Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Literature / GauntsGhosts

Go To

1[[quoteright:262:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Badge_6784.jpg]]
2[[caption-width-right:262: As the Emperor protects, so must we. ]]
3
4->''"Men of Tanith, do you want to live forever?"''
5
6''Gaunt's Ghosts'' is a series of novels by Creator/DanAbnett, set in the ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' universe. Sometimes described as "[[JustForFun/XMeetsY Sharpe meets Warhammer 40k]]", the series follows a band of soldiers in the ultimate [[CrapsackWorld Crapsack Universe]], exploring war settings ranging from airborne assault to trench fighting.[[note]]The ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'' inspiration was [[LampshadeHanging lampshaded]] in the third book, ''Necropolis'', which refers to the troops singing the marching song "Over the Skies and Far Away", a case of Sharpe's signature "Over the Hills and Far Away" [[InSpace IN SPACE!]][[/note]]
7
8The books follow Colonel-Commissar Ibram Gaunt and the Tanith First-and-Only, a single regiment within the trillions-strong [[RedshirtArmy Imperial Guard]]. Nicknamed the "Ghosts", the series focuses on the Tanith's experiences as a tiny part of a vast decades-long crusade to liberate the Sabbat Worlds from Chaos. Written in a style reminiscent of Bernard Cornwell's massively successful ''Literature/{{Sharpe}}'' series, the series has been well received, its strong points including believable battles, capturing the "feel" of the gothic far-future ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'', and a realistic portrayal of the Imperial Guard as actual humans. ''Gaunt's Ghosts'' is the longest-running and the most successful book series set in the 40k universe written by a single author. (Only ''[[Literature/HorusHeresy The Horus Heresy]]'' beats it out on both number of volumes and sales, but that's a collaborative effort of many writers).
9
10[[AC:Thirteen novels and a number of short stories have been published so far:]]
11* ''First & Only'': The Ghosts fight to retake the forge world of Fortis Binary, but there is far more at stake than any of them realises.
12* ''Ghostmaker'': On Monthax, Gaunt recalls the Ghosts' founding and some of their past exploits, even as the present gets interesting with the presence of an Inquisitor and another alien faction.
13* ''Necropolis'': The Ghosts are sent to defend the city of Vervunhive.
14* ''Honour Guard'': Gaunt undertakes a desperate mission to recover the bones of Saint Sabbat from the Shrinehold on Hagia.
15* ''The Guns of Tanith'': The Ghosts perform a series of dropship raids on Mountaintop cities on Phantine, in an attempt to eliminate Chaos Warlord Saggitar Slaith.
16* ''Straight Silver'': The Ghosts engage in trench warfare to try and win a forty-year long land war.
17* ''Sabbat Martyr'': On Herodor, Saint Sabbat is reincarnated. Chaos will have none of that, and the Ghosts have to fend off both conventional forces and Nine assassins.
18* ''Traitor General'': Gaunt and a small team of Ghosts are sent to infiltrate the Chaos-held world of Gereon. Their mission is to eliminate a traitor, one who is all too familiar.
19* ''His Last Command'': Gaunt and his team return from Gereon and find themselves suspected of Chaos taint, while the rest of the Ghosts have been integrated into a new unit. There is more than meets the eye to the ongoing siege, though.
20* ''The Armour of Contempt'': The Ghosts return to Gereon as part of the liberating Guard warhost, but the Inquisition has its own plans.
21* ''Only In Death'': The Ghosts are sent to Jago to guard the eastern fortress of Hinzerhaus from Chaos, but the enemy is closer than command thinks, and the house itself is more sinister than it looks.
22* ''Blood Pact'': The return to Balhaut for billet has left the Ghosts restless and Gaunt wishes to get back to the war. He really, really should know better.
23* ''Salvation's Reach'': The Ghosts embark on a mission to raid a critical Chaos facility in hopes of turning the tide of the Crusade in the Imperium's favor. Unfortunately, it also happens to be a suicide mission.
24* ''The Warmaster'': The Ghosts are deployed to the forge world of Urdesh to defend against an attack by Anarch Sek. However, the battle may just be a diversion to distract from the enemy's true goal: the elimination of Imperial Warmaster Macaroth himself.
25* ''Anarch'': Set in the immediate aftermath of The Warmaster, Gaunt struggles to adjust to the demands of his new position, as well as deal with figures from his past. However, Anarch Sek's attempt to cut the head off crusade command isn't over and the threat is considerably closer than anyone can imagine.
26
27Additionally, the Sabbat Worlds Crusade setting has essentially spawned a mini-continuity within the Warhammer 40,000 universe, with a number of additional works that are not limited to just Gaunt's Ghosts.
28
29There is "The Sabbat Worlds Crusade" written as an Imperial history of the early part of the central campaign of the novels. An updated edition has been been announced and is slated for release in November of 2019.
30
31The series also has a {{spinoff}}, ''Double Eagle'', focusing on the fighter squadron introduced in ''The Guns of Tanith'' which has its own planned, but unwritten, sequel, ''Interceptor City''. ''Literature/{{Titanicus}}'' is not a direct spin off but it's set during the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. There is also the anthology ''Sabbat Worlds'', a collection of short stories written by other Black Library authors including Abnett which are set during the Crusade. Another collection ''Sabbat Crusade'' is to be released shortly.
32
33In 2021, Abnett started releasing a spinoff series entitled ''Ghost Dossier'', which consists of novel-length tales of standalone Ghost adventures that happened some time between the other stories, which allows for the return of long killed-off characters.
34
35----
36!!As part of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'', the series involves a large number of the tropes on that page, as well as employing literary and narrative tropes of its own:
37
38* AbsurdlySharpBlade: The Power Sword of Heironymo Sondar, a blade that can cut through carapace armour, [[spoiler: The skin of a [[AnimatedArmour Wire]][[DemonicPossession Wolf]] and the PowerArmour of a Chaos Space Marine]].
39* AcePilot: All over the place in ''Double Eagle'', though the pilot of the titular fighter actually isn't until the end of the book, due to a string of bad luck.
40* ActionFilmQuietDramaScene: Frequently.
41* ActionSurvivor: Most of the Ghosts who join on Vervunhive. While a handful of them, such as Daur, were members of the PDF, the majority of them were common workers or gangers that didn't have any formal training.
42* ActualPacifist: Dorden. Has been with the Ghosts from day one and has fired on someone else ''once'', and then in a MatterOfLifeAndDeath. Then he is the doctor. In ''Warhammer 40,000'' universe, this says a lot.
43* AffablyEvil: ''Traitor General'' has Desolane, the lifewarden whose duty is to protect [[spoiler: General Sturm]] from danger while he is undergoing the process of unlocking his memory. Although Desolane is a servant of Chaos, brutal and remorseless in combat, he proves to be remarkably gentle and polite towards the Imperial renegade, and even develops a certain feeling of sympathy to him.
44** Mabbon Etogaur is consistently polite and cordial to all who talk to him, as well as cooperating unconditionally with Imperial forces. He's also, by his own admission, a serial traitor and takes professional pride in having served and trained highly skilled Chaos armies against crusade forces.
45* AfraidOfNeedles: In ''The Guns Of Tanith'', Dorden comments that Ghosts are content with some bayonet wounds but would rather skip the needles. It becomes a rather important plot point in "Blood Pact".
46* AfterActionHealingDrama: "Iron Star" is all this.
47* AlienGeometries: Most Chaos artifacts and symbols.
48* AlienSky: Especially on Gereon.
49* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: The Phantine Air Corps are an anomaly of the Guard; they come from a planet where the cities are built on high mountain plateaus, and so are better atmospheric fliers than infantrymen. So when the Imperial tithe came up, the Phantines were ordered to form the Phantine Air Corps. This puts them in the sights of the Imperial Guard (who don't consider the Phantines true Guardsmen) ''and'' the Imperial Navy (who consider any aircraft their personal domain).
50* AmnesiacDissonance: [[spoiler:Sturm]] in ''Traitor General''.
51* AnachronicOrder: Several of the novels, but clearly seen in Ghostmaker.
52* AnimatedArmor: Wirewolves.
53* AnyoneCanDie: Strongly, repeatedly invoked: although some prominent characters have been spared by chance, the God-Emperor or PopularityPower, many beloved ones have died... or worse. Naming the exceptions would probably qualify as a spoiler for the entire series.
54** WordOfGod: "People seem to like them. I'll keep writing until they don't anymore or, as I've said, until I've killed everybody-whichever is soonest".
55* {{Arcadia}}: Lost Tanith.
56* AristocratsAreEvil: Flip-flopped, but on the whole, played straight more often than it's subverted.
57* ArmchairMilitary: The supreme commanders of the Guard. Some, most notably Van Voytz, are of the ReasonableAuthorityFigure type, but they seem outnumbered by more callous or outright GeneralRipper types.
58* ArtificialLimbs: Body parts of many kinds can be replaced with 'augmetics', inexpensive cyborg parts - although line troopers will get the bare minimum of functionality and absolutely no aesthetic consideration Surviving Tanith have received synthetic eyes, voiceboxes, feet, shoulders, arms, etc. [[spoiler: Even Gaunt himself is eventually mutilated and subsequently provided with new eyes of extremely high quality, with multiple vision modes in addition to being visually subtle.]]
59** ArtificialLimbsAreStronger: Hark and Varl have an augmetic hand and shoulder respectively, and can punch through solid objects and break bones with a single jab. In ''Anarch'', Domor can see in the dark with his artificial eyes even when [[spoiler: a daemon woe machine]] has disabled all electricity-powered light. [[spoiler: Gaunt]] gains almost psychic powers after having his eyes replaced, although it's uncertain whether the effect is due to the new augmetic eyes or the fact that [[spoiler: his original eyes were removed by Chaos]].
60* AssholeVictim: General Sturm of the Volpone Bluebloods deserves everything that happens to him. Zhyte from ''Guns of Tanith'' also counts, as he insults the Tanith for not being as glorified and distinguished as his own regiment (Urdeshi stormtroopers) when Gaunt is trying to warn him about a trap. Cue the Urdeshi getting trapped and slaughtered by the same trap that Gaunt had been trying to warn him about.
61* ATeamFiring: "Try Again" Bragg's trademark, and the source of his nickname.
62* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Usually inverted, as Gaunt is usually seen bossing around men with significantly higher rank and social status than him. This is justified in the case of Commissars like Gaunt and Hark, who are permitted - and in a few cases ''required'' - to perform summary executions for dereliction of duty.
63* AxCrazy: Lijah Cuu.
64* BackAlleyDoctor: Dr. Kolding, who first appears in ''Blood Pact''. The fact that he's an albino in the xenophobic Imperium, which often treats people with deformities or mutations as being impure or touched by Chaos even when they really aren't, explains why he's specifically a BackAlleyDoctor.
65** Arbus, a similar character appearing in ''Blood Pact'', is a ''medicae'' working for the criminal underground since he lost his licence due to medical malpractice.
66* BadassArmy: The Ghosts, though more Badass Regiment. The Imperial Guard in general. The Blood Pack and Sons of Sek both fit this better, as unlike the howling mobs that serve as most of the Chaos forces they are actual professionally drilled and trained soldiers.
67* BadassInDistress: At the end of ''The Warmaster'', [[spoiler: Major Gol Kolea has been taken into custody by the Inquisition, due to the incident on Aigor 991. Hark is trying to push for his release but Inquisitor Laksheema makes it clear that she is not going to give him up any time soon.]]
68* BadassLongcoat: Gaunt, Hark.
69* BadassNormal: The Imperial Guard, despite its many flaws, is regarded this way by the entire series. While the titular regiment gets most of the attention, the author takes time to provide details of other regiments all laboring toward victory in the Crusade.
70* BaitAndSwitchTyrant: Commissar Hark.
71* BatmanGambit: In ''His Last Command'' [[spoiler: Gaunt wanted the inquisitors and senior commissars to learn about the Chaos portals, so he deliberately acted in a suspicious manner that Ludd would report.]]
72* BattleAura: ''Sabbat Martyr'' presents one - for once, a supernatural being on the ''Imperial'' side:
73--> Cold green fire, in the form of a great eagle with its wings unfurled, lit up the Saint.
74* BattleCouple: Criid and Caffran. [[spoiler: For a long time.]]
75* BattleInTheRain: The climactic battle at the end of ''Ghostmaker'' takes place during a driving rainstorm.
76* BavarianFireDrill: In ''Salvation's Reach'' Rawne visits [[spoiler:Mabbon]] by acting as though he belongs. [[spoiler:Helps that the guard had been killed by someone else beforehand, not that Rawne knew.]]
77* BayonetYa: A silver warknife (the "straight silver") is one of the symbols of the Tanith First, as seen in their skull-and-dagger regimental badge, and carried by every trooper. It is variably used as a [[ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks ranged weapon]], bayonet, or [[EmergencyWeapon really close combat weapon]]. When thrown, the straight silver always [[TheBladeAlwaysLandsPointyEndIn lands pointy end in]] because the Tanith are just [[RuleOfCool that good]].
78* BeamSpam: There is one point in Necropolis when, as the Guard troops and local forces are estimating the enemy's strength, Mkoll notes that the continuous, buzzing sound they've been hearing is the combined sound of the enemy army's lasguns, so numerous that there is no audible gap in their firing.
79** In ''Blood Pact'', when the Chaos witch bursts into the room to attack Mabbon, [[spoiler: Maggs kills her by simply unloading his lasgun at her, firing over ''two hundred'' shots at her and overwhelming her warp-shields]].
80* BeardOfSorrow: Gaunt on Gereon.
81* BearerOfBadNews: Aside from dead Ghosts, this usually happens when the Ghosts are stuck on a mission for which they're ill suited. The First and Only are stealth and infiltration experts, not heavy assault troops. When somebody puts out a call to 'throw all available bodies at the enemy', they tend to take very high losses.
82* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor:
83** In ''The Guns of Tanith'', Gaunt ruefully notes that the Ghosts receiving long-overdue recognition for their scout/stealth skills means getting sent on ultra-high risk infiltration missions.
84** Sanian starts as wishing for a purpose. After discovering that her purpose is war, she is then[[spoiler:inhabited by the very saint the war is being fought for.]]
85** Milo spends most of the time pining for Sanian after they part. When they are reunited, Sanian [[spoiler:is effectively gone, supplanted by the personality of Saint Sabbat, and Milo can't recognize her because of this]]. He does get to go with her, though.
86** In ''Anarch'', the Tanith First are showered with compliments by the Lord General in charge of their theatre, described as a prestige unit, famously specialised, a vital asset, trustworthy and valued for their abilities - and precisely for these reasons they're ordered to hold an impossible line that already broke another regiment.
87* BecauseDestinySaysSo: The Ghosts' involvement in the reincarnation of Saint Sabbat.
88* BeingWatched: Said by Baen to Varl in ''Sabbat Martyr''. Baen's right - [[spoiler: Pater Sin and his psyker-runts are using psyk-cloaking to walk between them]].
89** In ''Traitor General'', the scouts on Gereon know they're being tracked just before the Nihtgane show themselves.
90** In ''The Armour of Contempt'' Mkoll and Eszrah recognise that there's someone out there watching them [[spoiler: who the latter gets to see and is strongly implied to be [=MkVenner=]]], while Vadim and Caffran have a similar sentiment at their part of Gereon.
91* BerserkButton: In ''Blood Pact''. [[spoiler:Maggs]] even shocks himself. See BeamSpam.
92** [[spoiler: In ''Salvation's Reach,'' when Gaunt finds out there's a conspiracy to make money off of dead troopers, he gets PIIIIISSSSSSED!]]
93** In ''Straight Silver'', a few unlucky Alliance troopers learn that stealing vital medical supplies from Gaunt's Ghosts and threatening his LoveInterest is the best way to make him behave like a more typical Imperial commissar - that is, to carry out a summary execution.
94* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: An opinion expressed by some characters.
95* BewareTheHonestOnes: Rawne is probably the foremost example.
96* {{BFG}}: Usually in Bragg's hands and almost always something that should be mounted on a stationary post or carried by a guy in powered armor.
97* BigDamnHeroes: There are quite a few of these.
98* BigGood: Saint Sabbat seems to act as one for the book's second arc: Warmaster Slaydo provided one in the backstory. General van Voytz performed as one in the third, but he wound up nearly destroying the Ghosts through honest misjudgements.
99* BittersweetEnding: Commonly used: about as good as it gets for war stories in this CrapsackWorld.
100** The perfect example of this is in ''Sabbat Martyr'', where Saint Sabbat is reincarnated, Kolea's brain damage is healed, and Chaos Warlord Enok Innokenti is slain... [[spoiler: but the last assassin is killed too late to prevent the death of beloved Colonel Corbec; Milo leaving with Saint Sabbat, and Soric being taken by the Black Ships.]]
101* BlindSeer: Toyed with in ''Blood Pact'' as [[spoiler:Gaunt's traumatic blinding]] has him start to vividly see things that are actually happening out of his line-of-sight. In other words, remote viewing. [[spoiler:Gaunt the psyker?]]
