History WebAnimation / Astartes

* ImprobableAimingSkills: Throughout Part Two and Three, basically every time the Retributors fire, someone (or likely ''many'' someones) dies with one shot. Part Three shows a Retributor shooting at a multilaser emplacement at least several hundred meters away, but his bolt pistol's shots are stopped by the gun shield, so he instead uses a Blind Grenade(a flashbang-smoke-grenade) to blind the gun crew before drawing a plasma pistol to destroy the multilaser while the smoke cloud is still obscuring the doorway. Justified by Part 2, which shows us the Space Marine's point of view for a split second where the rebels appear as [[AuraVision red blotches in the smoke]].

* AndTheAdventureContinues: [[spoiler:Upon being pulled into the Orb, Kohren and his squad is deposited... [[EldritchLocation somewhere else]], at the bottom of a valley with sky-scraping walls that's flanked with mountain-sized corpses of presumably giant xenos. [[BolivianArmyEnding What happened next]] - whether or not [[TheHomewardJourney they managed to escape back to the Imperium]] or [[KillEmAll perished to an Astarte]] - is [[AmbiguousEnding left to the audience's imagination]]]].

* [[ImplacableMan Implacable Men]]: [[RammingAlwaysWorks Battleship hulls]], [[FrickingLaserBeams lasfire]], [[GatlingGood multilasers]], and [[{{BFG}} anti-materiel rifles]] do nothing but slow the Space Marines down for maybe a few seconds. [[MindOverMatter Psychic powers]] are a bit more trouble, but still does not stop them from slaughtering their foes like the rest.

* DefensiveFeintTrap: The rebels try one, setting up a multilaser overlooking a doorway several hundred meters away while infantrymen flee from the Marines through it. They open fire once they get a visual on a single Retributor, slaughtering the infantrymen in the way, and succeed in only scratching the Marine's power armor before he uses a Blind Grenade to stun them and destroy the gun with a plasma pistol [[ImprobableAimingSkills while the smoke cloud is still obscuring him]].
* DoubleTap: When the Inquisitorial agent gets possessed, not only do the Marines present deliver a MegatonPunch to the normal human's face, the other Marine follows it up with four bolter shells (at minimum, since the scene cuts out immediately after the fourth shot). Given how bad [[DemonicPossession daemonic possession]] can get in this setting, there's no such thing as overkill.

* FacelessMooks: Pretty much everyone, aside from maybe the psykers in Part Four who ''still'' don’t show their faces, they’re just wearing detailed human-like masks. The Astartes themselves are always wearing their signature {{Rage Helm}}s, but are more of {{Mook Horror Show}}s. [[spoiler:Then Kohren removes his helmet at the end of Episode 5]].

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Whatever the Retributor Captain heard from the Inquisitorial agent [[spoiler:mind-probing the Orb]] made him hurriedly give an instruction to a junior Marine, who goes off running. If you've watched this series up to this point, [[ImplacableMan Marines]] hurrying can only mean something real bad is about to happen.

* HollywoodTactics: Averted by both sides - the rebels use plenty of anti-boarding tactics (bunkering down, funneling the Marines to kill zones for heavy weapons, and ambushing them by shooting anti-material weapons through walls) to take down the Marines [[OvershadowedByAwesome to no avail]], and the Retributors' boarding craft's approach is protected by a fighter that distracts the enemy ship's point-defence guns in addition to two drones being used to intercept enemy homing missile fire. They initiate their attack on the rebels' psyker leaders from multiple angles rather than just continuing on barrelling through against whatever's in the way [[MookHorrorShow (which, granted, worked before)]].

* InstantDeathBullet: JustifiedTrope in here, because getting shot by a .75 caliber armor-piercing exploding rocket to the head or chest probably ''would'' kill you quite immediately.

* TheStinger: The first series ends with a brief glimpse of other Chapters' Marine helms, (in order: the Angels Sanguine, the Dragons of the Void, and the Death Hands, all but the second being homebrew Chapters from the creator's Patreon poll) in an open battle large enough to include tanks (possibly against Dark Eldar).

** Some of the titular Astartes' names can be seen etched on their left pauldron when you can manage to read it through all the movement and {{Chiaroscuro}} (those named this way are Monos, a random marine, and Kohren, the marines' squad leader with the plasma pistol and the closest we get to a protagonist).

* BodyHorror: The psykers have an extra spinal column arching between the back of their head and their back that gets [[spoiler:stabbed through with a combat knife/''ripped out'' by an angry Astartes.]]

* OldSoldier: Judging by three (two silver, one gold) service studs on Kohren's forehead he's served in the Chapter for at minimum many decades, if not centuries.

** As the 40k universe has a lot of (possibly) extinct and unknown ancient races, the [[spoiler:orbs]] might be this, or from some obscure part of the canon lore.

* TheStinger: The first series ends with a brief glimpse of a marine from another chapter in an open battle large enough to include tanks (possibly against Dark Eldar).

