Review: Warhammer 40K – Angels of Death “Against the Horde”

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Kazarian nearly succumbs to the Black Rage after witnessing Raphael’s death, but is pulled out by his brothers. The Sword of Baal continues to fight off the invading ships. Orpheo is awakened and informed of how Niades was conquered by the Tyranids, who plan to capture enough ships to reach other worlds.

OUR TAKE

Angels of Death returns for the back half after a month off to make room for other Warhammer+ releases…for some reason making sure that the show about SPACE VAMPIRE SOLDIERS (among them a guy with a SPOOKY SKULL FOR A HELMET) FIGHTING MUTANT ZOMBIE HORDES was completely absent in OCTOBER. I would absolutely love to have been in the Zoom meeting where they decided on that genius scheduling move. But for whatever reason, we’re back now to cover the remaining five episodes of the season. The story returns to the present, picking up exactly after the fourth episode left off, as well as finally checking back in with the Sword of Baal, though mainly to update us that things are just getting worse for them. But the main development this time is the reveal of Captain Orpheo indeed being alive, even if he seems to be missing some parts, apparently saved by a remaining agent of the empire who witnessed the planet’s eventual take over by the Tyranids, who apparently a recurring evil alien group in Warhammer. This on its own didn’t really mean very much to me, since I still have only as much knowledge about this whole game as what this series and streaming service have provided me.

However, what’s important about this being the Tyranids is that they seem to be a surprisingly religious sort, praying to what they call the “Many Armed God”, and since he obviously isn’t going to show up to give them the four or five thumbs up, they plan to lure nearby ships under the guise of “safe harbor” and then go on a multi world tour to spread the many armed gospel. Despite my general ignorance of Warhammer, I do find the Tyranids at least a little intriguing. There’s a unique mix of religious zealotry with these insectoid monstrosities and mutated humans that I don’t think I’ve seen before, or if I have, it doesn’t seem very common. And now that we understand their big evil plan, it fittingly raises the stakes for the Blood Angels so they can finally save the day!…or save the empire? Save something, I imagine. And the whole point of this was to find and bring back Orpheo, so it looks like they’re about to do that at least. Just four episodes left and nothing stopping them now, so we’ll see next week how we creep closer to the end.