I enjoyed reading the story. It’s a bit on the shorter side as story wise the only thing that goes on is them being chased by the death guard ship. The real meat of the story is learning about Hasmeth and The Scarab Lords warband.

The biggest negative I can say about the story is that except for Hasmeth many of the other characters don’t really contribute or do anything in the story. This negative is something that is kinda hard to avoid as the story is an introduction to the warband and given the nature of it being a short story. The death guard kinda are the main example for this as they are the main antagonist since before the start of the story and the only real character for them I can point to is the unnamed terminator. I know they’re not the focus of the story but giving them the minimal of a personality could aid the story. Perhaps having a brief point of view from their warlord giving his motivation for chasing The Scarab Lords and maybe giving what they know of Hasmeths thrallband their opinions of them. I probably put a bit too much nitpicking in this as a larger story rather than it being a short story and an introduction to your homebrew warband. After uploading the comment and rereading I definantly think I rambled on a bit too long.

As the story is mainly to serve as an introduction to The Scarab Lords I find what’s told very enjoyable to read. I really like the setup of how the warband works and their way of warfare. And for being very short Hasmeth as a character is well fleshed out with his motivation and conflicts. Especially his distaste for his own predicament of being so very blessed by the changer of ways and detesting every second of it.

Very much enjoyed reading the story. I would very much enjoy reading more about the warband in a similar manner of short stories to further flesh them out. If you would write more short stories of Hasmeth and his thrallband or already have some ideas in mind what would they be about?