102* BlingOfWar: Saint Sabbat's armor.
103* BloodFromTheMouth: Usually due to horrible gunshot wounds, or worse, the presence of raw Chaos magic.
104* BloodMagic: Practiced by Blood Pact psykers.
105* BlueBlood: Some Guard regiments are made up of nobles; the Tanith First rarely can manage anything better than TeethClenchedTeamwork with them.
106* BottledHeroicResolve: In ''His Last Command'', when Mkoll is unconscious after falling through a [[CoolGate Chaos warp gate]] and managing to get himself and another scout back despite the enemies, the [[AlienGeometries impossible landscape]], and the [[EvilIsDeathlyCold cold behind it]], Gaunt ''has'' to speak with him. He has [[TheMedic Dorden]] revive him long enough to speak with a shot; Dorden refuses to give him another dose, after.
107* BreatherEpisode: ''Blood Pact'', by comparison, as the Ghosts are not at the front.
108* BrownNote: Glyfs (yes, not 'glyphs'), the Warp phenomena encountered by the Gaunt's team in ''Traitor General'', have a destructive influence on the minds of people watching them. Even the sound they produce while moving is perceived as unsettling.
109** During the space battle in ''Salvation's Reach'', the Chaos flotilla constantly broadcasts inhuman messages which manage to jam the Imperial communications, destroy some servitors, and cause panic among the crew.
110* BunnyEarsLawyer: Bunny Ears Sniper in the case of Larkin.
111** Bunny Ears Chaplain in the case of Zweil.
112* BulletTime: Hark calls it "fight time".
113* ButtMonkey: Nobody gives Trooper Cant ''any'' respect. People won't even give him a break about his name (If he says he can't do something, the reply will invariously be, "Can't, cant, or won't?"). We also have this little Gem said by Rawne to Meryn, which implies that getting shot by Cant would be so pathetic that it would be a shameful death, no matter the other circumstances.
114-->"So throw that shit away and start observing the chain of command, or I’ll have Leyr shoot you with his ridiculously big rifle. No, no, worse than that. I’ll have Cant mow you down with his stubber. Then there’d be shame involved".
115** Even Gaunt gets in on it. When he's stuck in a standoff and Rawne's squad comes in to back him up, Gaunt asks Rawne if everybody's armed and pointing their guns at the other guy, not him. When Rawne replies with an affirmative, Gaunt asks, "Even Cant?"
116** The entirety of V Company. The Tanith are a combat formation, so it comes as a bit of a shock when they’re assigned a color band. Nobody gives V Company any respect and they’re chronically held out of the fighting, which drives their first company commander into a brutal downward spiral. After the Liberation of Urdesh the Ghosts struggle coming up with a candidate for a new captain who won’t consider the command an insult.
117* BuyThemOff
118* CallBack: ''Salvation's Reach'' has two. The fruit of a certain dalliance Gaunt had all the way back in ''Necropolis'' turns up looking for him, and one of the characters introduced here is the brother of another character who died in ''His Last Command.''
119* CannotSpitItOut: Kolea can't tell Dalin that he's his birth father.
120* CannotTellALie
121* TheCasanova: In the BackStory, Gaunt's mentor Otkar.
122* CatchPhrase: Beltayn's "Something's awry" and Cuu's "Sure as Sure" spring to mind.
123** ''Only In Death'' is named for an Imperial Guard slogan, "only in death does duty end".
124** "Men of Tanith! Do you want to live forever?"
125** "Say hello to Mr. Yellow." - Brostin (used more than once as a PreMortemOneLiner).
126* TheChainsOfCommanding: Gaunt is one of the few commissars who actually gives a damn about his own troops. Kicked up a notch by ''The Warmaster'' and ''Anarch'' [[spoiler:both the newly minted Lord Executor Gaunt and Colonel Rawne are feeling the strain.]]
127* CharacterDevelopment: Many of the characters go through changes and revelations over the series.
128** Rawne starts out having every intention of murdering Gaunt and being chauvinistic about the influx of the women soldiers in the regiment, but develops into one of Gaunt's most loyal officers and respecting women in the regiment.
129** Junior Commissar Ludd goes from EnsignNewbie to being able to get ''[[SuperSoldier Space Marines]]'' to follow his orders.
130* CharacterMagneticTeam: The Ghosts attracted large numbers of soldiers from Vervunhive in ''Necropolis'' and were merged with the Belladon 81st regiment in ''His Last Command'', although the overall number of Ghosts doesn't change that much due to the high casualty rate (as of the end of ''Only In Death'', [[spoiler: more than half of the regiment is dead. That is, half the regiment that was alive going into the book]]). They then get reinforced by another two companies from [[spoiler: Vervunhive]] in ''Salvation's Reach''.
131* ChekhovsGun: In '' First & Only'', [[spoiler:Trooper Drayl gets a shard from a Chaos statuette stuck in his collarbone from Corbec shooting the statuette. He gets a field dressing put on it, and the group moves on. The shard corrupts Drayl, with him later shooting at the group with [[ProphetEyes "a milky nothingness in his eyes"]]. He is shot in their self-defence, and ''then'' has a large metallic-coloured skeletal monster BodyHorror come out of him that the group also has to kill.]]
132* ChildrenAreInnocent: Encounters with children tends to inspire protectiveness in Ghosts.
133** Subverted in the retaking of corrupted Gereon, when [[spoiler: Caffran]] tries to rescue a starved child [[spoiler: and the child shoots him]].
134** Also subverted during the siege of Vervunhive in ''Necropolis''. The narration briefly mentions that the Chaos army is made of all people available, including elders and children.
135* TheChosenOne: [[spoiler: Lilith]], in ''Ghostmaker'', [[spoiler: Sanian]] in ''Honour Guard'' and ''Sabbat Martyr''.
136* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Lijah Cuu fits this trope so well that it's rather shocking that nobody really called him out on it earlier. This is also the possible reason behind Mabbon's multiple changes of allegiance, first from the Imperium to Gaur, Gaur to Sek, and then from Sek to [[spoiler: the Imperium.]]
137** ''Salvation's Reach'' implies that Mabbon [[spoiler:might be switching from the Imperium back to Gaur]]. It turns out in ''Anarch'' that he has actually [[spoiler: switched to pacifism.]]
138* CitadelCity: Vervunhive, in ''Necropolis'' is a substantial example. (How effective is it? [[MeaningfulName The title means]] [[DoomedHometown "city of the dead"]]). Cities on Phantine are also easily defensible, thanks to the way they're surrounded by poisonous clouds and can only be attacked by air. The Doctrinopolis on Hagia is a more medieval-themed example.
139** In contrast, the hives on Herodor are ''not'' Citadel Cities. Gaunt really wishes they were, and [[ContinuityNod muses on how Vervunhive was different]].
140* {{Cliffhanger}}: The end of ''Salvation's Reach'' reveals that [[spoiler: Tarmaggedon Monstrum Rex, the powerful demon ship which had fled the space battle described earlier, managed to find the spaceship carrying the Ghosts and now is again pursuing them.]]
141** Once again in ''The Warmaster'': [[spoiler: Mkoll's fate is unknown, Gol Kolea is taken by the Inquisition, and the story ends with Yoncy, who was strongly suggested to be a conduit for a demon, entering the base of operations for the entire crusade.]]
142* ClownCarBase: The compartments in ''His Last Command'', which pump out more Chaos troops than they should be able to hold. [[spoiler: [[AWizardDidIt Warp portals are to blame]]]].
143* ClusterFBomb: Feth is a Tanith tree-god, but you wouldn't know it from the way the Ghosts employ the name.
144* ColdBloodedTorture: From the forces of Chaos naturally: sometimes the Inquisition as well.
145* CollapsingLair: Most clearly used at the end of ''First and Only.''
146* ColonelBadass: Both Gaunt and his second-in-command, Colonel Colm Corbec.
147* CommissarCap: In ''His Last Command'', when Ludd is sent to get troops to the battlefield, he loses his cap getting there — across the battlefield — and their first question for him when he said he was a commissar was to ask where his hat was. (He gets them to the battlefield anyway).
148%%
149%% Complete Monster belongs on the YMMV tab.
150%%
151* ConservationOfNinjutsu: Deconstructed in ''Ghostmaker'': A small team of Ghosts and Bluebloods wipes out a thousands-strong Chaos force... and the incident is written off as an illusionary battle by tacticians unable to account for the success.
152--> Years later.... Imperial tacticians.... would be utterly unable to account for the success of the action. .... There was no sense to the data. Simple statistics should have had Gaunt's expeditionary force cut down to the last man.... They slew, approximately, two-point-four thousand soldiers of the enemy. .... The tacticians would decide that the only explanation could be that there were no enemy units on the field that day. .... Only then did the computations and the statistics and the possibilities match up.
153** Of course, the tacticians do not take into account the fact that [[spoiler: the Guard forces weren't the only ones fighting against Chaos in that battle]].
154* ContinuityNod: (On several occasions, Gaunt makes reference to the book ''Spheres of Longing'', which was authored by Inquisitor Gideon Literature/{{Ravenor}}. Abnett fans would know that Ravenor stars in his own running Warhammer 40k series also authored by Abnett.
155** A ''preemptive'' Continuity Nod: Abnett created Ravenor and his book as scenery dressing, and didn't start thinking of him as a character with his own adventures until much later -- and that was ''after'' he'd already served as a supporting character in Abnett's chronologically-earlier ''Literature/{{Eisenhorn}}'' novels. According to interviews with Abnett, most of his "continuity nods" are the result of happy accidents like this.
156*** The Eisenhorn / Ravenor stories were also foreshadowed by Gaunts Ghosts. In one book, Gaunt recalls Ravenor describing the terrible fate of his master. Although Eisenhorn had become a radical by the end his series and was well established as one in Ravenor, it was hardly a terrible fate. There is also the implication in ''Salvation's Reach'' that Ravenor suffers a DownerEnding. The fact that Abnett has referred to the next series of Inquisitor books as Eisenhorn versus Ravenor would seem to support this.
157** Another Abnett novel, ''Literature/BrothersOfTheSnake'', received the same treatment. The Iron Snakes Space Marine Chapter originally only received a brief mention in ''Necropolis''. Later, ''Salvation's Reach'' has an Iron Snake assisting the Ghosts.
158** Similarly, the character of Inquisitor Heldane, [[spoiler:who gets killed off in ''First And Only'']], also would only get developed further in the ''{{Literature/Eisenhorn}}'' novels.
159** ''Double Eagle'' features Leguin as a secondary character. He was originally introduced in ''Honour Guard'' as, well, a secondary character.
160** There are a few mentions of Tanith in the Adeptus Mechanicus-themed book ''Titanicus'': sacra, and a cameo character is described as a Tanith emigree.
161** A very subtle one in Blood Pact. One of the Blood Pact infiltrators is named [[Literature/HorusHeresy Samus]].
162** In the short story ''Forgotten'', set during ''Salvation's Reach'', Larkin tells the story of meeting [[spoiler: an angel]] in ''Ghostmaker''.
163* ConvenientlyAnOrphan: Gaunt, Yoncy and Dalin.
164* ConverseWithTheUnconscious: Several times when Ghosts are wounded and likely to die.
165* CoolGate: In ''His Last Command''.
166* CoolSword: Gaunt's swords are not only [[ChainsawGood chainswords]] but possessed of personal and historical significance.
167** The power sword of Heironymo Sondar, an AncestralWeapon and AbsurdlySharpBlade that Gaunt receives as a gift after the battle for Vervunhive.
168* TheCorruption: One of Chaos' main weapons. In ''His Last Command'' Gaunt and his team from the Gereon mission are briefly put on trial to prove they are not tainted by Chaos, due to being stuck on a Chaos-occupied world for more than a year. The title of the next book, ''The Armour of Contempt'', references an aphorism from another Abnett character, Gideon Ravenor, which states that one can resist Chaos's influence not by ignorance of it, but by knowing it and contemplating its repulsiveness - the 'armor of contempt'.
169* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Guilder Worlin in ''Necropolis''. Despite orders to close down oil pipelines, Worlin keeps his pipeline open so he can get rich off the profits. [[spoiler:This gives the Zoicans a route they can use to infiltrate Imperial lines]].
170* CrapsackWorld: As active-duty troops, the Ghosts visit one after another:
171** Fortis Binary, an [[IndustrialGhetto industrial wasteland]] scarred with craters and toxic gas.
172** Monthax and its perpetually rainy, rotting marshes.
173** Aexe Cardinal, a place of endless trench warfare in what amounts to a mass grave.
174** Gereon, contaminated by Chaos and stripped of all useful resources ([[HumanResources including people]]). A massive Imperial Guard liberation force arrives two books later but it's all but spelled out that the damage has been done and the planet will never fully recover.
175** Jago, dessicated, dusty and haunted.
176** Salvation's Reach, a mass of [[GhostShip ancient space-junk]] riddled with mines and vaults of forbidden things.
177** And so on.
178* CrazyPrepared: How Gaunt describes his late Warmaster Slaydo: the reason he gained so much success is that he expected ''anything'' to happen.
179* CreepyChild:
180** Pater Sin's twin psykers.
181** Yoncy has started making cryptic references to a "bad shadow" in ''The Warmaster''. [[spoiler: It is heavily implied that she has become the host for some sort of Chaos entity that is tied to the incident at the derelict supply depot on Aigor 991, of which her father was a witness.]]
182* CrimeAfterCrime: A noble in ''Necropolis'' ignores the order to seal all the pipelines into the city so he can sell his promethium at a premium with the shortage everyone else complying will bring. When this allows Asphodel's men to enter the city through his pipeline, he starts covering his tracks through a long list of murders of his assistants and people investigating his crime.
183** In Warmaster [[spoiler: Meryn and his flunkies hatch a half-baked scheme to extort money from Gaunt’s son, Felyx. The scheme immediately goes awry when Felyx proves to be a girl and much tougher than they thought. This leads to one of them immediately trying to kill Felyx, which fails but leads to three deaths and an equally half-baked coverup by Meryn, who keeps trying to murder his way out of the hole he’s dug for himself. Meryn is not good at crime, and the Galaxy is better off without him.]]
184* CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass: When Sergeant Varl is playing the clown, you could be forgiven for assuming that's all he is. Then you try to make trouble, and suddenly he pins your arm to the wall with a casually thrown knife. He ''earned'' that rank.
185* CrypticConversation: On several occasions.
186* CruelMercy: One of the several battles in ''Ghostmaker'' involves the leader of a Chaos army being captured. Caffran essentially single handily tricked his entire army into thinking that they had been routed, whereupon they committed ritualistic suicide. As a reward, Gaunt offers Caffran the honor of executing the enemy leader. Caffran refuses however, not out of sympathy, but because the Chaos leader worships death and was actually looking forward to being killed. The second the Chaos leader hears this, he begins to suffer a VillainousBreakdown and Gaunt remarks that he'll probably be promoting Caffran soon.
187* CunningLinguist: Several Inquisition characters. Gaunt and all members of his team who took part in the Gereon mission learned how to speak the language of the great enemy. This proves to be useful later on few occasions. For example, in ''Blood Pact'' Rawne [[spoiler: uses his fluent knowledge of the enemy language to distract a Blood Trooper assassin long enough to kill him.]]
188* CycleOfRevenge: Dercius got Gaunt's father and many of his men killed by retreating instead of providing support. Gaunt killed Dercius for this in a duel. Then Dercius' son [[spoiler:Flense]] tries to murder Gaunt and his entire command to avenge his father's death (and his own loss of status).
189* DangerousDeserter: Happens several times with Imperial Guard soldiers.
190* ADayInTheLimelight: Short stories frequently focus on individual Ghosts, such as Larkin or Bragg. The second book was a whole bunch of these highlighting how awesome each one could be.
191* DeadAllAlong: [[spoiler:Dalin and Yoncy]] died on Vervunhive. What has been traveling with the Ghosts under those names are [[spoiler:Chaos woe machines created by Heritor Asphodel as sleeper agents until the proper moment]].
192* DeadPersonConversation: Several characters often have recurring dreams where they converse with previously dead characters. This is a key plot point in Honor Guard, but most notable is poor old Larkin, who literally ''hallucinates'' [[spoiler:conversations with Bragg]] whenever he's feeling slightly more unhinged than normal.
193** Becomes a plot point again in ''Only in Death'' [[spoiler:when Larkin starts seeing Bragg, after years of not hallucinating him. Rawne also joins in on the fun by seeing Corbec. Whether or not they’re visions are just that (both characters have had a history with hallucinations) or genuine hauntings is kept a mystery until the very end - turns out AWizardDidIt.]]
194* DeathByChildbirth: Gaunt's mother.
195** And it would have happened to Corbec's mother if it wasn't for the efforts of a young Doctor Dorden.
196* ADeathInTheLimelight: Several main characters such as [[spoiler:Bragg, Feygor, and Corbec.]]
197* DeathOrGloryAttack: The Ghosts typically fight smart, but sometimes they charge the enemy when it's clear they'll be overwhelmed no matter what they do. This happens, tragically, more than once.
