Astartes Analysis & Review - Details You May Have Missed

just this week the incredible fifth part of the Astarte series was released and reached number four on YouTube trending an incredible achievement for a 40k video this whole series has been incredibly rich with 40k lore and one of the best representations of Space Marines and animation ever what's up folks welcome back to tactical tortoise my name is trevi and today let's go through the entire Astarte series and do an in-depth analysis of all the awesome details that the Creator jammed in to this gorgeous series and before we begin obviously spoiler alert for the series if you haven't watched it yet go to youtube and look up the starties and get it done the whole thing's like 15 minutes so I mean honestly what are you waiting for so right at the start of the first video we have some opening crawl a lot of the stuff in the series is home brew and doesn't really have an analogue in official canon so both the argos ax uprising and the retributive space brain chapter were invented by the creator but he did invent a little bit of background for these guys that we'll talk about later chip we see in the first shot is actually a cobra class torpedo destroyer usually it's used by the Imperial Navy but also by marine fleets as shown in the series because it is small enough to adhere to the code of the starties which this allows the Marines use of any heavy combat ships because it is a marine ship the personnel that we see in the next shot our most likely chapter surfs almost all the crew on a marine vessel are either servitors or serfs which are basically dropouts from the marine application process it's a side note this is why marine ships are usually so difficult to board since all the human crew are extremely highly trained and conditioned from childhood and Canon most surfs are described as robes but I really like the effort to make the crew seem a little bit more realistic by outfitting them in believable military gear in the series now in the very background of this next shot we see a robed figure cross the other Hall on the far end from where the Marines are now we don't know who this character is and if they are a chapter affiliated it's likely that they're a chaplain or something similar but I think that it's the Inquisitor that we see later on in the series next we see the Marines praying and consecrating their weapon and finally boarding their assault RAM now I did a ton of digging and couldn't find a boarding ship design that matches the flat top of the squad's delivery vehicle in a series so it's reasonable to assume that it's a type of gun cutter that the creator designed specifically for his custom chapter inside the dropship we can see a close-up of the arrows on the Marines helmets which designate them as an impulse er squad basically a super tactical squad specific to the retributive chapter that acts as autonomous Special Forces makes sense since this squad would be boarding an enemy ship without any support from assault or Devastator teams so the first thing we see in part 2 is a thunderbolt heavy fighter X courting the Marines into the asteroids before breaking off probably to head off some enemy strike craft despite the fact that they're usually seen as aircraft in the tabletop game they can use rocket engines that we see here in place of their turbo fans to fly in a vacuum next up two autonomous drones break off detonate incoming missiles fired by the trader ship and a last cannon turret extends and blows up the remaining missiles this is a little addition to the Lord's that I absolutely love the logic of boarding actions and sci-fi universes always seemed a little shaky and with the size of ships in 40k it always seemed like Point defensives would be nearly impenetrable strike craft and boarding torpedos are often used because of their ability to penetrate void shields on like teleporters but sending in valuable Astarte and just hoping that ship to ship missiles and turrets wouldn't destroy them always seemed a little janky to me so I loved it the creator added is not to point defenses in his series unfortunately I have no idea what the rebel ship is it doesn't follow the armor and proud design of any Imperial ship so it's likely just a retrofit civilian ship or something like that which also might help explain how easily the marine craft got so close when it does we can see that the Marine ship uses the last cannons mounted at its turret and a third heavier beam from deeper in the Jazz need to come through the targets hull and the rebel uniforms inside the craft we see a starburst shape inside a circle that is reminiscent of the spheres and their occupants that we see in the final part of the series maybe the humans painted them on as part of their cult worship the next shot we see is from the Marines auto senses which highlight the heat signatures of the guardsmen waiting for them and the squad comes out guns from their return fire we can see that these rebels are using auto guns whereas later in the series we see Guardsmen using laz guns which indicates a lack of standardization in the rebel forces [Music] so I don't have a ton to say about this section but I do love the addition of the ammo readouts in the back of the Marines bolt guns here here we said that rebels using a combination of laz guns a heavy Stuber and