If you like your science fiction and fantasy to be dark and full of terrifying monsters you should probably try Angels of Death on Warhammer plus.

Once I got past the fact that Warhammer miniatures, and more specifically, the 40K line of miniatures had managed to launch its own streaming service in 2021, I actually signed up to watch one of two series that were on that network. Does it seem absurd that a gaming company has its own streaming channel? Yes, it does. However, let's move on from the ridiculous of that and talk about what I watched.

Called Angels of Death, the show featured ten episodes that ran various lengths from 15 minutes to about 22 minutes on the heavy end for like mid-season finale stuff. It was all done in black and white, and it was completely computer animated kind of like those video game trailers that Blizzard and Warhammer stick onto their products for people who play their games. After I got done watching the series, I thought to myself, "That was like watching a movie that was a video game trailer." So anyone that has ever wanted that kind of thing (I think) would be pleased with Angels of Death.

That being said, the storyline was pretty weak. It was simply about some Space Marines of the Blood Angel chapter who were on the run from a massive tyranid fleet. They fled into "The Warp" to escape this tyranid invasion in the sector in which they were fighting, but going into "The Warp" unexpectedly had some serious problems for them as their primary navigator was dead. So they had to rely upon their secondary navigator to find a psychic pathway to a safe port in the "Warp Storm."

To anyone that doesn't know how "The Warp" works, it's essentially this timeless expanse that has no features by which you can navigate visually. It also is the place where a lot of Chaos collects, and in the situation of Warhammer 40K, Chaos is very bad...and when I say "bad," I'm really wanting you to think Hellraiser-esque demons bad. Additionally, the Warp has several properties, the most important of which is that it is "unknowable." This is both very simple and very complex. But if you think you understand what The Warp does or how time works, you don't. However, it's the only way to cross vast distances of space. It's just that by doing so, literally anything can happen even if it is in contradiction to events that have already passed. Got that? Good :)

So, Angels of Death itself doesn't pull any trickery with being stuck in The Warp itself. The ship that houses the fleeing space marines on it is stuck there for about 40 days before they find a psychic trail that leads to a so called "safe port." But it isn't. They arrive at a world that on its surface is very welcoming, and they dock at an enormous space elevator above a planet that has been ravaged by war. There is only one city on the planet, and the space elevator goes right to it. At this time, their ship gets a signal from the planet that is very curious to them, and the space marine captain goes down to the planet to investigate with a squad of other space marines. They get ambushed by "Gene Stealers," who are humans that are completely corrupted by Tyranid mutations, and they number in the thousands if not millions. The planet is completely infested, and all of these "Gene Stealers" are calling out desperately to their Tyranid god (whom they worship) to come and rule over them (or whatever it is that cults want). The only thing is that the Tyranid's don't care, and they will just liquefy everything on the planet down to biomass and suck it all up through a straw and move on. That's what they do.

So, the Captain gets stuck on this planet with his fate unknown...and the rest of the story orbits around the other space marines that are back on the ship that is docked at the top of the huge space elevator. They decide to go and rescue their captain, and shortly after that, it becomes clear that the entire planet is infested with a cult of tyranid gene stealers and all hell is about to break loose. The cool thing in the telling of this story are the many combats with the gene stealers. There are so many different kinds of them, and they give off strong "xenomorph" and "Alien" movie vibes (if you are a fan of that franchise). These monsters are clearly inspired by Giger's work in that movie (the artist). And the space marines are just really effing cool in their power armor, slaughtering everything as fast as they can and wading hip deep through the gory remains of alien monsters. The fight with the patriarch of the gene stealers, a towering monster that (I think) used to be human but now resembles a xenomorph queen (from the movie "Aliens") is the climax of the series. 

Anyway, if you like your science fiction and fantasy dark and filled with monsters, I'd say give Angels of Death on the Warhammer streaming service (Warhammer +) a try. You could watch the whole thing in one sitting, and it only costs $5.99 and you can cancel when you are done. I'll link a trailer below so that you can see the animation. You'll note that the animation is all black and white, but the color red shows up as an artistic element. It reminds me a lot of the movie, Sin City, which was also black and white but featured splashes of color here and there for dramatic emphasis. When they come out with another series, I'll probably sign-up again. Despite the artistic-ness of the black and white, I think I prefer full color overall.