron Snakes behind enemy lines using a mini subs. I forget which one but you really should read both - they're excellent. Anyway, the mini sub holds ten Iron Hands and a suicide crew of humans who were grimdarked by the Commissariat. It's very well done and covers a lot of stuff about submarines, kelp forests, etc. Read both and report back here!
They were assigned to the duty by the Commissariat for not being sufficiently energetic fighting against chaos. Please do read it - there's a lot there!
The Raven Guard escape from Istvaan V in Deliverance Lost presents space combat in a very submarine-esque manner, with the RG ship's stealth features turning the battle into a cat-and-mouse game of detection and prediction.
It's very good.
Execution Hour by Gordon Rennie tells the story of a new captain of a imperial cruiser also of a one of the gunnerie crew. Theres a great battle between 2 shops as the imperial ship jump into real space and the warp muiltable times to lose its pursuer
I know it's the wrong fictional universe, but:
Star Trek: TOS, Episode 14 "Balance of Terror" is absolutely what you're interested in.
It's basically a claustrophobic and anxiety inducing cold war submarine battle, in space, and it's an absolutely excellent episode, well worth watching even if you're not a Trekkie.
To add in another off topic universe, the episode of Battlestar Galactica (the 2004 reboot) called "33" is another space take on this scenario. Was so good this episode won a 2005 Hugo Award.
>Something that feels really claustrophobic, and they are trapped on their ship and can’t leave unless they succeed. Doesn’t have to be Imperial centric, but just anything that is a thriller in this vein.
Yes. Read the new sea of Souls novel (which is excellent) or the old Execution hour novel. Both contain segments like this, particularly sea of Souls.
In the book “Only War”, there is a short story “Mad Doc” has orks in subs. Also the story”Anarchy’s End” is about a crew in a Baneblade. Both fun reads.
The latter half of *Baneblade* has some submarine style vibes with a locked down company of tanks spending a couple of weeks sneaking through an extremely hostile environment.
Idk but there's a short story I really like in the nexus and other stories book about a lone space wolf that gets sent to a Waterworld and has to fight a tyranid kraken underwater and it details from the surface of the ocean world to the bottom and its terrifying.
I went through this subreddit on top of all time the other day and read an excerpt about a research/mining vessel that was trying to survive or escape a Tyranid hive fleet. They do not succeed. Granted it was acid leaking through cracks in the hull instead of sea water by the end, but still.
The book Baneblade was more or less a submarine story. It is about a baneblade and its crew who drive and fight in a extremely dangerous sand storm. That gave the whole story a feel of "Das Boot".
'Titan's Bane' is about a super heavy tank crew who are campaigning as part of a multi-regimental army against Nurgle forces. The world's athmosphere they're on has been made so toxic that you can't step outside even with a respirator, so the entire story takes place inside the tank. The IG calls for a retreat and decides to evac to orbit when the enemy reveals that they got a titan. The protagonists are trailing behind the main body of the army, stuck inside their lumbering superheavy and have to find a way to either beat the titan to the evac zone, or take it out before it gets there and massacres the yet stranded imperial forces. I thought the book was quite excellent.
Very underrated novel. When I think of tank narratives, this is usually the one I think of first. Good summarization as well.
A part of *Tallarn* is the same. The Life Eater virus spend on the planet make it impossible for anything to live outside with some power armour. And a lot of the book is described from the tank’s crew point of view, sealed/trapped inside the hull
Oh this sounds great, I'll be sure to buy it
On a side note, would a super heavy tank be capable of destroying a Titan? Does it have the weaponry? And by superheavy do you mean a Baneblade?
The tank in the story was either a Shadowsword or Stormblade, I don't recall which. But yeah, the tank in question was named 'Titan's Bane' because of its capabality to penetrate a Titan's voidshields.
It’s been years since I read it but I think the flight of the Eisenstein might have some of the vibes you’re looking for
Yeah that is what I’m looking for, at least the later part of the book when they’re escaping is.
Dan Abnett said in an interview with _Forge the Narrative_ that his inspiration for writing Titan crews comes from his reading and research of submarines, so _Titanicus_ might be worth reading!
Can confirm. Titanicus has some great, tense scenes of engine duels, with Titans hiding motionless in rubble watching and waiting for a sign on which direction to unleash their massive firepower. Turns out there’s a surprising amount of stealth and subtlety involved in building-sized heavy walkers slugging it out, especially when they have ruined cities and forges to play hide-and-seek in.
In Titandeath one of them even goes underwater for a bit!
Read titanicus recently, it definitly felt like hunt for red October meets Gundam or something, I feel like there were more scenes of titans trying be sneaky and get the jump on eachother than I expected.
Man that’s weird. Subs and Titans have like nothing in common. Feels like battleships would have been a far better analog - big, slow, not particularly manoeuvrable, hard to take down…
According to Lore, most Titans can be very fast and are extremely manoeuvrable / agile for their size, which are both traits that separate them from the other big war machines like superheavies or the ad-mech ordinatii.
The Warhound only travels at ~40 kph off road and it’s the fastest Titan.
