I have two questions:
Why couldn't I have heard this first and been made far more receptive to this series?
Why did they put this last in the Errant Knights collection?

Unlike the other two Blackshields audio dramas, I didn't actively dislike this. In fact, I might have actually enjoyed this, and probably could have really enjoyed if I wasn't already freaking broken by the other two.

This one actually has emotional stakes and interesting situations, dialogue, and scenes and conceits that make it feel like a Horus Heresy story, rather than any old Warhammer 40K one!

So Renegade McMaybeThunder needs to get some World Eaters geneseed because of reasons and to deny Angron, so they go all round the houses and catch up with his old buddy apothecary who has unfortunately drank the bloody Kool-Aid.

Through scenes that make me think of the station the first Leoban we see in Battlestar Galactica (re-imagined) and when the experiments and first Hybrid are revealed in BSG Razor combined with the Nibbelheim Mako Reactor SOLDIER Pods, Blackshield McBetweenSevereADHD&NotHavingAGoodTimeIGenuinelyDoNotRemeberHisName and his obscenely, probably offensively Russian brother share memories of good times, bond over being abandoned, and things ultimately have to come to violent end.

The majority is a two hanger between Angry Russian Fabius Bile Privateer McPirateFace and it's bloody good and actually says something about the war, their Legion, Primarch, and the Imperium in ways that are pertinent to the Heresy, which feels huge for Reynolds, and I love that for us. It's a shame the others come across as generic 40K MacGuffin tales, but I'll take this and I am happy the Errant Knights collection didn't end of such a colassal bummer.

I seriously recommend either only listening to one of the three here or listening to it first, regardless of the timeline. ( )