198* DeathSeeker: Several Ghosts are so traumatized by war they can't wait to be killed.
199* DeflectorShields: Void shields show up in ''The Guns of Tanith'' and [[spoiler:Sagittar Slaith]] has a las-proof personal shield. The status of the shield covering Vervunhive becomes an issue twice in ''Necropolis''. Obviously, they play an important role in a few space battles described throughout the series.
200* DiabolusExMachina: [[spoiler:Lijah Cuu]] is effectively a manifestation of "Diabolus". [[spoiler:Good riddance]].
201* DiagonalCut: [[spoiler: Gaunt pulls this against a Chaos Space Marine]] badass.
202* DidWeJustHaveTeaWithCthulhu: Everyone on the Imperial side is a bit creeped out by [[spoiler: Mabbon Etogaur]] being kind of a decent guy. He is infallibly polite and helpful, has a sense of humour, enjoys reading philosophical literature, and [[spoiler: is actually an inhumanly powerful Chaos daemon-construct]].
203* DiggingYourselfDeeper: In ''Blood Pact'' Gaunt makes [[spoiler: Ayatani Zweil]] do this against himself to get him to go for medical.
204* DirtyBusiness: In ''Traitor General'', when a [[LaResistance resistance]] member freaks out, Gaunt knocks him unconscious and carries him to safety. Landerson, another member, is surprised that being a commissar, he didn't kill him, and Gaunt talks of his duty to protect mankind, even the weak and frightened -- and feels a distaste for it. The truth was, he could not have left the body behind, and he might as well bring him alive, but he was saying that to manipulate Landerson.
205** In ''Blood Pact'', Gaunt thinks that he's done a lot of dubious things in his day, but he particularly dislikes [[spoiler: having let the prisoner "bleed out" the BloodMagic of the pursuing witch]] -- out of not only himself but also [[spoiler: Wes Maggs]].
206* DirtyCoward: [[spoiler: General Noches Sturm]] in ''Necropolis''. Meryn proves to be one as well.
207** [[spoiler: Commissar Blenner]] makes a great many questionable decisions, generally based on fear. He’s afraid of death and therefore afraid of combat, and eventually his fears give [[spoiler: Meryn’s gang]] leverage on him, which only makes things worse.
208* DisabilitySuperpower: Nessa. She's permanently deaf from being too close to an artillery bombardment, but that doesn't stop her from being the one of the best snipers in the Ghosts, rivalling Larkin in skill.
209** Also inverted in the case of Merrt. After getting his lower jaw shot off, the former sniper loses his marksmanship skills and is demoted back to a simple trooper who can barely shoot an unmoving can. [[spoiler: In Salvation's Reach, Sar Af of the White Scars helps him overcome this and regain a measure of his former skill]].
210* DisturbedDoves: In ''Blood Pact'', when fighting breaks out at the climax, flocks of (unspecified) birds take flight.
211* DividedWeFall:
212** ''First & Only'' is driven by two rivalries: between [[InterserviceRivalry the Ghosts and the Jantine Patricians]], and between Dravere and Macaroth. Indeed, the first rivalry, and its {{Revenge}}, is used to cover up other intrigues -- and this in the face of the forces of Chaos!
213** In ''Ghostmaker'', they have another [[InterserviceRivalry rivalry between the Ghosts and the Volpone Bluebloods]]. While the Bluebloods themselves are not all evil (at worst, Blueblood guardsmen are just haughty and elitist) their commanders once wittingly ordered an artillery bombardment where they knew the Ghosts were currently encamped, and at the climax, two officers are in a brawl until a Chaos beast actually erupts on them, killing several of their troopers.
214** In ''Traitor General'', [[spoiler:Sturm]] blamed his fall on Gaunt's unwillingness to let the past go and jockeying for power. [[spoiler:He [[HeelRealization realizes the truth]], in time.]]
215** And of course there's [[spoiler:Rawne, Gaunt's own third-in command, who has tried to kill Gaunt himself on several occasions.]] Admittedly this was because [[spoiler:he blamed Gaunt for saving only his regiment and not allowing them to fight the forces of Chaos at their Founding, forcing the regiment to abandon its home and people - even though doing so would have done no practical good at all, and would have rendered the Tanith people totally extinct]].
216** In the Sabbat Worlds Crusade spinoff ''Titanicus'', a member of Adeptus Mechanicus reveals a purported proof that the Omnissiah and the Emperor are not one and the same, contrary to the accepted Imperial dogma. This results in almost total rupture within the Mechanicus order and with the Imperial forces, with religious disputes quickly causing factions to fight both each other and the blasphemous machine men / uneducated fleshbags arrayed against them -- ''while'' their planet is being invaded. [[spoiler: Fortunately, Varco's HeroicSacrifice revealed more invaders, so they went to fight them instead. One conspirator, lamenting that {{Fire Forged Friends}}hip would prevent support, reveals that the evidence had been tampered with before it was distributed, as part of a power ploy. Afterward, they do [[LampshadeHanging notice]] that "this was a power ploy" [[DebateAndSwitch does not exactly exclude]] "this was true".]] They decide to [[spoiler:black it out anyway, because even if true, the ensuing schism would be fatal to both sides]].
217* DontYouDarePityMe: Usually wounded Ghosts desperate to get back into the fight.
218* DoomedByCanon: In ''The Armour of Contempt'', the Inquisition thinks they can find protection against Chaos on Gereon. Gaunt thinks they won't -- and considering what that would do to history, is obviously right.
219* DoubleMeaningTitle: In addition to both the name of the first novel and regiment name, Tanith First and Only, [[spoiler: it also referres to Ibhram Gaunt as the first and only son to his father.]]
220* DramaticIrony: In ''Salvation's Reach'' Domor makes a crack about forcing his face to change. Little does he know that a certain agent of the Archenemy with such a talent is among the Ghosts' ranks.
221* DreamingOfThingsToCome: Often, either from Psykers, Saint Sabbat or [[spoiler:Soric]].
222* DrillSergeantNasty. Sergeant Kexie is both a ruthless and vicious bastard and a competent soldier who respects his troopers after they prove themselves on the hellish battlefield of Gereon.
223* DrivenToSuicide:
224** [[spoiler: Sabbatine Cirk]] in ''The Armour of Contempt'' due to guilt over having sold out the Gereon resistance to the Inquisition.
225** ''Double Eagle'' has the suicide death of [[spoiler: Major Heckel]] most likely caused by feeling of guilt and the strain of being an officer during an overwhelming Chaos offensive.
226* DrivesLikeCrazy: In ''Ghostmaker'', Ortiz has a tank driven into headquarters, scattering drilling soldiers and knocking all sorts of things astray. Then, he was inspired: a superior officer had ordered him to fire where Gaunt's Ghosts were, killing hundreds of them; Gaunt had [[TalkToTheFist attacked him]]; and the superior officer was looking to courtmartial and shoot Gaunt. Having gotten there quickly, Ortiz filed a report claiming that his injuries [[CutHimselfShaving sprang from his own guns' recoil]].
227* DroppedABridgeOnHim: While AnyoneCanDie is in effect, most characters do get to go down fighting. Not [[spoiler: Caffran]], shot by a child in ''The Armour of Contempt''.
228* DrowningMySorrows: With so many Ghosts KIA, this happens depressingly often.
229* DueToTheDead: Some of the most tearjerking parts of any of the novels.
230* DumbMuscle: "Try Again" Bragg is a subversion. Most people ''think'' that because he's TheBigGuy, he's lacking in mental faculties when in fact, [[spoiler: the plot point of one of the stories in the second novel revolves around Gaunt choosing him for a mission because everyone assumes that he ''must'' be dumb because he's big]].
231* DuringTheWar: The whole series in a nutshell.
232* DwindlingParty: Over the course of the book series, the number of original Tanith veterans from the regiment's founding has been slowly and steadily dwindling as attrition takes its toll. Sure, the regiment has been able to stay at full strength thanks to replacements from Verghast and Belladon, but Gaunt realizes that eventually all of the Tanith members will be dead and gone one way or another.
233* DyingAlone: In ''Blood Pact'', Gaunt considers Ayatani Zweil's services to the regiment; his tending to the dying is a big one.
234* DyingAsYourself: The best a Ghost can hope for when fighting Chaos.
235* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: In both ''First and Only'' and ''Ghostmaker'' the Ghosts encounter [[SuperSoldier Chaos Space Marines]] and manage to kill them without too much trouble, essentially treating what were supposed to be nearly unstoppable angels of death as merely above average mooks. It's rather telling that many of them are brought down by standard weapons that shouldn't even be able to dent their armor. There's a bit of deviance when Mkoll takes out a Dreadnought [[WorfHadTheFlu that had already been badly damaged in a previous battle]] and it requires a lot of creative thinking and ingenuity on his part, but it was an exception to the norm. After those books, the Ghosts fought mainly rank and file Chaos forces, and when the Traitor Marines showed up, they were MUCH harder to beat. In ''Sabbat Martyr'' another Chaos Dreadnought appears, and requires a combination of [[AbsurdlySharpBlade Gaunt's power sword]] opening holes in the armor, a local officer using a grenade to blow out the ground underneath the Dreadnought to knock it off balance, [[KillItWithFire and a pack of Ghost flame troopers all unloading on it at once.]] Likewise a group of Chaos Marines encountered in ''Traitor General'' are much harder to kill than early on in the series, as well as eliciting an OhCrap reaction from Gaunt the second he sees them.
236* EarthShatteringKaboom: According to Piet Gutes, Tanith was hit so hard the inside of the planet exploded into space.
237* EitherWorldDominationOrSomethingAboutBananas: In ''Traitor General''.
238* ExactWords: Used in a truly absurd example in ''Necropolis''. A tank troop is ordered to advance down a certain road to confront the enemy and their commander is arrested for disobeying orders for ''detouring around a traffic obstacle''.
239* EldritchLocation: The [[spoiler:undercroft of the palace where the Ghosts are billeted in ''Anarch''. It's pitch-black, the simple layout has changed into a confusing, shifting maze, and the flight of stairs that led to the exit is now just has a blank wall where the door was. Time ceases to mean anything, (the barely-holding it together) Commissar Fazekiel stating the lights have been off for days from her perspective. All that, and there is the daemon woe engine that caused this hunting in the darkness, the horifying bonesaw sound it makes probably the last thing you'll hear...]]
240* EliteMooks: The Blood Pact, compared to "normal" heretics and zealots, have been very effective soldiers. Their first appearance, ''Guns of Tanith'', [[spoiler: had them isolate groups of guardsmen with void shields set into doors, cut their communications and cut them off from their commanders]], as well as constantly harassing the occupying Guard forces. In ''Only In Death'', they [[spoiler: effectively reduced the Tanith First and Only to fifty percent of their numbers]], while in ''Blood Pact'', [[spoiler: A group of thirty effectively take out an Imperial Guard stronghold, evade detection for a couple of days, and slaughter numerous Inquisitorial and Imperial operatives.]]
241* ElitesAreMoreGlamorous: There is a subtle example in ''Salvation Reach''. When Rawne's team gets assigned to protect the Chaos defector, he has special badges made which distinguish his troopers from other Ghosts, even the elite scouts and snipers. Also, the team has its own name, the Suicide King, which reflects their extraordinary status.
242* EmbarrassingRescue: In ''Ghostmaker'', Major Rawne [[UnfriendlyFire attacks]] Gaunt on the battlefield, intending to kill him. Gaunt knocks him unconscious and, despite his own wounds, [[TurnTheOtherCheek carries him back to safety]]. His fellow Ghosts are surprised that the rescue did not alleviate Rawne's resentment of Gaunt, but then, they don't know about the attack.
243* EmpathyDollShot: Larkin sees a number of dolls nailed to a wall in a building that Chaos troops had swept through. [[spoiler: They weren't dolls.]]
244* EnemyCivilWar: During the Savaltion's Reach mission, the end goal is [[spoiler: to pit the Blood Pact and the Sons of Sek against each other]].
245* EnemyMine: at the end of ''Ghostmaker'', [[spoiler: the owners of the mysterious ruins sighted by Mkoll turn out to be Eldar guarding a Webway Gate. The farseer protecting the gate thinks to himself that an actual alliance is out of the question, but he uses his psychic abilities to conjure illusions that make the Ghosts fighting in the battle believe they're still on Tanith and fighting to defend it from Chaos, and he makes the Eldar in the base look like Tanith troops]].
246** In ''Blood Pact'', [[spoiler: Mabbon Etogaur, formerly of the Blood Pact [[ChronicBackstabbingDisorder and ]] the Sons of Sek, collaborate with the Imperium to ensure the defeat of the Chaos forces.]]
247* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Cuu calls all the Tanith "Tanith".
248* EvilCanNotComprehendGood: [[spoiler:Soric's]] [[EvilCripple handlers]] in ''Only In Death''.
249** Also, the Inquisition cannot seem to accept the fact that the Ghosts can withstand Chaos taint with their sheer badassery and concludes that it must have had something to do with ''the swamp that they were living in''.
250* EvilCripple: In ''Only In Death''.
251* EvilIsDeathlyCold: Daemonic activity usually results in the surrounding temperature plummeting.
252* EvilGloating: In ''Blood Pact'' [[spoiler: Eyl catches up with Gaunt and Mabbon for the last time and has them at his mercy, but starts gloating. This gives Gaunt time to knock him away, following by Larks blowing his head open.]] Even lampshaded by Mabbon who buys Gaunt ''another'' few seconds by telling [[spoiler: Eyl that if he has his target in his sights, he shouldn't waste time talking.]]
253* EvilIsNotWellLit: In ''Blood Pact'', streetlights go out because a blood wolf runs by.
254* TheEvilPrince: In ''Necropolis''.
255* EvilWeapon: During the liberation of Gereon, Merrt loses his lasgun in battle and eventually receives another one, taken from a corpse of an enemy soldier. Not only is it in very poor condition, but it is possible that his new lasgun is tainted by Chaos. Since he is too afraid to admit that he had used a corrupted weapon, Merrt keeps the rifle for the next campaign and starts to believe that it is cursed and will bring his doom. Eventually, he decides to overcome the gun's evil influence with his own strength of will and, although it jams on several occasions, manages to survive the defense of the Hinzerhaus fortress, finally deciding to leave it behind him.
256* EyeScream: In ''Traitor General'', the leader of the Chaos Space Marine warband is killed by the natives by way of an arrow or several through his eyes.
257** In ''Ghostmaker'' a trooper puts his eye up to a scope while on a frozen world. It freezes in place and the other Ghosts have to pull the gun away from his face.
258* FaceHeelTurn: [[spoiler: General Noches Sturm]] in ''Traitor General''.
259** Debatable, he wasn't exactly a good guy before he turned.
260* FacelessGoons: The Blood Pact.
261** The Chaos-tainted Zoicans from ''Necropolis''. You don't want to see what's under their helmets.
262* FailureIsTheOnlyOption: Gaunt was promised the first planet he conquered. Thus far, it looks like no one will ever admit that he conquered one. Gaunt himself admits that it is incredibly unlikely because his regiment, the Tanith First-and-Only, is a Reconnaissance/Infiltration regiment, and thus doesn't have the sheer numbers required to conquer a planet.
263** Strangely, this doesn't get brought up very often. The only real mention of that promise after the first arc is in ''Only In Death'', where Curth warns Gaunt that he'd better ''not'' conquer the planet, as the Ghosts would lynch him if they had to muster out on Jago.
264* FallenPrincess: In ''Honour Guard'', Kolea tells Curth that in joining the Ghosts, she has become this, since the two of them were not of anything like equal status back home -- she would never have known his name. She shrugs it off: she knows many people of his status now.
265* FalseFlagOperation: In the raid on one of Sek's bases in ''Salvation's Reach'', the Imperial soldiers disguise themselves as Blood Pact troops in an attempt to turn Gaur and Sek against each other and start an EnemyCivilWar.
266* FamedInStory: After the events of "In Remembrance", the Ghosts with him make much of what Thuro did.
267* FanNickname: In-universe; The troops has taken a liking to calling the act of wearing commissar's cap brim-first 'Gaunt's Style'.
268* FantasyCounterpartCulture: A number of them. The Ghosts appear to be based off of Celts or Irishmen, as Tanith was divided into various counties and city-states and Milo, their musician, plays what are clearly supposed to be bagpipes. The planet Aexe-Cardinal also appears to be based somewhat on UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany, as many of its towns and cities sound German while Shadik soldiers there shout "Grenatze!" in the same way Germans shout "Granate!", both of which refer to a grenade. The planet is also seemingly stuck in the 1910s, as bolt-action autoguns, triplanes, and organic cavalry are also being used in the war, to bring the World War 1 parallels even more to the fore.
269* FantasyKeepsake: In the "Ghostmaker", Larkin speaks to the statue of an angel while waiting for a target. The angel gives him some fabric from her gown to brace his lasgun with. After he successfully snipes the leader of the enemy forces, Larkin has a seizure and goes unconscious. When he comes round, he sees the inanimate statue, but the barrel of his gun is still wrapped with the fabric the angel had given him.