a missile launcher may be indicating that these guys are a little bit more elite than the auto gun equipped rebels that we saw earlier this is an awesome design for a team crewed autocannon emplacement and really gives the Marines pause next up we see another crew surf weapon this is a multi laser this time some people have referred to it as last cannons definitely a multiplayer it is more of a rapid-fire lighter version of the last game which also helps explain why it has trouble penetrating that pom rains power this unfortunate soul was trying to apply a demolition charge to the Marine Sergeant but eight a combat knife for his trouble I also love the touch here of the Boulter's leaving only half of a rebel soldier left we do have to remember that these are basically grenade launchers a piece of continuity that I love is that the multi laser impacts leave craters on the sergeants armors that remain that way for the rest of the series [Music] now who the size and the spheres are in the series is one of the biggest questions that a star DS has left us and that's some definitely something I'm going to talk about later in the video and potentially in a future video now this scene is one of my favorites because I think it's one of the only places that accurately depicts how fast Marines are described to be most of the official animation show them is plotting routes even though Canon CROs describes them as being in humanly fast and agile just like in this scene we can also see the bolt-gun shells that are caught in the ciphers telekinetic fields with their rockets still activated and detonating just after impact in midair this is another awesome depiction of exactly how boulders are described in the fluff even though a lot of times their actual function isn't shown that well here we can also see the psychos blasting away the Marines they're shooting at them although as we see later in the series these attacks don't actually end to pass it ate any of them [Music] [Music] the sequence here it can be a little bit confusing to some people it looks like the cycler crushes the sergeant's eye inside his helmet but in reality he's only able to pop out the outer layer of the helmet slam this gives us a clearer view of the helmets Auto sense display inside the lens and helps differentiate the sergeant more in later scenes from his comrades one of the other impulse our squad members is able to use that superhuman speed and talked about earlier to surprise one of the psychos giving the sergeant's the chance to kill the seikar that she's engaged with we can see in the corners here that the rest of the impulses plot has survived as they approach the final door and off-screen it's assumed that the sergeant retrieves his plasma pistol that he dropped earlier because he has in future scenes but with that whoof we are off to the climactic part 5 of the series and this one's a doozy so the first shot we see is of a space marine strike cruiser and what looks like a Dominator class Imperial cruiser the Dominator is not a ship permitted to be used by Space Marine chapters and that may indicate that it's the ship of the Inquisitor that we see later clearly the interior design is different of that from the Cobra destroyer that we saw earlier which was very brightly lit whereas this is much darker and covered in purity seals the scene also gives us our first glimpse of the restraints fear one of two we see in the series and the Inquisitor is linked to it through some sort of psychic device the retribute is captain and his lieutenant have come to visit the Inquisitor as their impulse our team nears the location of the second sphere on the rebel ship it's clear that the impulse hers mission was to link the sphere on the rebel ship to the inquisitors apparatus using the psychic spikes we see later and the captain the lieutenant have come to oversee the Inquisitor while this process is completed back in the rebel ship we see the sergeant with his broken helmet lens enter the other spheres chamber and he crushes some sort of crystal with his boot it's likely that this is just ice and psychic powers in 40 care described as rapidly lowering the ambient temperature and creating hoarfrost on the ground when little touch here I love is the exhaust fumes coming out of the Marines backpacks as they enter the chamber inside the chamber we see some pretty weird stuff including his giant golden robot thingy surrounding what looks like floating servo skulls but are actually the golden masks and spinal cords worn by the psychos in the previous room as we see later in the inquisitors vision it's the spheres intention to create a lot more of these psychos so it stands to reason that they have more of these devices awaiting suitable hosts deeper inside the room we see the second sphere and get the first spoken words of the whole series the woods are warning a star DS get back the sphere attacks the Marines pushing them away with pulses of force and even appears to attempt to influence the mind of the sergeant who is able to shake off its attack undeterred the Marines advance and plunge devices into the sphere which appear to subdue its power as we talked about earlier the prevailing theory is that these stakes allow the Inquisitor back on the other ship to read the spheres communicating with one another [Music] [Applause] back in the ship