Astartes - a fan made animation

"A Warhammer 40,000 fan-film project. Mini-episodes released as a five part series. 100% unofficial and in no way endorsed by Games Workshop."

– Description of the Astartes Youtube Channel

Astartes is the name of a short, entirely fan-made set of (roughly) minute long videos depicting an orbital boarding action by the Retributors chapter of Space Marines (not to be confused with the Sisters of Battle Retributor Squads). The official description promises five videos, of which four have been released.

The Premise

Following a series of incidents catalogued as the 'Argosa Uprisings' in 482.M39, the Retributor Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes is tasked with assisting in the hunt for fleeing renegades and their leaders, and bringing down the Emperor's justice for their crimes.

In Review

A surprisingly high quality series of videos from such a small outfit, with an equally surprising attention to detail from art and designs to sound. Animation is masterful, fluid, and punchy, while models and props are beautifully detailed. By contrast the cinematography and storytelling focuses on the strengths of minimalism, such as using negative space and darkness to draw the eyes, or silence to heighten the feeling of following sound effects.

Done entirely without dialogue, showing how both the Retributor Marines and their heretic adversaries duke it out. It goes about as well as you'd expect for the heretics; despite the rather one-sided nature of the action, there are equal demonstrations of good tactics and responses by both sides. Awesome. It also illustrates why you don't mess with someone who does this as a day job.

Also showcases many smaller, more humble elements of the 40k universe, or expands on how they might be used practically and effectively. Examples include: a Caestus assault ram, smoke bombs, multi-lasers, boltguns and a few others besides. Unfortunately some jackoff seems to have hacked the main YouTube channel at the moment and Youtube is completely unhelpful as always.

The Videos

There currently is a teaser and 4 videos:

• Teaser trailer
• Part 1: Prepping for the assault
• Part 2: Launch and Insertion
• Part 3: Purge the heretics
• Part 4: To the vault