We Were Brothers - A Red Corsairs Short Story
Hello, everyone.
I want to start releasing mini-reviews - the types of reviews that couldn’t fill a full Friday on their own - on Sundays. These won’t be a regular series, but I do intend to plug in content in as it becomes available.
Today’s offering, We Were Brothers, is a short story within the Warhammer 40K setting. I picked this up partially because I heard it was good and partially I was a fan of Arch’s lore series on the War for Badab (which the events of this story spin out of). The story is effectively one long action scene. Still, it’s a satisfying one, offering enough to engage and entertain the audience despite stumbling a bit on the landing..
STATS
Title: We Were Brothers - A Red Corsairs Short Story
Series: N/A
Author(s): Richard Fox
Genre: Science Fiction (Space Opera)
First Printing: April 2025
Publisher: Black Library (Games Workshop)
SPOILER WARNING
Mild spoilers for We Were Brothers be included throughout this review, through I will keep the first paragraph of each section as spoiler-free as possible. The only heavy spoiler will be confined to a clearly delineated section.
Due to the nature of this story as a sequel to the events of the War for Badab within the WH40K setting, there will be spoilers for events that occurred during that conflict, particularly what happened between the Executioners and the Astral Claws (the events of which are covered in this video by Arch).
PREMISE
Per the Amazon product page, we get:
The Red Corsairs prepare to settle a grudge with the Executioners Space Marines.
Learn just how long Chaos Space Marines can let resentment fester! It's a classic matchup between loyalist and traitor, making a riveting setting for a duel one hundred years in the making.
Lord Straxis of the Red Corsairs boards a strike cruiser of the hated Executioners Space Marines in an attempt to settle a century-long score. The Chaplain Thulsa Cane betrayed the Astral Claws during the Badab War, and Straxis wants his head.
Reaction
Simple story, simple premise. We get exactly what we’re promised with this one.
RATING: 7.5 / 10
What we have here is another story that makes simple promises and keeps them. The entire story describes the Red Corsairs’ boarding action, following Straxis as he cuts his was through an Executioners’ strike cruiser on his quest to find and slain Cane. There’s a lot of combat and spectacle, backed up by an exploration of Straxis’s mindset that makes him, if not necessarily relatable, at least understandable enough for his obsession with revenge to make sense. The only reason I don’t rate this story higher is that I feel the story fumbles the ending.
CONTENT WARNING
This is a WH40K story, so the action is incredibly brutal and gory. Many people die horribly and in significant detail. I wouldn’t say it’s self-indulgent, but if you are not the time who likes gory action, this story is probably not a good fit for you.
TARGET AUDIENCE / WORLDBUILDING
This book is very much written for fans familiar with WH40K lore. There is so much in this book that is not explained and not even clearly described. Even as someone who understands a decent bit about the lore, I stumbled a bit, such as in trying to visualize what Straxis’s “chainfist” was supposed to look like.
Perhaps more importantly, though, is the premise. A big reason I was able to emotionally engage with Straxis’s character work, and thus see this action as more than spectacle and gore, is that I understand why he’s angry. I’m aware of the circumstances in which the Executioners betrayed the Red Corsairs (or, as they were known back then, the Astral Claws). Despite the fact that I saw Straxis as the villain of this story and didn’t want him to actually succeed, I could understand where he was coming from.
By that same token, though, there are some references tucked into the narrative that I did recognize here and felt like a genuine effort to connect to this target audience and give them a fresh perspective on things. For example, during his rampage, Straxis encounters a Primaris Marine, and this is treated as both a new experience and a genuine challenge for him; he and his men also refer to these Marines as “Cawl’s toys”. This makes a lot of sense, because within the timeline of the story, the Red Corsairs would have formed before the Primaris were introduced and probably wouldn’t have had much chance to engage with them before now.
I also like the small touches here. There’s a scene where Straxis is assaulted by a group of men whom he identified as failed Space Marine neophytes. During a moment where he goes out of his way to try to intimidate a slave before killing her, he’s instead rewarded with defiant declarations of faith to the God-Emperor. This story may only last for a single action scene, yet it still manages to convey the depth of the WH40K setting and make this universe feel lived-in.
One important thing I should note is that I don’t think this story was written for people who have already read the book Huron Blackheart: Master of the Maelstrom. This is because there’s an excerpt from that book at the very end of this short story. It reads almost as if Black Library intended this story to market for that novel (despite it being out for three years at this point). This is going to be relevant for when I discuss the ending.
ACTION
Setting aside the issue of needing to understand the lore of WH40K to follow what’s going on, this is gritty, intense fun. We get put into the story while Straxis and his men are still riding a boarding torpedo towards the Executioners’ cruiser. Once on the ship, we get to see him and his men cutting through the various layers of defenses, battling human slaves and armsmen as well as other Space Marines. Fighting alternates between grandiose displays of Space Marine might as well as personal clashes between Straxis and specific opponents.