270* FastRoping: Used in ''The Guns of Tanith'' when the Ghosts participate in an air assault on a mountain city. If only they were drop troops and not [[RedShirt light infantry]].
271* FatalFamilyPhoto: Played with in ''Straight Silver''.
272* AFateWorseThanDeath: Being captured by Chaos. Or having innate psychic abilities, being discovered by the Inquisition and imprisoned inside a Black Ship, which all happens to one of Gaunt's troopers.
273* AFatherToHisMen: Many characters, but Gaunt most specifically.
274* FearlessFool: Bragg, though he's not an idiot. Varl and Kolea have a game of chicken during one firefight rushing an enemy crossfire as a sort of insane game.
275* FeedItABomb: How [[spoiler:Anarch Sek]] dies.
276* FeedTheMole: In ''His Last Command'', when Ludd reports Gaunt's unusual behavior to Commissiar Balshin, and apologizes, Gaunt explains that he had counted on it. Balshin would have ignored his report. This way, he could lure her to a place where she could see the truth of his words for herself.
277* FemmeFatale: Several enemy agents as well as Cirk.
278* FieldPromotion: When Tanith was destroyed, all the officers were on it. Gaunt does some rapid promoting.
279* FightingForAHomeland: Each of the three worlds that eventually make up the Ghosts.
280* FireForgedFriends: The Ghosts, unquestionably.
281* FirstNameBasis: Usually a mark of respect among the soldiers.
282* FiveRoundsRapid: Both played straight and subverted.
283* FlawExploitation: In ''Blood Pact'', [[spoiler:Rime]] exploits Gaunt's unwillingness to execute men. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for him, Gaunt wasn't there alone]].
284* ForegoneConclusion: Some historical blurbs in the novels as well as secondary sources all but say that the Sabbat Worlds Crusade eventually ends in a complete Imperial victory. However, what's still left up in the air is the ultimate fate of Gaunt and the Ghosts.
285** At least some of the Ghosts will end up becoming part of [[spoiler: Trazyn the Infinite's]] "collection" and were among the forces he released to help aid in the defense of Cadia during the 13th Black Crusade.
286* AFormYouAreComfortableWith:
287** In ''Ghostmaker,'' the [[spoiler: Eldar Dire Avengers do this. Rawne's squad believes that they are Tanith Guardsmen, and that the entire team is fighting to save Tanith. The oddity comes with Milo noting that they have rather odd hairstyles, and TheReveal only comes when Larkin is reduced to a quivering wreck, showing Milo that his scope really does 'see everything as it truly is' by revealing their true appearances]]. The only person to notice the speech errors was Milo, who is implied to have unacknowledged psyker talents. It also turns out that [[spoiler: the Eldar were surprised by this, too. And didn't do too much to cover their disguises. The exarch keeps calling Rawne 'Rawne-human']].
288** Inverted with Anakwanar Sek. He seems to take the form of whatever will intimidate the viewer the most; four different characters looking at him see completley different things.
289* AFriendInNeed: Ludd, in ''His Last Command''.
290* FriendOrFoe: In ''Only In Death''.
291* FunWithAcronyms: '''R'''etraining, '''I'''ndoctrination and '''P'''unishment.
292* GaiasLament: The world of Phantine has become so polluted that all but the highest mountain peaks are uninhabitable by humans, and even then they have to live inside domed cities.
293* GasMaskMooks: From both sides.
294* LukeYouAreMyFather: In ''Salvation's Reach'', Gaunt is shocked to learn that he has a son, who followed him all the way from Verghast. To his credit, he sees the trope coming just before it's confirmed.
295* GenuineHumanHide: During the assault on the Salvation's Reach facility, Gaunt examines a few bodies of Sons of Sek and discovers that all leather parts of their uniform and equipment are made of this material. Even the scroll tubes lying on nearby shelves are made of human skin.
296* GeoEffects: The Ghosts are master of stealth, but particularly in forest, like those that had existed back on Tanith.
297** In ''First and Only'' Sergeant Blane makes use of the heights to [[YouShallNotPass hold off]] the Jantine Patricians; he takes care to ensure that none of his fifty men descend from their positions, not to lose that advantage. [[spoiler:He and all his men die, but they hold off a vastly superior force for a long time, and inflict enormous losses on them.]]
298* GetItOverWith: Usually mortally wounded Ghosts.
299* GiveMeASword: Gaunt usually.
300** Also [[spoiler: Varl]] When someone starts a fight over gambling debt, [[spoiler: Varl]] [[ThrowingYourSwordAlwaysWorks pins the guy's sleeve to a doorpost with his warknife from across the room]]. The sore loser's friends think he is now an easy target because he's unarmed, but [[spoiler: Varl]] calls out for someone to give him some straight silver, and...
301--> There was a ripple of thuds, and a semi-circle of Tanith blades appeared around [[spoiler: Varl]]’s feet, [[TheBladeAlwaysLandsPointyEndIn tips buried in the wood]], thrown without hesitation and with complete accuracy from the crowd.
302* GlamourFailure: Seen near the end of ''Ghostmaker'': [[spoiler: the Eldar Farseer in command of the Webway gate on Monthax is forced to make common cause with the Imperial Guard when a massive Chaos force is bearing down on the location, and he uses his psyker abilities to make the human troops see the Eldar there as humans. Larkin however discovers the ruse when he looks at the white-haired colonel from "Tanith Dale" through his long-las scope and sees that he's actually an Eldar. Also, Milo (possibly a latent psyker), hears "Colonel Munnol" refer to Rawne as "Rawne-human", and he sees that the weapon Munnol is carrying is most certainly not a lasgun, but Rawne and the others notice none of this strangeness.]]
303* GlamorousWartimeSinger: In Golke's flashback in ''Straight Silver''.
304* GloryHound: Undoubtedly General Hechtor Dravere.
305* GloveSlap: Used to hilarious effect when an inexperienced officer tries to have a polite duel with Ludd during a murderous battle. Ludd just punches him back.
306* GodzillaThreshold: When Feygor gets very sick in ''Traitor General'' and Curth has nothing left, Ezrah offers a remedy paste containing the normally lethal moth poison. It barely works.
307* GoodIsNotNice: The Ghosts are ruthless killers in the best of situations.
308* GoodIsOldFashioned: Gaunt is frequently mocked by Imperial high command as a moralistic relic with no place in the grimdark 41st millennium.
309* GoodScarsEvilScars: Cuu has an Evil Scar nearly bisecting his face.
310** Ibram Gaunt also bears a multitude of scars from various injuries sustained in the line of duty. A particularly impressive scar runs across his stomach, which he received [[spoiler:from his uncle Dercius]] in a chainsword duel to avenge his father's death.
311* GoodShepherd:
312** Ayanti Zwiel is a rare devout and kind preacher of the Imperial Faith who does a great deal to minister to the spiritual needs of the Ghosts, giving pragmatic and usually humorous advice whether it's wanted or not. He also looks after dying soldiers so they don't have to die alone. *sniff*
313** ''Necropolis'' has another example of one. When Gaunt installs a makeshift command centre in an Imperial cathedral, he clearly expects the local high priest to be enraged with the Guard disturbing the sacred place. The man of cloth calmly answers that active fight against the Chaos has more worth in the eyes of the Emperor than thousands of his prayers.
314* GreatOffscreenWar: There are two fronts to the Sabbat Worlds Crusade. The fact that all the action that the Ghosts see is considered to be in the secondary, less important theater should tell you that the primary front must be orders of magnitude more hellish.
315* GreenEyedMonster: Arguably Meryn's hat.
316* TheGrimReaper: In ''Only In Death''. Wes Maggs is haunted by a figure of an old woman with a malformed face and a black lace gown. He is convinced that she is Death, come to take Ghosts. In some, dangerous situations, other Ghosts see her as well. When resolving to fight as hard as he could, Maggs defies her. [[spoiler:She proves to be Soric's [[EvilCripple handler]] from [[FateWorseThanDeath the Black Ships]], projected by him. The reason she appeared more when they were in danger was that Soric sensed it, and his desperate desire to help them caused more of his psychic activity to reach them.]]
317* HandCannon: Hark's plasma pistol, Gaunt's bolt pistols.
318** Hark also carries two back up pieces, a brass plated bolt pistol, and a heavy calibre revolver, which had so much kick it could kill a loxatl Mercenary in one shot. For reference, loxatl can soak up lasfire like sponges and armour piercing rounds are normally needed.
319* HandicappedBadass: Nessa, Shoggy Domor, Varl, and [[spoiler: Gaunt]] as of the end of ''Only In Death''
320%%* HangingJudge
321%%* HauntedHeadquarters: Hinzerhaus in ''Only in Death''.
322%%* HeelRealization: [[spoiler:Sturm]] in ''Traitor General''.
323* HeKnowsTooMuch:
324** The set up of ''Traitor General''. Unusually for the trope, rather than being perpetrated by a villain, it's the nominally heroic side going after a traitor.
325** In ''Salvation's Reach'', [[spoiler: Meryn abandons Costin to be killed by loxatl before Gaunt and others can interrogate Costin as they planned after the mission regarding the fraud scam they were both involved in]].
326* {{Hellhound}}: Inside the Salvation's Reach fortress, the Ghosts are attacked by mutant dogs bred by Chaos scientists. The skin of those ferocious monsters was removed and their bare flesh exposed, and dead humand heads were attached to their torsos.
327* HeroicBastard:
328* HeroicSacrifice: About one per book, give or take. An everyday occurence in the life of the Guard. Rarely performed by the Ghosts themselves, oddly enough. [[spoiler:Lilith, Kowle, Golke]] are all examples of non-Ghost heroic sacrifices.
329* HesDeadJim: [[spoiler: Soric's]] death in ''Only In Death'' is underscored with symbolic/literal confirmations.
330* HeterosexualLifePartners: Larkin and Bragg, Rawne and Feygor.
331* HeroOfAnotherStory: The books often briefly mention fighting done by other Guard units in the area, only to carry on the image that the Ghosts aren't totally on their own.
332** The Book ''Sabbat World's Crusade'', is essentially a compilation of these.
333* HeWhoFightsMonsters: Gaunt is faced with this dilemma in the later books. Especially in a conversation with Mabbon over what to do with [[spoiler: Maggs,]] who had only a short while before been temporarily possessed by a Chaos witch.
334-->'''Gaunt:''' Can I trust [[spoiler: Maggs]]? I could really do with an extra pair of hands.\
335'''Mabbon:''' You're asking me?\
336'''Gaunt:''' Yes.\
337'''Mabbon:''' I'd trust him.\
338'''Gaunt:''' I'm not you.\
339'''Mabbon:''' Well, if I was you, I'd never trust him again. I'd probably kill him, to be sure.
340** The above point is further driven home by the fact that the situation with [[spoiler: Maggs]] is reminscent of what happened to Gaunt and his team after being extracted from Gereon: they were under massive scrutiny by the Inquisition solely because they had been on a Chaos-held planet for an extended period of time. Chaos is viewed as TheCorruption, and other Dan Abnett books have shown Imperial forces hesitating very little when it came to killing people who had been mind-controlled by psykers or otherwise forced into service by agents of Chaos.
341* HiddenDepths: Dorden is [[spoiler: an actor]]. Mkvenner [[spoiler: [[CunningLinguist knows Old Gothic]]]].
342** The Volpone Bluebloods as a whole, especially their line troopers and officers. They are, almost to a man, colossally arrogant and unlikeable pricks, and it seems at first that the fine reputation their regiments have is completely unmeritted, not helped by the presence of the completely selfish and incompetent [[GeneralFailure General Sturm]]. However, despite their appalling behaviour off the battlefield, they are also extremely devoted and skilled servants of the Emperor who show as much courage in the face of the enemy as the Ghosts do. Even Gaunt comes to respect them as soldiers.
343* HiredGuns: The Chaos forces start using the reptilian loxatl mercenaries in ''The Guns of Tanith'' and a Dark Eldar Mandrake is one of the Nine sent to assassinate Saint Sabbat.
344* HoldTheLine: Sometimes it gets held, other times against overwhelming odds... well, the realistic outcome happens.
345* HollywoodTactics: If they're used by Imperials, it's usually due to an incompetent commander. Chaos forces, on the other hand, tend to use head-on charges a lot, [[WeHaveReserves relying on the fact that they always seem to have massive edge in manpower]]. The latter, however, is actually explained in ''Necropolis'' - Chaos taint can turn the entire corrupted populations, including women, elderly and children, into fanatically fearless fighters.
346** Mabbon [[LampshadeHanging mentions this]] in ''Traitor General'' as one of the reasons he's changing his allegiance from Gaur to Sek.
347** The Ghosts' specialty is fast, precision strikes and stealth reconnaissance. Two instances where they are put into situations that don't play to those strengths are the action on Aexe-Cardinal ([[spoiler:essentially UsefulNotes/WorldWarI-style trench warfare, and Gaunt is able to pull some strings to get at least some of them assigned to a recon mission]]) and the defense of Hinzerhaus on Jago ([[spoiler:the intelligence they were given was faulty to begin with, and the mission soon became a bloody siege in which the greatly outnumbered Ghosts lost half their strength; Gaunt later has a discussion with Lord General Van Voytz where he angrily told his Lordship never to put the Ghosts into such an unbalanced conflict again]]). They're also sent into an assault on an island chain in one of the anecdotes in ''Ghostmaker'', causing a lot of casualties to them while the heavy infantry Volpone Bluebloods are sent in after the Ghosts had already been delivered onto the beach instead of the Bluebloods doing it beforehand, though it's said in the narration that Gaunt was pressured into volunteering the Ghosts to save face.
348* HoistByHisOwnPetard: Dravere and Heldane.
349* HonoraryUncle: Dercius, although he turns out not to be the best Uncle.
350* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: When Ban Daur visits an exclusive gambling den in ''Blood Pact'', the ''hostess'' who welcomes him feels genuinely sorry for the young, gentle man who is about to waste his life and fortune. [[spoiler: She doesn't realize yet that her establishment will be soon scammed by Rawne and his cronies.]]
351* HostageSituation: In ''Blood Pact'', [[spoiler: Elodie]] is taken hostage by [[spoiler: the bouncer at Zolunder's gambling den]].
352* HostileTerraforming: On Gereon. Not only do the Archenemy forces strip the planet of natural resources, they also introduce Chaos-bred [[AlienKudzu plants]] and [[EldritchAbomination animals]].
353* HufflepuffHouse: The Vitrian Dragoons from ''First and Only'' and other Guard regiments working with the Tanith First.
354* HumanSacrifice: The forces of Chaos are big on this, either of Imperials or their own men.
355* HumanShield: On several occasions.
356** In ''Blood Pact'', [[spoiler: the bouncer at Zolunder's gambling den]] uses [[spoiler: Elodie]] as a human shield.
357** In ''Anarch'', Chaos forces deliberately take cover in houses where Imperial civilians are also hiding.
358* ICanStillFight: Every wounded Ghost, ever.
359* ICannotSelfTerminate: In ''Only In Death''.
360* IDidWhatIHadToDo: Gaunt's leaving Tanith to die.
361* IdenticalStranger: Major Berenson from ''Only in Death'' to Caffran.
362* IfIWantedYouDead: In ''His Last Command'', when Gaunt [[HostageSituation takes Commissar Kanow hostage]], he points out that he could have killed him and didn't. ([[HangingJudge Kanow]] is unpersuadable. Gaunt has his men overpowered and gets Ludd, the junior commissar, to make the contacts he needs to prove his identity).
363-->''Look, sergeant. I had the stone drop on you just then, and yet no one's dead so far. Is that the act of a heretic or a deserter?''
364* IGaveMyWord: Gaunt to the Gereon resistance.
365* IJustShotMarvinInTheFace: Very rarely the result of incompetence, but it has happened, particularly when some Chaos psyker gets close enough to employ his PsychicPowers.
366* ImperialStormtrooperMarksmanshipAcademy: Chaos ranks seem to be mostly composed from its graduates. They compensate this with MoreDakka.
367** Justified since the majority of the enemies the Ghosts fight in the early books are barely trained cultists with inferior equipment. The Blood Pact are actually terrifyingly competent, and the Sons of Sek moreso.
368* ImprobableAimingSkills: Larkin and the rest of the Tanith snipers. However, a brief passage in ''Honour Guard'' shows that Cuu can be even better.
369* IncorruptiblePurePureness: Saint Sabbat, made all the more precious by the usual grimdark of the 41st millennium.
370* InferredSurvival: In ''Armour of Contempt'', Mkvenner, who is literally one of the most badass Ghosts in existence, is stated to have been killed in action, though they NeverFoundTheBody and the Resistance deliberately pretends that he's still alive. There are a number of clues in the book to suggest that he actually is.
371* InHarmsWay: Daur's motive at the opening of ''Blood Pact''.
372* InsigniaRipOffRitual: Gaunt does this to [[spoiler:General Sturm]]. It is both used and inverted in Necropolis, when [[spoiler:Gaunt removes the blowhard, glory-hungry Commissar Kowle's rank insignia, but later replaces them when Kowle sacrifices a grenade bandolier and his arms to destroy a Chaos beast]].