According to the same source (the decades old imperial armour books), Leman Russ tanks can reach up to 29 kph, a Land Raider kph, and Baneblade 18-25 kph. The warhound lucius pattern is stated to reach 42-58 kph, which is insanely fast, compared to the other vehicles - especially given the Titans size and weight. The siege of vraks books states that reavers can reach speeds of 20-27 kph, while 25+ meters tall and around 740 tonnes heavy. (I also want to add that most sources contradict each other because, in the end, something goes as fast or slow as it needs to be, according to the author. Same for size, which can vary inconsistently even in the same sources.)
I mean the Leman Russ is basically a late WW1/early WW2 tank so 29 kph seems reasonable.
Steel Tread has similar vibes. It's a story about a tank crew on the run and much of the story takes place in the tank.
Titans are very similar to submarines, I always thought.
Sea of Souls has that sort of vibe.
I was just thinking that. Haven't finished yet but it seems to be heading that way.
So glad you said this and I totally agree. Felt very much like a 40k version of Das Boot (the people who've read it will know what section I'm talking about)
Oh does it? Is it necessary to read the whole Dawn of Fire series or is it fine to just jump in?
Not necessary in the slighest. A couple of characters from the series appear very breifly at the end, but not in a way that needs you to have read the books they appear in.
This was my recommendation as well. It really has submarine duel vibes throughout.
Titanicus gave me submarine vibes for sure, I'm sure DAbnett said he was inspired by submarine films
Not actual submarines but Tallarn is about tanks, and some parts they are in a massive storm and can't even see their allies tanks, let alone the predator among them. They had to use visual scopes, and couldn't leave the tank / their pressure suits or they would die very quickly.
In one of the Matthew Farrer Battle for Urdesh books there's an extensive bit about an insertion of Iron Snakes behind enemy lines using a mini subs. I forget which one but you really should read both - they're excellent. Anyway, the mini sub holds ten Iron Hands and a suicide crew of humans who were grimdarked by the Commissariat. It's very well done and covers a lot of stuff about submarines, kelp forests, etc. Read both and report back here!
Did the crew know their fates ahead of time and still volunteered?
They were assigned to the duty by the Commissariat for not being sufficiently energetic fighting against chaos. Please do read it - there's a lot there!
I think in some Ravenor book they were cruising arround in a Submarine but I can't remember which
It was in Ravenor Rogue (the last one), in which they travel to a giant ball spider thing that crawls around the underside of an ice shelf.
The Raven Guard escape from Istvaan V in Deliverance Lost presents space combat in a very submarine-esque manner, with the RG ship's stealth features turning the battle into a cat-and-mouse game of detection and prediction. It's very good.
Execution Hour by Gordon Rennie tells the story of a new captain of a imperial cruiser also of a one of the gunnerie crew. Theres a great battle between 2 shops as the imperial ship jump into real space and the warp muiltable times to lose its pursuer
Orkimedes is known to have created kustomised submersibles to help Ghazghkull's waaagh.
*Lords of Silence* has this vibe at times.
There's a fun claustrophobic bit in *Saturnine*, but it's quite short. Horror extraordinaire though...
I know it's the wrong fictional universe, but: Star Trek: TOS, Episode 14 "Balance of Terror" is absolutely what you're interested in. It's basically a claustrophobic and anxiety inducing cold war submarine battle, in space, and it's an absolutely excellent episode, well worth watching even if you're not a Trekkie.
To add in another off topic universe, the episode of Battlestar Galactica (the 2004 reboot) called "33" is another space take on this scenario. Was so good this episode won a 2005 Hugo Award.
>Something that feels really claustrophobic, and they are trapped on their ship and can’t leave unless they succeed. Doesn’t have to be Imperial centric, but just anything that is a thriller in this vein. Yes. Read the new sea of Souls novel (which is excellent) or the old Execution hour novel. Both contain segments like this, particularly sea of Souls.
In the book “Only War”, there is a short story “Mad Doc” has orks in subs. Also the story”Anarchy’s End” is about a crew in a Baneblade. Both fun reads.
The latter half of *Baneblade* has some submarine style vibes with a locked down company of tanks spending a couple of weeks sneaking through an extremely hostile environment.
Idk but there's a short story I really like in the nexus and other stories book about a lone space wolf that gets sent to a Waterworld and has to fight a tyranid kraken underwater and it details from the surface of the ocean world to the bottom and its terrifying.
Twice Dead King: Reign features the court of a Necron Dynasty with a small fleet running away from an entire imperial crusade for most of the book.
It's one sequence but IIRC Farseer has a description of ship-to-ship engagement *in the warp* that has some Balance Of Terror / Wrath Of Khan vibes.
I went through this subreddit on top of all time the other day and read an excerpt about a research/mining vessel that was trying to survive or escape a Tyranid hive fleet. They do not succeed. Granted it was acid leaking through cracks in the hull instead of sea water by the end, but still.
I don't think it's particularly a great book but Tallarn in the Horus Heresy has some good cat and mouse chases
The book Baneblade was more or less a submarine story. It is about a baneblade and its crew who drive and fight in a extremely dangerous sand storm. That gave the whole story a feel of "Das Boot".
I always thought their version of this plot was the flight of the Eisenstein. Nathanial Garro rules!!
There are the One story where space Wolfs fight a underwater tau base