Renegades: Lords of Excess by Rich McCormick.
The Emperor’s Children have fallen far in the long ages since the Horus Heresy. What began as a relentless pursuit of perfection has curdled into something grotesque, leaving the once‑proud III Legion little more than a howling rush toward total debauchery. Their martial discipline is long spent, their unity shattered beyond repair. When Abaddon hurled the Taloc into Canticle City, it marked the final death of a coherent legion; from that moment on, the Emperor’s Children became a scattered host of feuding warbands, each pursuing its own predatory whims.
In the millennia since, these splintered hosts have stalked the void as raiders and slavers, chasing sensations ever more extreme. When they do take to the field, they do so awash in hallucinogenic compounds that twist reality into a kaleidoscope of colour and sound — a battlefield experienced as a fever dream, and a nightmare for anyone unfortunate enough to stand before them.
Yet for all their excess, the Emperor’s Children are at least visible in their corruption. Not every threat in the 41st Millennium announces itself with such lurid abandon. Some grow in silence, beneath the streets and behind the eyes of seemingly loyal citizens. Where the III Legion revels in sensation, another danger thrives in secrecy.
Genestealer Cults are the cancers of the Imperium’s underbelly — xenos‑tainted brotherhoods that spread not through open war, but through infiltration, infection, and faith. A single Purestrain can seed the downfall of an entire world, its broodmind weaving generations of hybrids into a hidden army waiting for the signal to rise.
And it is on the world of Serrine that these two corrupting forces finally converge.
This novel brings their opposing brands of damnation into direct conflict: the riotous, self‑indulgent excess of the Emperor’s Children crashing against the cold, methodical subversion of a Genestealer Cult already sunk deep into the planet’s foundations. Serrine becomes the prize — not for conquest in any traditional sense, but as a canvas for competing nightmares. One faction seeks sensation without limit; the other prepares the world for the shadow of the Hive Fleet. Between them lies a population already fraying at the edges, unaware that their fate is being decided by monsters both flamboyant and unseen.
It’s an intriguing setup — but my experience with the book itself was a little more uneven.
For me, the story took its time finding momentum. The opening act felt slow, almost hesitant, as though the narrative was circling its own premise before committing to it. Things only truly began to move around the midpoint, where the tension between the two factions finally sharpened and the stakes on Serrine became clearer.
To its credit, the novel does showcase the Emperor’s Children’s dark games with a certain grim flair. It’s not the most extreme or memorable depiction of the III Legion available, but it captures their warped pursuit of sensation well enough. Xantine, in particular, is an interesting lens on the legion — a figure shaped by excess yet not quite as magnetic or unhinged as icons like Lucius or Fabius Bile. He’s compelling, but he doesn’t command the page in the same way those infamous names do.
The combat scenes offer flashes of creativity, hinting at the surreal brutality that defines both factions, though they never quite reach the heights they could. There’s atmosphere, there’s intent, but the execution sometimes feels restrained where it could have been vivid or unsettling.
Overall, it lands as a middle‑of‑the‑pack Warhammer novel: solid in places, uneven in others, with enough interesting ideas to keep you reading but not enough to elevate it into the upper tier of faction‑focused fiction.
A solid enough clash of corruptions, then — not exceptional, not egregious, but a serviceable descent into the shadows of Serrine.
- Until The Next Hunt -
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