373* InspectorJavert: Inquisitor Rime from ''Blood Pact'' is too eager to see Gaunt caught as a heretic. It makes sense once it turns out that [[spoiler: Rime is a Chaos agent.]]
374* IntergenerationalFriendship: Dalin, Criid and Merrt,
375* InternalHomage: In ''The Guns of Tanith'', [[spoiler:Gol Kolea saves Tona Criid but is shot in the back of the head and loses his memory and personality. Kolea saves Criid in ''Sabbat Martyr'' in the same way, prompting a Ghost who had been present at both occasions to recognise the trope in action and pull them into cover before history repeats itself]].
376* InterserviceRivalry: The Ghosts compete with just about every other Imperial regiment in the Crusade, some of it friendly, some of it not. ''Double Eagle'', the spin-off novel which features Imperial pilots as main protagonists, shows the natural competition between different squadrons lifted up to eleven the elite and incredibly arrogant Apostles. One twist is that the Phantine pilots are Guard soldiers (There isn't much usable land on Phantine, so they can't really train infantry very well, but everyone knows how to fly), while all the other (non-PDF) pilots are Navy, which places them in a separate chain of command.
377* IResembleThatRemark: Blenner in ''Blood Pact''.
378* {{Irony}}: The Jantine Patricians of ''First & Only'' [[spoiler:are eager for glory and to make Gaunt pay for marking the regiment's record by killing General Aldo Dercius for cowardice. For attacking the Tanith First And Only at Hektor's command, who was killed with his Leviathan exploding and unable to absolve them their actions, they were all deemed traitors and all records of the regiment's honours and victories were destroyed.]]
379* ItsAllAboutMe: In ''First Only'', [[spoiler: Flense]] attacks Gaunt for killing his father, but his complaints are that he, personally, lost his estate and family name, and had to rise up in the world like any common trooper.
380* ItsAllMyFault: Raglon tries to claim this in ''Straight Silver''.
381* ItWorksBetterWithBullets: In ''Blood Pact''.
382* JamesBondage: Rescuing [[spoiler:Rawne]] in ''First & Only''.
383* JeanneDArchetype: Saint Sabbat is pretty much Joan of Arc in the 41st Millennium in various ways. Although unlike her real life counterpart, she ''doesn't'' die at the hands of her co-religionists and is venerated as a saint almost immediately. [[spoiler:Also, she comes back to aid the Imperial Guard in freeing the worlds named in her honor.]]
384* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: At first it seems that the Space Marines tasked to assist the Tanith with assaulting Salvation's Reach are complete {{Jerkass}}es. However, they start showing small acts of kindness to the soldiers who manage to earn their respect, with one of them even helping Merrt regain his shooting ability. Gaunt points out that Space Marines aren't necessarily jerks, it's just that their morals and values operate on a completely different level from ordinary humans.
385* JumpOffABridgeRebuttal
386* JustifiedTitle: The ''Necropolis'' book is the defense of a large city. Necropolis is an word for a large graveyard, coming from Greek words to mean "city of the dead". Needlessly to say, the defense was far from bloodless.
387* KarmaHoudini: Cuu at the end of ''Straight Silver'', survivng despite the fact [[spoiler:he brutally murdered Sehra Muril, after shes tries to save Larkin from him]].
388** Meryn has also gotten away with a lot of despicable things in ''Salvation's Reach'', such as [[spoiler:stealing the identities of slain Ghosts and their relatives and spouses for a pension scam, as well as leaving Costin and several other Ghosts to die to cover his tracks.]]
389* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Cuu]] again, in ''Sabbat Martyr.'' And about damn time too. [[spoiler:Meryn himself]] meets his final comeuppance in ''Anarch''.
390* KickTheDog: That damn bastard, Cuu, kicks the shit out of numerous dogs, rats, birds, small animals, [[spoiler:promising Vervunhiver scouts, [[TheBigGuy large heavy weapons specialists]] and much-loved colonels]] among many others.
391** Meryn has also started breaking in his pair of dog kicking boots.
392* KickThemWhileTheyAreDown: Jantine Patricians do this, attacking a wounded Ghost.
393* KilledOffForReal: Get out the kleenex, this series can get rough.
394** Abnett will say when a character is killed. If he doesn't say, directly, that they're dead, assume they're alive. [[spoiler:General Sturm after Vervunhive for example...]]
395* KillMeNowOrForeverStayYourHand: Rawne and Gaunt.
396* KnightInSourArmor: Ibram Gaunt.
397* LaResistance: The Gereon resistance.
398** The Nightgane partisans are a double example. They are descendants of Gereon colonists who rebelled against the Imperial rule and waged guerrilla war for centuries before the Chaos invasion. They eventually merge with the loyalist resistance in fight against the occupying forces.
399* TheLastDance: For Colonel Golke in ''StraightSilver''. He's been wounded and out of the fighting for years, and is KickedUpstairs when the Guard reinforcements arrive. His advice and push for fresh tactics has gone ignored, so he decides to accompany Gaunt and the Tanith First on a mission to find and if possible sabotage the new artillery the enemy has deployed. [[spoiler: He performs a HeroicSacrifice to destroy the rail lines leading to the massive guns, cutting off their resupply and leaving them useless until the Guard later destroys them.]]
400* LastNameBasis: Almost everyone is referred to by surname only. Given names are occasionally stated but rarely used. Exceptions do become more common as the series progresses -- but FirstNameBasis is always a significiant sign of friendship or at least informality. Except for Dalin Criid, because "Criid" denotes his adoptive mother Tona Criid.
401* LargeAndInCharge: Both played straight and inverted - some characters, like Chaos warlord Heritor Asphodel in ''Necropolis'', are explicitly larger than their minions. However, Gaunt is smaller than his 2IC Corbec and the largest Ghost, Bragg, is a lowly trooper.
402* LaserGuidedTykebomb: [[spoiler: Yoncy and Dalin Criid]]
403* LastStand: Many across the series.
404* LastOfHisKind: Invoked in ''First & Only'', when Caffran knows it is possible that he was the only survivor of the regiment after a bombardment.
405** There's also a reason why the Tanith First-And-Only are called ''[[EarthShatteringKaboom precisely that]],'' especially as the actual proportion of Ghosts from Tanith dwindle with each successive book.
406* LaughingMad: From ''Gaunt'' shockingly enough. After a hellish year-and-a-half mission on a Chaos held world, he has probably the closest thing ever to a full psychotic break after killing a massive mutant in the step-city of Sparshad Mons. Gaunt ''congratulates'' his enemy upon successfully making him afraid, as he had thought that he had lost the ability to fear after his previous mission. It terrifies the soldiers who are with him.
407* LeaveBehindAPistol: Gaunt does this twice to [[spoiler: allow Noches Sturm the dignity of ending his own life with some semblance of honour. The first time in Necropolis, Sturm doesn't (and tries to murder Gaunt), the second time in Traitor General, Sturm ends his life for the disgrace of having knowingly collaborated with the Blood Pact]].
408* LeetLingo: Merrt's rifle's designation is [=O34TH=]. He misread it as death the first time he saw it.
409* LegallyDead:
410** One character in ''Double Eagle'' gets shot down, makes his way back to a friendly base, and is told that since they designated him as KIA a week ago, they can't return him to his unit, and are too busy to correct the paperwork. [[spoiler:When the war is over, he takes advantage of the fact that the Guard has yet to recognize the fact that he isn't dead to desert.]]
411** In ''The Warmaster'', [[spoiler:''the entire Tanith First and Only'' ends up as this when a bad warp translation launches them ten years into the future.]] Fortunately, this gets resolved fairly quickly, with the only real change being that promotions and decorations that were intended to be posthumous suddenly grant actual authority.
412* TheLegionsOfHell: Chaos.
413* LighterAndSofter: It's a strange and rather grim fact that the Gaunt novels, (and for that matter most other novels set in the 'verse) present the ''better'' side of the TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}} universe. While the galaxy is undeniably a brutal place, the presence of predominantly sympathetic characters, a portrayal of Imperial society as ''generally'' functioning, and a few genuine miracles and supernatural agents of good, primarily those relating to Saint Sabbat, soften the [[DarkerAndEdgier GRIMDARK]] portrayed by the tabletop game's lore. This is arguably both necessary and perhaps even an improvement.
414* LittleHeroBigWar: The Ghosts are often fighting on secondary fronts or places that are considered minor battles compared to the rest of the Crusade. Because of this, most of their achievements are often lost in obscurity. Even so, the History of the Later Imperial Crusades, the history book whose quotes preface each story often mention the Ghost's involvement in certain theatres, even if only vaguely.
415** The Sabbats World Crusade book runs on this in comparison to the novels. For example, the Siege of Vervunhive, the entirety of Necropolis, is given only a single paragraph and is probably one of the more detailed accounts of engagements featuring the Ghosts. The fall of Tanith doesn't even warrant a whole sentence.
416** But subverted in ''Sabbat Martyr''. Gaunt at one point asks the eponymous Saint why she's on Herodor, a meaningless world in the hinterlands of the Crusade's second front, instead of with the main front armies at [[IDontLikeTheSoundOfThatPlace Morlond]]. She responds that it's all a matter of strategy: if the Archenemy had pressed the second front a little bit harder, they might have split the Crusade clean in two and wreaked untold havoc. Instead, they're wasting their collective time on a meaningless planet trying to kill her. Sometimes the little battles actually ''are'' disproportionately important.
417* LivingOnBorrowedTime: [[spoiler:Dorden]], who by the time of ''Salvation's Reach'' should have been dead months already from his leukemia but still clings to life due to sheer force of will.
418* LoopholeAbuse: In ''Double Eagle'', the Phantine squadrons use the fact that they are Guard units rather than Navy to rebuild their ranks by recruiting pilots from the PDF - the Navy wasn't allowed to do anything with the PDF, but the Guard accepts tithes from local units all the time.
419* LosingTheTeamSpirit: Rawne is keenly aware of the danger in ''Only In Death''.
420* LostInTranslation: The Polish translation of ''The Guns of Tanith'' was titled ''Karabiny Tanith'' (literally: ''The Rifles of Tanith''). Since the original English title is a reference to Literature/TheGunsOfNavarone, translated into Polish as ''Działa Nawarony'', the proper choice of words would be ''Działa Tanith''.
421* LotusEaterMachine: In ''Ghostmaker'', [[spoiler:an Eldar warlock pulls a psychic deception in order to gain the aid of the unwitting Ghosts, making them believe that they are fighting to defend Tanith. It is not very good, however, as Milo notices some oddities, and the illusion is broken when Larkin scopes the leader of the Eldar defenders out]].
422* LoveAtFirstSight: Invoked in ''The Guns of Tanith''.
423* MacGuffinDeliveryService
424* MadeASlave: In ''Traitor General'', the surviving inhabitants of Gereon have been enslaved to destroy its Imperial temples. Later they were forced to work under excruciating conditions, and those who managed to live long enough to see the Imperial liberation became physical and emotional cripples.
425* MadOracle: Right off the bat when a young psyker predicts much of Gaunt's early time with the Ghosts.
426* MadScientistLaboratory: The Ghosts' main objective in ''Salvation Reach'' is to [[spoiler: raid a well-defended Chaos research facility and capture as much intelligence material as possible, which may be further used in advantage to the Crusade. The laboratory is described as grim halls filled with strange and disturbing devices. Although they cannot read them, even mere touch of scrolls and dataslates stored there fills the Imperial Guardsmen with a feeling of dread.]]
427* MagicalSeventhSon: Soric reveals that his great-grandmother was a witch, and that his father said it would come to him, as the seventh son of a seventh son. [[spoiler:On the other hand, what it causes him doesn't seem very lucky at all...]]
428* MagicMap: One of the Chaos assassins in ''Blood Pact'' has a living map on his hand's skin, created by powerful Chaos sorcery, which shows the part of the building where he currently is.
429* MagicMusic: The drums in ''First & Only''.
430* TheMagnificent: Hlaine 'Mad' Larkin and Mach 'Lucky' Bonin.
431* MalevolentMaskedMen:
432** The Blood Pact wear hideous metal masks, often with exaggerated hooked noses or chins. The masks of the rank and file are typically black while the officers wear more elaborate masks of gold or silver.
433** The Chaos-tainted Zoicans in ''Necropolis'' all wear masks that fully conceal their faces.
434* MaliciousMisnaming: Cuu insists on calling every Tanith soldier "Tanith".
435* ManlyTears: Hark, at the end of ''Only In Death''.
436** Rawne does this as well, in the same book, possibly twice.
437** Painfully subverted in ''Blood Pact'', because [[spoiler:Gaunt can't cry due to his augmetic eyes]].
438** At the end of ''The Armour of Contempt'', when the DrillSergeantNasty salutes the troopers whom he has been abusing to make Guardsmen out of them, Dalin Criid realizes that he's a lot older than he had first thought, and feels himself tearing up. The sergeant pronounces them "proper bloody Guardsman".
439* MaskingTheDeformity: Subverted in ''Necropolis'', in which the Chaos-corrupted besiegers are all MalevolentMaskedMen. It's speculated throughout the novel what sort of horrors and mutations lie under their helms. Then one of the Ghosts tears a mask off... and goes half-mad with horrified fury to find out there's ''nothing different about them''. It's just a man, corrupted utterly in soul without a blemish on the flesh. Which, in an Imperium that indoctrinates its populace that one can semi-easily spot the heretic or mutant, [[TheyLookJustLikeEveryoneElse is all the more terrifying]].
440* MasterSwordsman: In ''First & Only,'' a {{Flashback}} shows then-Commissar Gaunt kill the man who left his father to die, [[spoiler: General Dercius]], in a chainsword duel by using a thrust after parrying his opponent's weapon, a move thought impossible with a chainsword.
441* MatterOfLifeAndDeath: In ''Ghostmaker'', Dorden has authority to go into the ship's supplies, and yells at someone trying to check up on him: he is trying to get medical supplies for a soldier in critical condition.
442** In ''First & Only'', seeing that Gaunt would die unless he acted, Dorden [[ActualPacifist for the first and only time]] in the series fired a gun.
443* MauveShirt: Characters may have names, have a bit talked about themselves and/or what they've done, but that doesn't mean you should expect them to live.
444* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Toyed with in Saint Sabbat's first few appearances, but it doesn't last. Also, the Larkin's mysterious encounter in ''Ghostmaker''. In a mission to sneak into a Chaos-held city and snipe its leader, Larkin loses it and abandons the mission team. He holes up in a room high up on a tower with a statue of an Imperial Angel - which he imagines talking to him, convincing him to do his duty and giving him a strip of cloth to help steady his aim. He ends up taking out the Chaos warlord, then passes out. When he comes to, other Ghosts are helping him up, and the Angel is just a statue again - but his long-las is sitting in the corner with a band of silk tied to it, and the stone statue's robe is missing a strip from it that matches the silk wrapping his weapon.
445** Larkin's scope does this also in Ghostmaker. He is able to see through the Eldar mind-trick, and Milo, using the scope is also able to do so. However, Milo is a latent psyker while Larkin is...touched. So is the scope genuinely able to see the truth, or was it because the only people that looked through it had differences in their minds?
446* MeaningfulEcho: In ''First & Only'', in the {{Flashback}} where Gaunt learns how his father died, the woman telling him starts by saying that he is his father's "first and only" son.
447* TheMedic: Dorden, Curth, the often forgotten Mtane, Lesp and some of Dorden's orderlies from the first books.
448* MenDontCry: At least among the Sleepwalkers.
449** Not to mention Gaunt can't cry.
450* TheMenFirst: In ''The Guns of Tanith'', Gaunt involves himself personally in the military trial of a common trooper. When his superiors object, he says the troopers win the battles. His superior finds this a little [[GoodIsOldFashioned quaint]], but - as one of the ''very'' few [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure decent members]] of the high command - is happy to give Gaunt his way.
451** At the end of ''Only in Death'', Rawne demands medical attention for his men and orders his officers to start going; he's not leaving until the men are out. When Ludd, being acting commissar, comes back with him, he tells him he can go.
452-->''"I'll leave when my duty's done, sir", said Ludd. "Let's get the men out".''
453* MercyKill: In ''Only In Death''.
454** A minor one in ''Ghostmaker'' as well.
455* MexicanStandoff: In ''Ghostmaker'', after Corbec tackled a figure who turned out to be a Volpone Blueblood, the Bluebloods surrounded him with guns; he let the major up, and the major drew a gun on him; Gaunt appeared, pointing a gun at the major and declaring that if he shot Corbec, he would be dead before his men could shoot; more Ghosts appeared, with their guns drawn... It was a good thing that the Inquisitor Lilith showed up, all in all.
456* MilitaryMashupMachine: In ''Double Eagle'', the Chaos forces use gigantic, wheeled carriers to launch their warplanes.
457* MilitaryMaverick: Over and over again. Arguably what makes Gaunt Gaunt.
458* MilitaryMoonshiner: Sacra, Bragg's is supposedly the best.
459* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: Kolding from ''Blood Pact'', at least in Maggs's eyes.