** Part 5 sees Astartes just walking though the Orb's attempt to repel and subvert them with barely a reaction.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: As soon as whatever ritual [[spoiler: the Inquisitorial agent is going through goes wrong, the Captain punches his head off and the other Marine with him starts shooting the corpse. If you know anything about the 40k universe, this is a [[ProperlyParanoid bare minimum precaution at best]]]].

** the orbs maybe, however as we have no clue what they are specifically they might be something of from canon.

* AnArmAndALeg: [[spoiler:Kohren loses his right arm below the elbow near the end of episode 5 when he tries freeing himself from the Orb with a point-blank plasma blast that simply explodes the plasma pistol in his hand.]]

** the orbs maybe, however as we have no clue what they are specially they might be something of from canon.

* BreakOutTheMuseumPiece: One of the Retributors guarding the Inquisitor sports the Mark VI Corvus 'Beaky' helmet, a model of PowerArmor designed back during the days of the Great Crusade but that is still used by some Astartes in the 41st millennium.
* ColourCodedForYourConvenience: The psychic powers used by the heretics and their Orb masters are coloured bright blue, while the ones used by the Inquisitor look like shadowy miasma.

* DarkIsNotEvil: The Inquisitor is seen surrounded by black shadowy miasma when he is using his psychic powers, but he's on the Astartes' side.

* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: The two Astartes accompanying the Inquisitor and commanding the Retributors forces have their armour visibly more decorated, with their regalia indicating them as Retributors' First Company Veterans.

* MegatonPunch: A Retributors' commander [[spoiler: pulverizes the Inquisitor's head with a single lightning-fast punch; that punches ''through'' the Inquisitorial agent's head. It makes the bolter four-tap from the Beaky Astartes look more like a precaution than an absolute necessity.]]

* MindProbe: An interesting case where it's inflicted by humans on other species. The Retributors' strike cruiser has a chamber with a seemingly captured and subjugated Orb. The Inquisitor uses it and his own psychic ability coupled with some apparatus to tap in and listen in on the Orb's telepathic communication with its kin. [[spoiler: It ends badly for him when he momentarily breaks his concentration to warn the Retributors' commander of the Orbs' trap, which causes the Orbs to notice him and overwhelm him.]]

* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Whatever the Retributor Captain heard from the Inquisitor [[spoiler:mind-probing the Orb]] made him hurriedly give an instruction to a junior Marine, who goes off running. If you've watched this series up to this point, [[ImplacableMan Marines]] hurrying can only mean something real bad is about to happen.

* ShootTheDog: In episode 5, the marines with the Inquisitor [[spoiler: immediately execute him when it looks like he's getting possessed by the Orbs. [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill They do this by punching his head off and perforating the remains with a bolter]]]].

** Eventually broken by the 5th part, with distorted speech of the Orbs and muffled voice of the Inquisitor. Astartes remain as silent as ever though.

* ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill: As soon as whatever ritual [[spoiler: the Inquisitor is going through goes wrong, the Captain punches his head off and the other Marine with him starts shooting the corpse. If you know anything about the 40k universe, this is a [[ProperlyParanoid bare minimum precaution at best]]]].

* VoiceOfTheLegion: The Orbs "speak" with a noticeable reverb. [[spoiler: So does the Inquisitor when the Orbs overwhelm him]].

* WorfHadTheFlu: [[spoiler:[[JustifiedTrope Justified]], in that while the Adeptus Astartes are meant to fight threats beyond what mere humans are capable of, thus [[CurbStompBattle effortlessly]] dealing with most of the ship and only facing minor resistance from the Psykers in Part 4... once they get to [[EldritchAbomination the Orb]], which holds powers beyond their imagination, it effortlessly humiliates the Astartes in a mere moment, subjugating them once it flexes it's true power on them, reminding the audience that the Astartes are ''still'' at the end of the day limited in their abilities to the true horrors they are meant to face in defense of the Imperium.]]

* BackupFromOtherworld: [[spoiler: The black shadow that attacks the glowing blue entity tethering the Astartes may be the Inquisitor, whose mind still remained cognizant even after his body had been destroyed. This may have prevented whatever ultimate fate the Orbs planned for the Astartes from coming to pass.]]

* EldritchAbomination: The Orbs, first seen in part 5. Nobody is certain just what they are, whether they are Xeno (possibly Yu'vath) artifacts, Xenos themselves, some sort of Warp abominations or anything else. All that is known for sure is that they are sentient, psychic, malevolent towards humanity, and powerful enough to easily subdue the nigh-unstoppable Marines.

* MindProbe: An interesting case where it's inflicted by humans on other species. The Retributors' strike cruiser has a chamber with a seemingly captured and subjugated Orb. The Inquisitor uses it and his own psychic ability coupled with some apparatus to tap in and listen in on the Orb's telepathic communication with its kin. [[spoiler: It ends badly for him when he momentarily breaks his concentration to warn the Retributors' commander of the Orbs' trap, which causes the Orbs to notice him and overwhelm him.]]