PLOT / CHARACTER (HEAVY SPOILERS)
The core of this narrative is Straxis brooding on the injustice done against the Astral Claws has he cuts his way through the ship. While I don’t think that his ruminations and the threats he broadcasts to Cane are enough to really bring the reader up to speed if they didn’t understand the betrayal already, what’s here is enough to build a sense of anticipation for their impending clash. Action beats that might otherwise be noise are instead contextualized as obstacles that frustrate Straxis, as all he wants is to reach the cruisers’ sanctum and slay Cane.
The story culminates with Straxis getting his duel with Cane. He and his men breach the sanctum, and then we get a brutal battle between Straxis and Cane, one where Straxis has a moment where he genuinely thinks he’ll die without getting his vengeance. When the dust settles though, Straxis deals the killing blow.
… at which point he discovers that the Chaplain he thought was Cane was, in fact, some random guy he doesn’t recognize. Cane wasn’t on the ship. It’s not even clear if Cane is still alive at this point, as his helmet is mounted within the sanctum in a manner that suggests it’s a memorial.
This was a disappointing twist.
It’s entirely plausible, of course. If this story is intended as a character study of Straxis and his desire for vengeance (perhaps as a means to develop Huron’s own desire for vengeance), I think the story still works fine. Maybe Cane appears in the Huron Blackheart novel, and thus this wasn’t a surprise for anyone who’d read that book.
The issue is that, if you don’t know Cane isn’t on the ship, it feels like a pointless rug pull. All the action we just witnessed is almost narratively meaningless. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still fun action, but now there isn’t a point to it, so I don’t know how well it would hold up on a reread.
FINAL THOUGHTS
If you are a fan of WH40K, or if you just like to read brutal Sci-Fi combat, I do think that We Were Brothers is worth your time, despite the issues covered above. There is a definite sense of passion and care for the setting that makes it all worthwhile. As for Straxis, despite how his journey in this story ends, he’s still an engaging protagonist to ride along with.
PACKED SCHEDULE
Over the next couple weeks, we’ve got a couple of great reviews lined up:
Friday, September 5th: the conclusion to the review series for The Queen of Vorn (the unpublished version)
Sunday, September 7th: another short story mini-review, this one for the Eisenhorn story “Regia Occulta”, next Sunday, September 7th
Friday, September 12th: Chapters 38 through 40 of the Onyx Storm review, covering both the events of the fourth island as well as a Spotlight analysis on the agency of dragons within the story
Sunday, September 14th: an analysis of the framing device used for the novel The Brothers’ War
Friday, September 19th: a review of the third book in the Magnetic Magic series, Kin of the Wolf,
Sunday, September 21st: a mini-review of the Chapter 27 bonus chapter for Fourth Wing
Friday, September 26th: Chapters 41 through 43 of the Onyx Storm review
Sunday, September 28th: a mini-review of another Eisenhorn short story, “Backcloth for a Crown Additional”
Additionally, over on Tales of the Five Worlds, we’ll get Parts 10 through 13 of “The Unbottled Idol” across the Tuesdays from now until September 23rd. We’ll also be kicking off “Honor to the Good Boy”, with Part 1 coming on Monday, September 22nd and Part 2 coming Tuesday, September 30th.
There’s a lot of great content ahead. I hope that there’s at least one or two things to catch your interest.
With that being said, a project I’m particularly excited to share with you kicks on on Friday, October 3rd.
A GREATER WILL
October and November will deliver two firsts for Recent Reads within a single package: our first 10 / 10 review, and our first deep-dive series to explore why a book is fantastic (rather than delving into its flaws).
The Will of the Many was not a book I intended to review. I picked it up as a self-indulgence, something to give me a break from my usual review fare. What I discovered blew me away. While The Will of the Many is not what I’d consider to be a groundbreaking story (if anything, it actually rehashes a lot of tropes that the author, James Islington, used in his Licanius Trilogy), it is a story that demonstrates that many of the things I’ve criticized in other books can be strengths instead of weaknesses. The handling of the Magical School setting, a massive cast of characters, a believable and engaging Romance that has more to it than sex, and the Soft Magic system are all superb. We need to do a multi-part review just to assess why these elements worked so well in this book where they failed in other works.
Part 1 is coming on October 3rd. Parts 2 through 4 will then release biweekly, continuing to alternate with the review series for Onyx Storm. I hope you all will join me for this new journey.
That’s all for today. Thank you all for stopping by. Please remember to subscribe to the newsletter if you’d like a weekly e-mail will the latest post links. Please also share this review with others if you enjoyed it. Take care, everyone, and have a good week.