460* MistakenForRacist: Gaunt. [[spoiler: Daur calls him out in ''The Guns of Tanith'' for favouring the Tanith members of the First and Only over the Verghasts, evidenced by the fact he pulled out all the stops to get Caffran off a murder charge, but is happy to leave Cuu to face a firing squad for the same crime. Unfortunately, after Gaunt finds a way to get Cuu off, it turns out that he really was guilty]].
461* MobileMaze: When Tanith existed, its forests were dominated by nalwoods, which were migratory trees. The last generation of Tanith were the descendants of people who wouldn't get lost in a mobile maze.
462** When the [[ScarilyCompetentTracker Tanith scouts]] can't find a way out of [[spoiler:the warp-affected undercroft of the Urdeshi Palace in ''Anarch'']], it rachets up everyone's fear a few notches.
463* TheMole: [[spoiler:Inquisitor Rime and Xomat]] in ''Blood Pact'', although not for the same organisation.
464* MookHorrorShow: A lot.
465* MoralMyopia: Extremely common in the Imperial forces: the Inquisition in particular seems prone to atrocities.
466* {{Mordor}}: Chaos, or at least the leaders who represent it in the Sabbat Worlds, seems determined to warp and scar and mutilate every inch of every planet they infest.
467* MoreDakka: While the Ghosts are light infantry, they do occasional use heavier weapons.
468* MoreHeroThanThou: Several times the Ghosts actually fight over who gets to go on a suicide mission.
469* MusicForCourage: Before Milo becomes a full Guardsman, this is his role in combat.
470* MutualKill: Apparently Slaydo vs. Nadzybar in the backstory. In ''Necropolis'', [[spoiler:nearly Heritor Asphodel vs. Gaunt]].
471* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Most of the Chaos Warlords (or Magisters, in universe) have names that fall squarely into this territory, [[MeaningfulName with good reason.]] Here's a partial listing. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in that some of them were killed by the Tanith.
472** [[EyeScream Qux of the Eyeless]] - Alive.
473** [[ImAHumanitarian Nokad the Blighted]] - Dead, sniped by Larkin.
474** [[AffablyEvil Sholen Skara]] - Spared by Caffran and Gaunt, [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice killed by Brother-Sergeant Orpheus of the Iron Snakes.]]
475** [[MadScientist Heritor Ashphodel]] - Dead, stabbed by Gaunt.
476** [[BloodKnight Shebol Red-Hand]]
477** [[TheAntichrist Archon Nadzybar]] - Dead, killed in the backstory by Warmaster Slaydo.
478** [[AxCrazy Archon Urlock Gaur]]
479** [[TheChessmaster Anakwanar Sek]] - [[VaderBreath He Whose Voice Drowns Out All Others]]. [[spoiler: Dead, killed in ''Anarch'' by Mkoll, who [[FeedItABomb shoved an anchor mine in his mouth]]]].
480** [[GeneralRipper Khul Kholesh]] - Dead, killed during Operation Hell Storm, Balhaut, by Gaunt [[DroppedABridgeOnHim dropping a tower on him.]]
481** [[TheBerserker Enok Innokenti]] - Dead, killed by the reincarnated Saint Sabbat on Herodor (with some help from the Tanith).
482** [[SociopathicSoldier Sharenidy]] - Jailer of the Damned.
483* NiceJobBreakingItHero: A large part of the plot in ''Honour Guard''.
484* TheNeidermeyer: They appear in almost every book, usually (but not always) in non-Ghost units.
485* NeverBringAKnifeToAFistfight: In ''The Armour of Contempt'' some Hauberkans attack Hark. One has a knife, another a chain fist. Neither do any real damage.
486* NeverFoundTheBody: [[spoiler: [=MkVenner=]]] in ''Armour of Contempt'', [[spoiler: Gaunt]] in ''Only In Death''. [[spoiler:Mkoll]] in ''The Warmaster'', and discussed in ''Anarch''
487* NewMeat: Dalin Criid experiences a terrible baptism of fire in the retaking of Gereon.
488* NiceToTheWaiter: Some commissars are courteous and supportive to the men under their command.
489* NightmareFace: [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] in ''Necropolis'', [[spoiler:Larkin screams looking upon at the face of a Chaos-corrupted soldier and sees it again whenever he closes his eyes, but despite the later mention of the horrible cybernetic enhancements on the soldiers used to control them, what ''really'' disturbs Larkin is that the face is otherwise of a normal person.]]
490* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Jantine Patricians attack several Ghosts and leave three dead and one critical this way.
491%%* NoOneGetsLeftBehind: Is both played straight and averted on some level in many of the books.
492* NoodleIncident: The thing with the goat. Brostin brings it up in the short story ''Forgotten'', asking Gaunt if he wants to hear the story about it. Cue a chorus from the other Ghosts of TakeOurWordForIt YouDoNOTWantToKnow.
493* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: In ''His Last Command'' Gaunt finds that [[spoiler: cooks for Fortis Binary's units are using meat from corpses in their cooking]].
494* NormallyIWouldBeDeadNow: Applies alongside AnyoneCanDie, because there's just so much death to distribute.
495* TheNoseKnows: Ezsrah.
496* NotAfraidOfYouAnymore: The survivors of Gereon essentially become so indoctrinated with terror day in and day out that they can face ''anything'' Chaos can throw at them without flinching.
497* NotAGame: While the Ghosts can cooperate with other regiments who have a code of honor, they have very poor relationships with those who regard war as a way of displaying how honorable they are.
498* NotDistractedByTheSexy: In ''First and Only'', Rawne and some unsavoury character discuss contraband at a seedy bar, paying no attention whatsoever to the showgirl doing a striptease on stage.
499* NumerologicalMotif: Nine is an important number to Saint Sabbat and her followers, being the number of wounds inflicted when she was martyred. It shows up a ''lot'' in the Saint arc, and it's almost never a good sign.
500* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: ''Only In Death'' has various examples, such as straitlaced Daur almost hitting Rawne, unflappable Mkoll getting spooked and chatty Maggs being quiet. In ''Blood Pact'', Daur [[spoiler: is caught helping one of Rawne's scams.]] Hark notes that discipline and morale are hitting new lows.
501* ObstructiveBureaucrat: In both ''Necropolis'' and ''Sabbat Martyr'', officials try to prevent people from taking shelter.
502* OfficerAndAGentleman The whole schtick of the Jantine Patricians and the Volpone Bluebloods. Gaunt himself, to an extent.
503* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: The final chapter of ''Sabbat Martyr'' makes reference to a week-long battle supposedly more intense than any other recorded in the account, but we don't get to read it.
504* OffWithHisHead: Several times, most awesomely by [[spoiler:Saint Sabbat]] beheading a massive Chaos warlord.
505* OldFriend: Several of Gaunt's show up from time to time.
506* OldMaster: Larkin and Mkoll.
507* OldRetainer: Gaunt's father's cook, when Gaunt was a child.
508* OldSchoolDogfight: ''Double Eagle'' is essentially the Battle of Britain RecycledInSPACE.
509* OneManArmy: Saint Sabbat is a beatific entity (or an occupying psychic entity, or a HumanoidAbomination - take your pick). In ''Sabbat Martyr'', it is recounted that she once slew 1800 enemy soldiers single-handedly in a single battle and it is very safe to assume her total kill-count is higher than that. In the same book, she destroys a superheavy tank with a sword and a pipe bomb.
510* OnionTears: In 'Blood Pact'', Criid blames her tearfulness on the onions. Given that she had just commented that grief lasts a long time...
511* OnlyAFleshWound: Even the direst of wounds can be only a flesh wound in the [=WH40k=] 'verse, thanks to augmetic replacements. ''His Last Command'' supplies a nice quote on the topic.
512--> '''Ayatani Zweil''': Flesh wound? Flesh wound? They're all flesh wounds! No one ever says "Ooh look! I've just been shot in the bones, but it missed my flesh completely!"
513* TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou: In ''In Remembrance'', Rawne tells the unconscious Gaunt that he can't die, because Rawne wants to kill him. [[spoiler: He eventually decides that this isn't the death he wants for Gaunt, although he still wants to be there to see it.]]
514* OohMeAccentsSlipping: In ''Blood Pact'' [[spoiler: Baltasar Eyl Damogaur has difficulty maintaining his civilised veneer during the final encounter with Gaunt and Mabbon, causing his outworld accent to leak.]]
515* OracularUrchin: Some of the warp-stricken, particularly the witch in ''First and Only.''
516* OrphansPlotTrinket: Gaunt's father's ring.
517* OrWasItADream: Larkin's encounter with the angel in ''Ghostmaker''.
518* OutscareTheEnemy: In ''His Last Command'', Gaunt tells some soldiers that he could tell them he was more frightening than the enemy.
519** When the Blood Pact warriors launch a frontal attack on the Hinzerhaus fortress, their appearance is so terrifying that one of the Ghosts mutters that perhaps the Imperial Guard should learn from them how to raise fear among the enemy ranks.
520* PaintingTheMedium: The documents between chapters in ''Only In Death''.
521* PastVictimShowcase: Sagittar Slaith uses this in ''The Guns of Tanith''.
522* PerspectiveFlip: ''Traitor General'' involves an Imperial commander defecting to Chaos, and an Imperial strike team's efforts to assassinate said general. ''Blood Pact'' involves a Chaos commander defecting to the Imperium, and a Chaos strike team's efforts to assassinate said general. Both books also give considerable page-time to the Chaos forces, as opposed to Abnett's usual complete focus on the Ghosts.
523* PhysicalGod: Saint Sabbat. Subverted in that she's not bullet or artillery proof but rather is ''incredibly'' strong, fast and inspiring.
524* ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything: Imperial commissars are famous for summary executions. Gaunt, like his mentor Oktar before him, believes that the authority to kill anyone for disloyalty is best used very rarely, and usually not on field troops. The series in general derides the 'execution-happy' commissar as a man who may get better results for the moment, but will degrade his unit's overall effectiveness until his [[TheUriahGambit unexpected but inevitable scragging]]. Part of this is due to Gaunt's rather unusual rank as a Colonel Commissar, which is why he later has dedicated commissars assigned to his unit.
525*** Hark is a particularly interesting example. On one occasion he sees some soldiers running from combat. When he attempts to rally them, they ignore him. He lets him go, and is promptly asked why he didn't shoot them, to which he basically replies that it would be a waste of time, since a soldier scared enough to ignore him, his rank, and his weapon is past the point of being useful. Instead, [[spoiler:he shoots their commanding officer, for abject failure to train and motivate his men]]. Even this was an evolution for him where he had previously threatened to shoot troopers for their entirely reasonable retreat from a traitor Baneblade.
526* PlaceboEffect: Blenner pops sugar pills for nerves throughout Salvation's Reach, and becomes aware they're sugar pills near the end.
527* ThePlan: Gaunt pulls off one in ''First & Only'', and the Ghosts perform one in ''The Guns of Tanith,'' but in general the plot twists they're thrown result in them making it up as they go along.
528* PlanetLooters: This is what Chaos does on some of the worlds they take, and they usually transfer the resources from the planet to another one somewhere else on the front. One method is detailed in ''Traitor General'': using a Warp creature to inhale an ''entire ocean'' and transfer it to another planet for which the Archenemy requires water. They also import xeno-crops to build up their food supply, which depletes the soil until nothing can grow.
529* PlayingPossum: In ''Blood Pact'', when Maggs attacks Kolding, he goes down. Gaunt tries to stop Maggs, and Kolding reappears to clock Maggs from behind; he explains to Gaunt that he thought it wiser to stay down -- and that Maggs had clearly been hallucinating.
530* PocketProtector:
531** In ''Necropolis'', Gaunt's life is saved by a metallic rose he is wearing. He is still badly hurt and the rose breaks to imbed pieces of it in him, rendering him unconscious for almost a month and almost dying anyway, but it was still preferable to a foot-wide exit wound.
532** In ''Salvation's Reach'', Cant's cap badge [[spoiler:turns Sirkle's should-have-been fatal garrotting into only a serious wound.]]
533* PokemonSpeak: In ''Salvation's Reach'' Chaos warships (which seem almost like a HiveMind or a single malevolent being) broadcast their names endlessly, as a sort of BadassBoast.
534* PowderKegCrowd
535* PrecisionFStrike:
536** Normally, [[UnusualEuphemism unusual euphemisms]] are used in place of actual curses, so when Sturm refers to Gaunt as a "jumped-up shit" in ''Necropolis'', it really makes an impact on the reader.
537** Similarly, Colonel Zhyte of the Urdeshi shock troopers in ''The Guns of Tanith'' gets angry when Gaunt tries to vox him during the assault on Cirenholm to warn him that the Blood Pact have rigged some of the corridors with void shields. Zhyte calls Gaunt a 'piece of shit' who is leading an untried regiment that was 'born yesterday', compared with his Urdeshi 7th Storm Troop, which has a thousand-year history and honor pennants in the Imperial Palace on Terra. He pays the price for his arrogance minutes later when, ignoring Gaunt's warning, he leads his troopers forward and is literally cut in half by one of the void shields.
538* PrettyLittleHeadshots: Justified due to las weapons cauterizing the wounds they cause. Occurs to minor trooper Mktag in ''In Remembrance'', the short story included with ''The Founding'' omnibus. The sight traumatises the POV character, sheltered artist Thuro.
539--> ... little black hole .... made in his forehead. There was no blood. .... I think if there had been more blood, more obvious physical damage, I could have coped better. But it was just such a tiny little hole.
540* PrimalStance: [[spoiler: Maggs under the Chaos witch's control]] in ''Blood Pact''.
541* PosthumousCharacter: Warmaster Slaydo.
542* ThePowerOfFriendship: In an oddly straight example, this saves [[spoiler: Rawne from getting subverted by Chaos in ''Sabbat Martyr'']].
543-->''No! Too strong. Too willful (sic). Too beloved by other souls that anchored him and dragged him back.''
544* ThePowerOfHate: Invoked by Gaunt in ''The Armour of Contempt,'' as the title indicates. He cannot fully explain why his handful of Ghosts (and the few Gereon resistance) did not succumb to TheCorruption. But he quotes the WarriorPoet Ravenor, saying that embracing one's wrath at Chaos, and disgust at what it does, renders a human capable of denying it any foothold.
545* PunnyName: InUniverse. Poor Trooper Cant [[IncrediblyLamePun can't]] catch a break.
546* PutOnABus: Brin Milo in ''Sabbat Martyr'', [[spoiler:who returns in ''Anarch'']]. Subverted with [[spoiler:Agun Soric, who also gets sent away on a Black Ship at the end of ''Sabbat Martyr'' apparently never to return, but eventually returns in ''Only in Death'' as a wretched and mutilated 'sanctioned' psyker]].
547* PyroManiac: Brostin. In his civilian life before the destruction of Tanith he was a firefighter and also ''an arsonist''. After the Foundation, he was aptly assigned as a flametrooper. Whenever Brostin uses his weapon or witnesses a fire, he is shown drawing personal satisfaction from it. And he's a chainsmoker too.
548* QuirkyMinibossSquad: The Nine.
549* RankUp: In ''The Warmaster'', Gaunt makes it back to base to find that he'd been posthumously promoted [[spoiler:during the ten years he'd been gone thanks to a bad warp translation]], and since he's not dead, he gets to keep the promotion. A good part of the remainder of the book involves [[spoiler:a plot to unseat Macaroth as Warmaster and appoint Gaunt - who has the rep and the skills, and also has not been involved in any political maneuvering for the past ten years and thus doesn't have the enemies to block him - as his replacement. When Gaunt scuppers that plan, Macaroth appoints Gaunt to be his second-in-command and heir apparent.]]
550* RansackedRoom: Quite common considering how many warzones the Ghosts observe. Sometimes attention is paid to objects left behind, like children's dolls...
551* RasputinianDeath: The assassination of [[spoiler:Anarch Sek]]. The target is giving a speech when all the breaching charges planted under the podium go off. This doesn't kill him. As the target tries to flee, an Astartes on the hit squad throws a power lance clean through the man. This doesn't kill him. Attempts to use bayonets and grenades don't kill him. Finally, Mkoll [[FeedItABomb shoves his last breaching charge down the man's throat]].
552* ReadingLips: Many of the Ghosts from Vervunhive are permanently deaf due to shelling. As a result, most Ghosts speak sign language and can do lip-reading.
553** In ''Warmaster'', when some of the Ghosts are interrogated by the Inquisition inside a crypto-field which redacts information they're not cleared to know, one of them uses his ability to read lips to [[spoiler: eavesdrop on their plans and attempt to warn Gol Kolea that he's about to be arrested]].
554%%* Realit yEnsues: How one of the scouts kills a stalker in ''His Last Command''. %%ZCE
555* RealityIsUnrealistic: An in universe example occurs when a sculptor who plans to commemorate the Ghosts is accompanying a squad after the battle for Vervunhive. The group is ambushed by a group of hidden enemy survivors, and the sculptor is surprised by the sounds the lasrifles make, which in reality are nothing like the more dramatic sounds they make in picts.
