Welcome to Fan Creation Spotlight, where we will be taking a look at amazing fan works of various kinds. To start off, we will take a a look at Astartes, a series of shorts made by a single fan of Warhammer 40K. The shorts show off a chapter of the Adeptus Astartes, also known as the Space Marines, called the Retributors. The Retributors are a fan created army (Homebrew) made as successors of the Imperial Fists Space Marines, and the shorts show them taking action against the enemies of the Imperium.
Its important to stress that the work was done by one person, because the level of detail is immaculate, with proper scale being shown for how large Astartes actually are, and how the world of 40K should look. There is no spoken dialogue in the shorts, and everything is either nonverbal communication or actions. Many works have been made recently that show a more humorous side to the 40K universe and tone down the grimdark nature of the franchise. Astartes by contrast, shows how brutal the Space Marines can be, and why enemies fall quickly when they are deployed. The battle tactics shown are accurate for how Marines should function in a broad sense ( as each chapter of the 1000+ chapters of the Space Marines has their own unique battle tactics) and very true to successors of the Imperial Fists.
Astartes managed to be brutal and accurate to the lore, while also providing a lot of fanservice, and all in very short videos. We see the inquisition, psykers and enemies are of an unknown nature that has led to much speculation. Again, all of this is done without the use of spoken dialogue, making this series an excellent example of seeing Show Don’t Tell in action. The sounds were handled well, but the animation is a stand out due to how excellent and detailed it was. This is the best depiction of how Space Marines should be, even more so than the video game also titled Space Marine. The Astartes are quick, efficient and bulldoze the enemies, before the real threat emerges.
Sadly the Astartes YouTube channel was hacked for a time but the owner regained control and later released part 5, which acts as a finale for now. The entire series can be seen on the Astartes YouTube channel here, and we highly recommend checking it out. This is some of, if not the best, 40K fan content ever made.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bko5GgK5v8