we return to the Inquisitor who is privy to a conversation between the two spheres [Music] [Music] the audio is epically distorted but to the best of my knowledge the conversation goes something like this [Music] at this point the Inquisitor looks started and yells something to be Astarte as it sounds like get them out of there the sphere then follows up its conversation with the words unless he can and sends a pulse of energy into the Inquisitor this is clearly hazardous for his health as he sees a horrific vision of the spurious intentions including creating more of the cyclers that we saw earlier and melting all the space brings faces off before he fails the perils of the warp test and the marine captain and his lieutenant have to do their best commissar impression we see a couple interesting things in these visions the planet that the Marines are on looks similar to the skeletal Valley at the end of the episode but this version appears different the position of the statues is different with the adorned skeletons appearing at the top of the value rather than the bottom and the environment is volcanic rather than deserted maybe a vision of the location from the past before it was dead and abandoned the Marines also appear to be stripped down their armors missing its shoulder pads backpacks and helmets perhaps indicating that they are prisoners being executed back in the rebel ship we see the sergeant react to a message in his box clearly the captain's aide got a message out to them but it was too late in the sphere reawakens inside the sphere we see its occupant or a true form a golden mass but this time it's baroque and covered in intricate designs and trailing tentacles interesting that it appears similar to the masks worn by the psychos but its designs are highly deliberate rather than being a coral like texture the sphere then begins pulling the Marines in the sergeant overloads his plasma pistol and fails his gets hot roll and blows his hand off and inside the spear we see the bronze occupant from earlier grabbing hold of the entire impulse er squad with its tendrils the sergeant is then teleported to another desert location and rips his helmet off to vomit blood we can see the blood congealing on the ground due to his lair amid cells which i think is an awesome detail to include and underneath its helmet we can also see the interfaces of his black carapace in the spooky last shot of the episode we see the sergeant in an alien Valley surrounded by enormous skeletons the skeletons in the front are reminiscent of the bronze vision inside the sphere only skeletal and had protrusions attached to the back of their necks similar to the psychos from earlier the skeletons behind them have covered faces and no accouterments suggesting that they are slaves like the humans on the ship and the small pillars around the marine we see flashes given that there's no sense of scale these could be other rock surfaces like the one that the sergeant is on and the flashes could represent the rest of the squad being teleported to the same planet that ends the final episode of the Astarte series and leaves us with more questions than we started with but like any good cinematic universe we also get an after credit scene in the outro credits we see the Astarte logo image switch rapidly between several different marine chapters starting with a member of the Angels sanguine a bled angel successor in switching to two new chapters I can't identify which may also be home brews a black armored marine with a white faceplate featuring the image of a coiled serpent or dragon and a yellow armored marine with a black helmet and backpack featuring the image of a skeletal hand the scene continues showing the Marines struck by some forms Shard weaponry the blue globe makes it appear similar to tau pulsefire but we can see shards embedded in the Marines armor potentially shuriken or splinter weapon fire the trooper jumps away to reveal burning buildings in the background and a predator destructor sporting the same skeletal hand symbol firing its autocannon so that's it folks that's the entirety of the Astarte series and like I said before it's left us with more unanswered questions who are the psychos and the spheres what was the meaning of the inquisitors vision where was the impulse er squad transported to who are the massive skeletons on the desert planet and most importantly when is the next estar DS video coming out if you guys enjoyed this style more lore head the content go ahead and give the video a like and let me know down in the comments and I'll cover some potential answers to those questions in a future video although not probably not that last question that's up to the authorities creator but I'm sure some more support on his patreon wouldn't hurt and make it come out a little sooner I'll drop a link down below in the description remember to drop a subscribe check out tactical tortoise and a-star DS on patreon and as always have happy wargaming folks [Applause] [Music] yeah yeah

Channel: TacticalTortoise

Views: 221,645

Keywords: warhammer, 40k, warhammer 40k, warhammer 40000, astartes, tactics, review, analysis, astartes analysis, astartes review, astartes transcript, astartes theory, astartes answers

Id: uWnO0cY7DEo

Length: 17min 32sec (1052 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 03 2020