556* RealityWarper: The influence of Chaos on a planet eventually cause this.
557* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: Lord General Van Voytz.
558* ReassignedToAntarctica: After ''Honour Guard'', when his poor planning and leadership almost lead to Hagia - one of the holiest sites of the Sabbat Worlds - falling to Chaos, Lord-General Lugo gets reassigned as the planetary governor of that world.
559* ReassignmentBackfire:
560** Trying to send the Ghosts on suicide missions usually just results in another glorious victory for them (though typically at significant cost to the regiment).
561** Villainous(-ish) example: being the governor of Hagia (as in the above trope) allows Lugo to make a meteoric ascent back to the top when [[spoiler:Saint Sabbat supposedly reincarnates on the world]].
562* RecurringDreams: Frequently, but Gaunt, Hark, Corbec and Soric have the most important ones.
563* RecycledInSPACE: Abnett takes familiar historical battle settings and transposes them to the 40k universe.
564** ''Necropolis'' is essentially the Battle of Stalingrad. Scenes of hellish urban warfare? Check. Desperate civilian volunteers? Check. Sniper duels? Check. Tank battles? Check. Murderously overzealous commissars? Check and check. About the only thing missing is the repeated bombing raids, since the Shield prevents the Zoicans from deploying any air power.
565** ''Double Eagle'' is the Battle of Britain and the earlier Battle of France with vector-engined supersonic jet fighters, with elements of the Dunkirk evacuation thrown in.
566** ''The Guns of Tanith'' features an Operation Market Garden-esque mass paradrop... onto a mountaintop city sticking out of poisonous clouds.
567** ''Straight Silver'' has UsefulNotes/WorldWarI trench fighting... with lasers.
568** ''The Vincula Insurgency'' (Ghost Dossier 1) is a War on Terror-esque nation-building exercise on a recently conquered but only nominally pacified planet.
569* RedemptionEqualsDeath: Multiple characters throughout, perhaps most notably [[spoiler:good old Noches Sturm, yet again]].
570** There's an interesting case of Redemption Equals Near Death in Trooper Costin, who was often getting himself into trouble through either drunkeness or disorderly conduct. After the former vice gets Raglon's first command decimated, Gaunt gives him a second chance [[spoiler:though this strains Gaunt's friendship with Dorden, as the doctor sticks up for the trooper]]. In ''Sabbat Martyr'', Dorden takes Gaunt aside to where Costin lies wounded and describes to the colonel-commissar how Costin risked his life to save of a squad regrouping from being slaughtered.
571* RedHerring: ''First & Only'' heavily implies [[spoiler: Rawne is being controlled by Heldane psychically. It later turns out Fereyd was actually Heldane's pawn - though Heldane's torture affected Rawne to feel his psychic presence while he was commanding Fereyd, Heldane didn't do enough to completely control him.]]
572** In ''Sabbat Martyr'', following some exposition from [[spoiler: Pater Sin]] about the mysterious soldier they've selected to turn into [[BrainwashedAndCrazy a Chaos meat-puppet]], the book switches to [[spoiler: Milo, the Saint's chosen sidekick]], suffering from major headaches. [[spoiler: He's not the puppet, but it's suggested his latent psychic abilities are alerting him to the danger the Saint is in]].
573* RedShirt: A natural trope coming with how many, many, '''''many''''' people die in-universe. You'll lose count quickly. ''Necropolis'' in particular horribly describes the varied, unfortunate and lethal fates of the millions of civilians and workers desperately trying to avoid and survive the attack on Vervunhive periodically throughout the story.
574* RedShirtArmy: As Imperial Guardsmen, the Ghosts are technically this, but in comparison to most Planetary Defense Forces ("the RedShirtArmy for the RedShirtArmy" as mentioned in the ''[[TabletopGame/WarHammer40000 Warhammer 40000]]'' pages on this wiki), they are much more skilled and effective in combat.
575* RefugeInAudacity: Source material notwithstanding, at one point in ''The Guns Of Tanith'' Varl and Kolea literally run into heavy enemy fire to penetrate a fortified position.
576--> ''It was just sheer balls.... They were edging ahead simply by stint of bravado.... Devil-dare.''
577* RememberThatYouTrustMe:
578** In ''His Last Command'', Kolea finds Rawne and the others from the Geroen team meeting in secret, and blasts them for forgetting their {{Fire Forged Friends}}hip and not trusting their commander.
579** In ''Blood Pact'', when Curth stumbles on the secret transmitter, she wonders why they kept it so secret. Hark explains that he was trying to keep it secret as possible, so they wouldn't be hurt by knowing.
580* ReplacementGoldfish: The Ghosts suffer casualties in every book. Sometimes - after Vervunhive, Herodor, and Hinzerhaus, for example - those replacements come close to outnumbering the established Tanith. And a lot of those replacements have died since.
581* RequisiteRoyalRegalia: The higher rank you are in the Imperium, the more bling you get. It doesn't always indicate if a character is a badass however.
582* {{Revenge}}: Every surviving Tanith trooper is the survivor of a dead world. Gaunt's promise to them, as retold in ''Ghostmaker,'' is to grant them revenge on as many servants of Chaos as they can kill.
583* ReverseGrip: The Tanith knife technique, as described in ''First And Only''.
584* RoadTripPlot: ''Honour Guard'' features the Ghosts as part of a convoy sent to retrieve a sacred relic.
585* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: Eszrah is duty bound to go on one if his master, Gaunt, is killed. [[spoiler: This actually happens in ''Only in Death'' when Gaunt is thought to be dead]].
586* RockBeatsLaser: A Chaos Space Marine gets killed... by ''poisoned crossbows''. This is most likely a jab at the trend to model marine squad leaders without helmets to make them more badass. Ordinarily the fight would go the other way, but we're talking here about a ''lot'' of crossbows.
587* RousingSpeech: Novobazky's "Shores of Marik" in ''His Last Command''.
588* RuleOfThree: "A traditional Tanith toast took three parts" in ''Only In Death''.
589* SacrificialLion: While this is a series where AnyoneCanDie, the death of [[spoiler:Colm Corbec]] really drives this in ''hard''.
590* SamusIsAGirl: [[spoiler:Felyx Chass]].
591%%* SandInMyEyes:
592* ScarilyCompetentTracker: The entire Tanith First-and-Only fit this mould from the point of view of the rest of the Guard. The Scout Platoon is scarily competent even to the rest of the Tanith. Sergeant Mkoll is scarily competent even to the Scouts he leads, and [[spoiler:doubly so after returning alive from Gereon in ''His Last Command'']]. Even ''more'' so for [=MkVenner=], who is such an impossibly badass scout that he [[spoiler: frees the entire Gereon resistance from the Inquisition without alerting anybody]].
593* ScarsAreForever: Of particularly note are Gaunt's chainsword scar across his stomach which identifies him at the end of ''Only In Death'', and the various examples mentioned in ArtificialLimbs.
594* SchizoTech: In "Straight Silver" the Aexe Cardinal PDF are armed with stubbers and have only heard of lasguns in stories, but their bird-riding cavalry control their mounts using neural implants.
595* ScreamDiscretionShot: Several times, both for Imperial characters and Chaos.
596* {{Scotireland}}:
597** Most planets in Warhammer 40K are derived from one Earth culture or another, and Tanith was the generalised "pastoral Celtic" one. Many of the Ghosts use Scottish or Welsh elements in their names -- the Scottish Mk- prefix and Welsh w's, l's, and y's (Wheln is a good example). This may be another Sharpe influence, as Sharpe has featured many Irish characters and dwells on the theme of their homeland being "lost", albeit in a different way.
598** Oan Mkoll is a ShoutOut to folksinger Ewen MacColl, who revived many traditional Scottish songs.
599** Also, there's their [[Film/{{Braveheart}} liberal use of blue tattoos]]...
600** There are also their silver knives (think dirks), their "Black Irish" appearance of pale skin and black hair, Milo's bagpipes...
601*** Many Scottish laments could be about Tanith if read in the right context, as they are often about leavetaking, losing one's home to the enemy, and never returning. The story of Lost Tanith is at least partially "Wild Geese" and "'45 Rebellion".
602* TheScottishTrope: In ''Blood Pact'' Zweil insists on referring to [[spoiler: his terminal condition]] as "The Concern". [[spoiler: Though it's not ''his'' Concern but Dorden's.]]
603%%* SecondLove (whom for whom?)
604* SeeThruSpecs: Larkin's scope.
605* SelfMadeMan: [[spoiler:Flense]] in ''First and Only'' and he hates it. He was born to a noble family that [[ImpoverishedPatrician lost everything]] when Gaunt executed his father for cowardice on the battlefield, so instead of just being given high rank as his perceived due, he had to work his way up the ranks on his own merit, vowing revenge on Gaunt the entire time for the indignity.
606* SenselessSacrifice: [[spoiler:Poor Feygor's death accomplished nothing]].
607* SergeantRock: Major Rawne.
608* SeriesContinuityError: A series with 20+ installments written over 20+ years naturally accumulate continuity errors.
609** In ''Necropolis'', [[spoiler: Gol Kolea's children Dalin and Yoncy]] are both young boys. In later novels, they are a boy and girl. This continuity error was eventually lampshaded and finally reconned in ''Anarch'', where they are revealed to be [[spoiler: [[ManchurianAgent woe]] [[AlternateIdentityAmnesia machines]].]]
610** A smaller example across the second and third book concerning Trooper Merrt. He's shot in the jaw in ''Necropolis'' and the intended reading was that he bleed out "off-screen". However, in a later book he's mentioned as being alive. Realizing he'd made that error, the author {{Retcon}}ed him into having survived the shot to the head, having his now-characteristic augmentic jaw installed.
611** A small one in ''Anarch'', where [[spoiler: Zhukova]] is described as "the closest thing they had to a fully fledged scout" while Maggs is standing in the same room. In earlier novels, Maggs was noted as being the only Belladon scout and one of Mkoll's favourites.
612* ShaggyDogStory: ''Necropolis'' has the Imperial Guard and PDF forces suffer horrendous losses in the defense of Vervunhive. However, in the end, [[spoiler:Vervunhive experiences so much damage and so many citizens were killed during the fighting, that Warmaster Macaroth offically declares the hive dead anyway and relocates the surviving populace]]. This is lampshaded in a conversation between Gaunt and Corbec at the end of the novel.
613* ShellShockedVeteran: While most of the characters inevitably pick up shades of this to some extent or another, the Gereon team particularly stands out. Upon their return, Rawne and the others are shells of their former selves, unable to fit in with the rest of the regiment for a long while. Even their friends and loved ones barely recognize them.
614* ShootTheBullet: The difficulty of doing so is discussed in ''Salvation's Reach''.
615--> He had ordered counterfire to try and track and detonate some of the incoming torpedoes, but even with the detection systems on their side, it was like trying to hit an individual grain of sand with a bow and arrow during a hurricane.
616* ShootTheDog: Throughout ''Straight Silver'' and ''Sabbat Martyr'', Larkin struggles with the need to kill [[spoiler:Lijah Cuu before he kills any more of the Ghosts, though Cuu still manages a few more team-kills before Larkin's hand is forced.]] In ''The Guns of Tanith'', Meryn kills a few Phantine civilians in order to prevent his group blowing their cover, but the morality of this is still questioned books - and, chronologically in-universe, many months - later. In ''Blood Pact'', knowing Gaunt won't kill someone without proof, [[spoiler:Rawne]] does it for him.
617%% * ShootTheHostage (who shots a hostage? And in which book?)
618* ShootYourMate: In ''Traitor General''.
619%% * ShotAtDawn: In ''The Guns Of Tanith''.
620* ShoutOut:
621** ''The Guns of Tanith'' is ''The Guns of Navarone'' [[InSpace on Phantine, with lasguns.]]
622** Dorden complains about his patients making light of their injuries by saying they're "[[OnlyAFleshWound just flesh wounds]]". "I've had people say that who [[Film/MontyPythonAndTheHolyGrail were missing a leg!"]]
623** In ''Straight Silver'', Dorden and Curth are working at an aid station near the front. The number designation of the station is [[Series/{{MASH}} 4077]].
624* ShroudedInMyth: The shootout between Corbec, Feygor and Rawne against 20 Pyritean mob enforcers mentioned in ''First And Only''.
625** Ditto for [=MkVenner=] in ''The Armour Of Contempt'', where the Gereon resistance deliberately credits him with every single operation to both build up morale and terrify the enemy. This continues even after [[spoiler: [=MkVenner=] was supposedly killed.]]
626* ShutUpKiss: [[spoiler:Daur.]]
627* TheSiege: The entire novels ''Necropolis'' and ''Sabbat Martyr''. ''Only in Death'' is also largely this with a big side dish of haunted house ghost story.
628* SlashedThroat: In ''Salvation's Reach'' Rawne does this to [[spoiler:a Sirkle]].
629* SlasherSmile: Lijah Cuu has one of these. In ''Straight Silver'', it is explicitly noted that "the most evil servants of Chaos would have killed to have a smile that lethal".
630* SmugSnake: Meryn has gradually developed into a reprehensible, conniving, ruthless bastard - still largely unsuspected by Gaunt and even Rawne.
631* SniperRifle: The long-las and some bolt-action rifles that Larkin had to use when ammo ran out or his favorite weapon wasn't on him (''Traitor General'' and ''First and Only'' respectively).
632* SoleSurvivor: In a general sense, the Ghosts are all that's left of Tanith.
633* SoProudOfYou: Tona to her adopted son Dalin.
634* SoWhatDoWeDoNow: Rawne's short-term reaction to [[spoiler:believing Gaunt dead]] in ''Only In Death''.
635* SomethingOnlyTheyWouldSay: In ''Blood Pact'' Tona identifies that she's from Gaunt with a message to [[spoiler: Blenner]] by reminding the latter that he lied about his father to Gaunt on the first day of scholam.
636* TheSquad: Several, each with their own specialty and experts.
637* TheSquadette: After ''Necropolis'', the Tanith First and Only became one of the few Guard units to integrate females into what was once an all male regiment. Naturally, this was met with mixed feelings until they proved themselves.
638* StatingTheSimpleSolution: In the above-mentioned EvilGloating scene, Mabbon points out that [[spoiler:Eyl]] should have just fired.
639* TheStoic: Ezsrah, [=MkVenner=].
640* StoutStrength: Corbec.
641* StrollingThroughTheChaos: Bonin.
642* StupidSacrifice: How Imperial infantry wave assaults are usually depicted, although sometimes they have literally no choice in the matter.
643* SunglassesAtNight: Ezrah.
644* SuperStrength: Bragg's ability to wield heavy weapons that most people need to set up on the ground is clearly superhuman. [[spoiler:In his death scene, he attempts to use the autocannon he was firing as a melee weapon]].
645* SuperpoweredMooks: Darkwatchers in ''Necropolis''.
646* SurpriseWitness
647* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: In ''Blood Pact'', how [[spoiler: the Chaos witch finds Gaunt's group, the curious spot on the map that wards have prevented her from looking into.]]
648* TheSwarm: Rats in ''Straight Silver''.
649* SweetOnPollyOliver: [[spoiler:Both Nahum Ludd and Dalin Criid find themselves subconsciously attracted to Felyx Chass, even [[CockFight competing to be her best friend and confidant]], a whole book before either one learns that she was a girl all along.]]
650* SympatheticInspectorAntagonist: Inquisitor Laksheema in ''The Warmaster''. [[spoiler:The Ghosts understandably aren't happy with her arresting Gol Kolea and expressing a willingness to use force to make him tell the truth if necessary, but she is very much justified and on the right track with her suspicions about Kolea's behavior and its implications for the war.]]
651* TakeOurWordForIt: In ''Necropolis'' Larkin pulls off the mask of a Chaos-corrupted soldier. The face makes him scream his lungs out and see it again whenever he closes his eyes, but it's never described. However, it is strongly implied that he is reacting to the Chaos troops being comprised of [[spoiler:the civilian population of a neighboring hive-city, including women and children - outfitted with hideous cybernetic enhancements that turn them all into a HiveMind entity]].
652%%* TalkingInYourDreams: Gaunt.
653* TalkingToTheDead: The whole plot of Only in Death and a major subplot in Honor Guard.
654* TalkToTheFist: Gaunt, usually to some Imperial idiot trying to get in his way.
655* TankGoodness: Tanks appear throughout the series, but are especially prominent in ''Honour Guard'', where an armored unit accompanies the Ghosts on their mission.
656* TarotMotifs: In ''Blood Pact'' -- as playing cards. The [[http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Emperor%27s_Tarot Emperor's Tarot]] is mentioned as being consulted a few times as well.
657%%* TearsOfJoy:
658* TeethClenchedTeamwork: Between the Ghosts and the Royal Volpone 50th, aka the [[BlueBlood Bluebloods]]. Gaunt himself seems willing to punch Major Gilbear of the Bloodbloods at every opportunity.
659* TellMeAboutMyFather: Young Gaunt to many, many people. A psyker finally tells him.
660* TemptingFate: In ''Blood Pact'' Gaunt sees the Ghosts getting rowdy due to the peace on Balhaut and hopes to get back into the war. [[spoiler: The war comes to him in the form of a Blood Pact kill-team.]]
661* ThereAreTwoKindsOfPeopleInTheWorld: ''Salvation's Reach'' introduces a Guard saying that there are two kinds of commissar, the lasman's best friend and the lasman's worst enemy. It's very difficult for any ''one'' commissar to be both, as the actions that reinforce one of those images tend to weaken the other. The avarage guardsman often prefers the latter type of commissar as they are more reliable once the shooting starts.
662%%* TheyCallMeMisterTibbs
663* TheyHaveTheScent: Chaos hunting beasts are particularly good at this.
664** The demon-possessed tank, which stalks the Gaunt's party during the liberation of Gereon, behaves like a predator and probably can catch their scent, although this remains ambiguous.
665** The Qimurah elites in ''Anarch''.
666* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodSandwich: The incident which truly demonstrates General Dravere's total lack of regard for his men isn't his WeHaveReserves mentality, but how he keeps an enormous samovar with enough recaf in it to supply a regiment for a week in his headquarters, and casually orders an aide to dump it all out and have a fresh batch made.
667* ThickerThanWater: Never mess with a Ghost if you're from another regiment.
668* ThinkNothingOfIt: Considering how often the Ghosts do the impossible to save each other, this becomes pretty much standard.
669* ThisIsADrill: In ''Honour Guard'', Trooper Yael is killed by Pater Sin using a drill.
670* ThisIsNotADrill: In ''Blood Pact''.
671** And again in ''Salvation's Reach'', when the captain of the ship the Ghosts are traveling on [[spoiler: realizes they're about to be ambushed by a Chaos war fleet.]]
672* ThouShaltNotKill: Dorden tries to practice this, and the one time he had to break it in ''First And Only'' still weighs on him even in the later books, when years have passed in-universe.
673* TimeSkip: In-universe in ''The Warmaster''; [[spoiler:due to the manner in which their ship was thrown out of the warp, 10 years have passed in the world even though it seemed like a moment to them.]]
674* TitleDrop: Relatively easily in the first few books, more of a challenge with ''The Armour of Contempt''.
675** An odd sort in ''Blood Pact'': no fewer than five of the previous book titles are stated, the more obvious (read: not appearing as frequently as terms like 'First and Only' or 'Straight silver') ones ''His Last Command'', ''Traitor General'', and ''Only In Death''.
676* ToAbsentFriends: In ''Traitor General'' and ''Only In Death''.
677* TokenMinority: Jajjo is the token Vergast Scout. Ironically he is also the only Black Ghost.
678* ToKnowHimIMustBecomeHim: In ''Ghostmaker'', Inquisitor Lilith had, in her BackStory, lost her mother to eldar. She threw herself into destroying them, and then into understanding them. She ends up sealing a Way for them and being carried back to their world.
679* TranslationConvention: The older form of Gothic spoken by the Nihtgane is represented as YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe. The 'common' language of Low Gothic is translated as English, but ''Only in Death'' acts as if it ''is'' English: a rifle with the serial number 034TH is misread as 'Death', and Trooper Cant is treated as having an UnfortunateName that becomes a running gag.
680* TreacheryCoverUp: Cuu during the second major arc: Meryn in the fourth.
681* TrialOfTheMysticalJury: In ''His Last Command'', after they escape [[HangingJudge summary execution]], Gaunt and his team face Imperial forces that range from a commissiar who maintains that after their time on a Chaos-tainted planet, they should be presumed tainted despite the total lack of evidence, and [[MercyKill mercifully shot]], to a general who is delighted to see their return [[spoiler:and pulls in many favors to get them off]].
682* TrueCompanions: This should be pretty obvious.
683* TurnTheOtherCheek: Gaunt to [[spoiler: Rawne]].
684* TyrantTakesTheHelm: Sobile from ''Armour of Contempt'' is a more traditional [=Warhammer 40K=] commissar. He executes his men and uses a whip to inspire his men. Surprisingly enough, he survives. (More precisely, it's surprising ''anybody'' in that unit survived, but particularly surprising that he didn't die in suspicious circumstances).
685* {{Understatement}}: Gaunt's adjutant Beltayn uses the phrase "Something's awry" to announce any problem up to and including catastrophic battlefield reversals.
686* UnexpectedPositive: Regimental chief medic Dorden gives himself a full-spectrum examination more or less to guilt their chief priest Zweil into taking the same tests. [[spoiler: Zweil is fine, but Dorden has an incurable cancer.]]
687* UnfriendlyFire: Dravere and Sturm are the kings of this trope.
688* UnresolvedSexualTension: [[spoiler: Curth admits in ''Salvation's Reach'' that she had been pining for Gaunt for a long time - possibly since ''The Saint'' arc - but has given up after Gaunt beds yet another new love interest. Gaunt seemingly tries to tell Curth that she means more to him than any other woman, but Curth cuts him off before he could say it.]]
689* UnusualEuphemism: "Feth", "Gak". "Feth" was a word for the Tanith, "Gak" for the Verghasts. It was noted when soldiers started using both words to insult each other, they had properly integrated.
690** ''Blood Pact'' has a rather long one, when a certain criminal gets angry.
691-->Xomat graphically outlined something that Daur might like to do, provided he could find a number of specialist agricultural items, some livestock, and a means of contacting an elderly female relative at short notice.
692** The Regimental Standard official community site had [[https://regimental-standard.com/2017/09/27/the-catachan-phrasebook/ Catachans using "feth"]].
693* UpperClassTwit: Dev Hetra Captain Sire Kronn in ''His Last Command''. There's also pretty much every BlueBlood regiment, who pretty much all think of the Ghosts as "barbarians".
694* UriahGambit: In ''Salvation's Reach'' [[spoiler:Meryn leaves Costin to die against the loxatl to stop him spilling the truth about their fraud scam to Gaunt.]]
695* TheUsualAdversaries: Chaos, of course, but the most encountered sub-faction is the goddamned- er, fething Blood Pact.
696** Until the later arcs, when the Sons of Sek come to the fore.
697* VaguenessIsComing: "The Nine are coming", as [[spoiler:Soric's psychic messages]] keep on insisting.
698* VillainBall: Slaith from Guns of Tanith. Shot at by [[spoiler: Mkoll]], he says the gun is useless against his shield. [[spoiler:Mkoll]] says that it was just a distraction and that the real surprise is under a table. Slaith ''goes to check'' while [[spoiler: Mkoll dives from the room and the explosives he'd planted under the table]].
699* VillainProtagonist: The Blood Pack philia from the novel ''Blood Pack''. While they're obviously the established villains of the book (or at least one of the villainous factions), and definitely evil, much of the story is told from their perspective and we see the individual personalities and the close relationships of its members. It makes their deaths, as told from the perspectives of the Ghost protagonists like Gaunt and Rawne, feel oddly [[DroppedABridgeOnHim abrupt, underwhelming, and sad]].
700* VillainousLegacy: As seen in The Anarch and Sabbat War short story Armaduke, Heritor Asphodel’s [[spoiler: woe machines]] continue to kill a colossal number of people even after is death, and almost tilt the balance of the war. May even qualify as a posthumous {{Took a Level in Badass}}, as in life he was just another {{Villain of the Week}} but in death we realize what a brilliant and cross-disciplinary {{Mad Scientist}} he really was.
701* WalkingWasteland: The Chaos assassin team.
702* WarIsHell: Shows up in most of the books but most prominently in ''The Armour of Contempt''. Instead of joining up with the Ghosts, Dalin Criid is forced to remain in his R.I.P. ([[FunWithAcronyms Retraining, Indoctrination, Punishment]]) battalion, AT 137, for the first part of the campaign to liberate Gereon. They are essentially thrown into the meat grinder, running blindly through a blasted-out urban hellscape with no clear objective other than to push forward. Many of them die before they even see the enemy, and with the horrors of Chaos that Dalin witnesses, they might consider themselves lucky.
703** There's a bit in ''Honour Guard'' where the crew of a Leman Russ are described as simultaneously drowning, boiling and electrocuted to death in their own tank when an impact knocks loose a live heat conductor and bursts a water-jacket.
704* WarRefugees: Many in ''Necropolis''
705* WasOnceAMan: [[spoiler: The stalkers]] in ''His Last Command''.
706* WeatherDissonance: Battles on otherwise peaceful worlds bring this to mind.
707* WeHaveReserves: Chaos warlords love this trope. The fact that most Chaos troopers are BrainwashedAndCrazy certainly helps to stage bloody human wave attacks.
708** The Imperium uses this trope as well. In ''Armour of Contempt'', Dalin Criid is carried along as part of a wave of humanity in attacking a city wall, with troopers packed so tightly together that the dead were unable to fall where they died.
709* WeNeedADistraction: More times than can be repeated here.
710* WhamLine: [[spoiler: "Since I switched it on"]] from ''The Armour of Contempt''[[note]]The Ghosts have been sold out to the Inquisition[[/note]] and [[spoiler: "Then it is Rime"]] from ''Blood Pact''[[note]]An Inquisitor is revealed as a Chaos agent[[/note]].
711** In the aftermath of [[spoiler:"Yoncy"/the first woe machine's rampage in ''Anarch'', her brother Dalin reveals to Kolea what she had said to him, chiefly that ''[[ManchurianAgent he's the second]]:]]''
712---> [[spoiler:'She said there were two of them, papa.' said Dalin.]]
713* WhatTheHellHero: Gaunt, as a political officer, is ''supposed'' to execute his men in order to keep morale up. He manages to avoid doing this... most of the time. Doc Dorden is quick to call him out and attempt to stop him every time.
714** More specifically, Meryn likes to cross this line very often. First, he kills several Phantine civilians in order to preserve the secrecy of their covert mission, which naturally unnerves his squaddies. Second, he brutally beats [[spoiler:Soric when he admits he's a psyker]]. Suffice to say, Gaunt wasn't very happy with the latter incident.
715*** In ''Salvation's Reach'', Meryn has a clear shot at an assassin who takes Yoncy hostage, but instead cowers in fear. A number of Ghosts witness this, including Kolea, who beats the crap out of him.
716* WhatYouAreInTheDark: ''Sabbat Martyr''. Nineteenth Platoon. ''*salute*''
717* WhenTreesAttack: Tanith, in the BackStory.
718* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: A plot point in ''His Last Command'' is why the Imperium are engaged in a prolonged and bloody ground war to take heavily fortified and compartmentalized cities, complete with vicious MadeOfIron predators that stalk Imperium forces at night, instead of just having the Navy [[OrbitalBombardment glassing all enemy positions on the planet.]] The reason given is that the cities may be sacred to the Imperial faith. [[spoiler: [[SubvertedTrope Once Gaunt and his men prove that they could not be further from this, being active Warp portals that Chaos is sending men through, Van Voytz promptly decides that the planet can go to hell and orders said bombardment be carried out as soon as his men are pulled back.]]]]
719* WideEyedIdealist: Dorden has aspects of this, what with his attempts to hold to ThouShaltNotKill and all.
720* WildHair: At least to the eyes of aristocrats and the cleaner-cut regiments. It's even Gaunt's first impression of the Tanith in ''Ghostmaker''.
721%%* WitchHunt: In ''Ghostmaker''.
722* WithDueRespect: Usually Gaunt, though other Ghosts certainly aren't shy about getting their points across.
723* WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity: Cuu's real competent, but he's also vengeful and AxCrazy. Larkin is a good sniper, but he suffers from fits.
724* AWizardDidIt: It's revealed that (almost) all of the supernatural activity in Hinzerhaus is caused by [[spoiler:Soric's psyker abilities]].
725* WomenPreferStrongMen: Asche, a minor character in ''Double Eagle'', is notorious for picking up fellow pilots currently having their five minutes of fame and instantly dropping them on the very moment they lose their star status. Unfortunately, only one of them is wise enough to see her real intentions and reject her advances.
726%%* WouldntHitAGirl
727* WreckedWeapon: Gaunt loses his chain sword in ''Necropolis''.
728%%* WretchedHive: Several locations
729* XanatosGambit: Saint Sabbat pulls one in ''Sabbat Martyr'', reincarnating on the otherwise unremarkable planet Herodor. If Chaos forces are diverted to attack the planet and kill her, it takes pressure off the overstretched main forces of the Imperial Crusade. If they do not, the Imperials still get a large, possibly table-turning morale boost from her presence. Either way, the good guys benefit.
730* YeOldeButcheredeEnglishe: Due to centuries of isolation from the Imperial culture, the Nihtgane of Gereon speak an archaic dialect of Low Gothic, which is essentially corrupted Middle-English.
731* YouAreInCommandNow: Set up and then subverted in ''Sabbat Martyr''; also used straight in ''Traitor General''.
732* YouCantGoHomeAgain: The Ghosts' home planet, Tanith, was destroyed at their founding.
733* YouDoNOTWantToKnow: How Vortenhus is warned off asking about a glyf in ''His Last Command''.
734* YouHaveFailedMe: Gaunt himself is notable for largely averting this trope, which is unusual for a Comissar, who are ''expected'' to shoot anyone who even ''thinks'' of not doing their duty. However, Gaunt plays it straight a few times. Once in ''First & Only'' when he executes his Uncle Dercius for leaving his father's unit to be wiped out, which comes back to bite him later. Once in ''Necropolis'' when he executes Modile, the officer responsible for coordinating communication between the various Guard and PDF regiments in his section of the war for Vervunhive. Modile shut down the vox network when a battle started to go south, leading to many lost lives as the soldiers awaited orders or called for backup, and winds up getting shot in the head by Gaunt for his cowardice. He attempts to play it again once more in ''Necropolis'' when Sturm attempts to flee the planet, but he winds up just cutting off Sturm's arm when he tries to shoot Gaunt in the back. [[spoiler: Sturm finally does the job himself in ''Traitor General.'']] He shoots two guard troopers in ''Straight Silver'' for stealing medical supplies and assaulting Dorden, and he also goes to execute a Ghost trooper in the same book for being drunk on duty during his turn at the watch, but he's stopped by Dorden, who wasn't happy with the earlier executions. By and large, the times Gaunt ''does'' execute someone, they've ''really'' earned it, and more often then not he's more likely to try to build them back up and inspire them to be their best than shoot everyone left and right. In ''Honour Guard'' he even stops the newly attached Hark from shooting some fleeing troopers, saying that A) it's ''Gaunt's'' responsibility to discipline the Ghosts, and B) they're running from a ''Baneblade Super Heavy Tank.''
735* YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness: At the end of the mission in ''Salvation's Reach'', Meryn and Gendler [[spoiler: leave Costin, the third member of their scam to defraud the Munitorum with fradulent viduity claims, behind to be killed by loxatl. This is because Costin has become [[TheLoad a liability]] to them with his perpetual drunkeness, the fact that his carelessness has gotten his part in the scam noticed by Gaunt and Rawne, and Meryn and Gendler both know Costin would sell them out in a heartbeat under interrogation to save his own skin]].
736* YouKilledMyFather: In his pre-Tanith days, Gaunt gets his vengeance on [[spoiler: General Dercius]] by executing him for cowardice in his newly-bestowed capacity as an Imperial Guard Commissar. In ''First and Only'', [[spoiler: Colonel Flense, who is actually Dercius' son and lost his family name and honour after Dercius' death, goes after Gaunt in an attempt to pay Gaunt back. He fails]].
737* YouLookLikeYouveSeenAGhost: [[IncrediblyLamePun *ba-dum tish*]]
738* YouNeverAsked: In ''Straight Silver'', Mkvenner devotes most of his attention to one of the soldiers he is training as a scout, to the frustration of another aspiring scout, who believes Mkvenner is ignoring her because she's A) not from Tanith, and B) a woman. When she finally asks Mkvenner about it, he says that he was the one that needed more training; she was ready.
739* YoungerThanTheyLook: Meritous Felyx Chass is actually 11 years old, but juvenat and other bio-treatments were used to age them up to 17 effective.
740* YourApprovalFillsMeWithShame: Used to semi-comedic effect in ''Blood Pact''.
741--> '''Gaunt:''' Not far now, magir.
742--> '''Mabbon:''' You're a good man, Gaunt.
743--> '''Gaunt:''' If they take us, please don't say that to anyone. Tell them I'm your sworn enemy.
744* YourFavorite: In ''Traitor General'', [[spoiler: Sturm]]'s lifeward offers him a drink: "weak black cup of tea, with cinnamon". He comments that the lifeward is very attentive; he's had personal adjutants who took less care of him. Later, as his memories return, he remembers his favorite dish, and the lifeward makes a mental note to have it served at dinner.
745* YouShallNotPass: This is ''not'' the sort of combat the Ghosts are best at, but they have done it at Vervunhive and Hinzerhaus, taking appalling casualties in the process. On a smaller scale, individual squads and companies of the Ghosts have had to make this kind of last stand in ''First and Only'' (Sgt. Blane's squad didn't make it), ''Straight Silver'' (most of Corporal Meryn's did), and ''His Last Command'' (Col. Wilder and his men were vaporized to the last man).

Top