DarkChaplain

This has got to be a new highlight as far as WarCom coverage of Black Library goes. They announce an omnibus without even stating the novels that are included. You can derive that it's going to be (the terrible) Gates of Azyr novella (Wraight), Soul Wars (Reynolds), and Dominion (Hinks), but for feth's sake, WarCom, you can actually name those titles in an upcoming preorder announcement - this is the only one we usually get before books tend to be sold out, after all.

Keep in mind that it most assuredly wasn't Laurie Goulding's idea to suddenly shut down the Iron Tenth and bum-rushing to the Siege. Yes, he was in charge during a lot of that time, but it was also the timeframe when GW was meddlesome as all hell, coming in with mandates, which also brought forth a lot of limited edition novellas, and can be taken as the source for the padding phase. ....and that stuff ticked people off. How many times did I read in comment sections and forums that they were milking the heresy, that they were supposed to get to the Siege already, that the second White Scars novel was unnecessary filler (which just comes to show that a lot of those comments came from people who didn't even read the series anyway), that the anthologies were cashgrabs and much worse. So there was pressure from corporate and impatience from the target audience / wider fanbase, right in a time when the series slowed to a crawl. There's a clear point around The Path of Heaven & Angels of Caliban when gears were shifted and every plotline was getting wrapped up or pointed firmly towards Terra. That also resulted in a bunch of anthologies like Corax, Tallarn, Garro and the short story ones, all of which were wrapping up and bundling things in preparation of Terra. It's honestly a miracle we even got the Shattered Legions anthology at all - and I believe the reason for that is that it didn't start that way, but as a limited thing, which they then updated with one or two additional stories down the line, and then reprinted as a numbered anthology. Shadrak Meduson only became such an interesting character because they commissioned Abnett to write a headliner story for another overpriced limited anthology, and the Either got a McNeill audio drama (which if I remember correctly was also limited with the book at first?). I doubt The Iron Tenth was axed without need to do so. I still greatly dislike that it was rolled into the Vulkan arc - it deserved to be its own thing. But at the time the decision was made, it's pretty clear to me that everything was being consolidated both on internal demands and external audience clamoring. In a way, I think it's our collective own fault as well, that some aspects of the series remained undercooked or got aborted halfway. .....and now I just remembered how much of a pain The Crimson King was - that book appeared in the mid-40s, but really it had been delayed so many times, for untold years, it'd have probably been a good 15 books earlier if it had been written when intended. Like, shortly after Vengeful Spirit. Instead it got pushed back for ages, didn't match French's Ahriman in some aspects, and also consolidated multiple plotlines.... AND STRANDED LUCIUS FOR THE NEXT TWENTY PLUS BOOKS, ARGHHHHHHHHHH

That cover art is so good, wow. They really nailed the Lelith-vibe. Edit: Once again disappointed that the discussion of the book seems to be taking place in the news section rather than the Black Library forum.

So GW remembered the Emperor's Children and Lucius today. They're getting an Index released, which indicates they're actually getting their own Codex this edition. And Lucius is basically mandatory to run EC. I sincerely hope BL will actually remember that Lucius is still stuck in limbo, and has been missing since The Crimson King in summer 2017....

It seems so funny to me that the Studio remembered Lucius is a thing before Black Library did. Not even a token appearance during the Siege of Terra, just gone for 20+ books, stranded in who knows where, for almost 7 years now. The Siege even forgot the Emperor's Children presence on Terra almost completely. Fulgrim never showed up OR left the planet after book 4, so Emperor's Children turned into an irrelevancy, too unimportant for Dorn to even account for them in his plans. Here's hoping this release will spark some actual books from BL again.

The new reprint survey thingy is up. I'll be shocked if Titanicus doesn't win the 40k vote. Just sucks they didn't feature the original cover art. And the WHFB one? ALL of those books are available in Warhammer Chronicles omnibuses. All of them. They could just, you know, keep those on regular reprinting runs? Just an idea.

I was going to say the same: The Honoured was terrible. Technically it's the one you're supposed to start the duology with since it provides a bit of framework, but hells, it's just utterly dull and uninspired. That was a tie-in short novel I felt was really just phoned in. And then The Unburdened brought out its themes and actually did something interesting. When Annandale has the room to explore the themes he wants in his books, I usually enjoy them a whole lot. Heck, I'm still in the "the Guilliman Primarchs novel was actually an interesting read"-camp. Problems arise when the action takes over and pushes his thematic work aside. ...but yeah, The Honoured has none of that. And I want justice for Kurtha Sedd. Kyme's Aeonid Thiel robbed us.

They squatted the entire 2nd edition range - those were in starter boxes until three years ago. Models that were at most 6 years old. And then Beasts of Chaos entirely gone because they want to rebox them for the Old World and don't want to let you play two systems with one army. What guts me, though, is that my spinoff game warbands will not see proper full support anymore, and those are the most fun I've had painting GW models in a decade. I've been buying and planning purchases based around those warbands because I had fun painting them. Joke's on me, I guess. Also, all the stuff they listed is apparently not even getting restocked anymore, what's gone is gone, even if they may still be technically be legal to play til summer 2025. Seriously, it's so difficult to stay invested in what GW/BL put out, with how they keep pulling off stuff like that, particularly the FOMO.

I'm probably just repeating myself, but I'm having a really difficult time even opening up a BL novel in recent months. I think this is indeed somewhat down to the one-off novel situation we're finding ourselves in. Before, you could basically bank on books being prospective trilogies. They might start with a fairly contained pilot novel, but the author and editors were clearly leaving room for a full trilogy if the book didn't tank, or had the sequel commissioned by the time the first book hit the printers. There was an implicit trust in the author to make something good that'd move copies and have merit across multiple books. There was room for both the immediate plot as well as an overarching story & character arc, which would get people to come back for more. But now it's mostly one-offs, with sequels sometimes not even being written by the same author anymore, or third volumes being axed, or the authors going to visit greener pastures. There is very little trust on display, both towards the authors to be able to handle a longer-term commitment and the readers for staying interested for ~3 years. So they do single deployments over and over, but that results in a fire & forget situation, where you'll likely never see an actual follow-up. Crime is the perfect embodiment of this - it's ALL uncertainty, with near-zero commitment from BL remaining. And with that lack of long-term commitment to storytelling? It's so bloody easy to ignore books entirely unless you hear/read rave reviews of them, because what's out is going to be all you're getting anyway. There's no lock-in effect, no anticipation, and worse, actual frustration of something you enjoy from an author you like never living up to its full potential due to being crammed into another short novel format. The amount of novels released may measure up, but the level of commitment, the way they can maintain expectations and excitement? That's down in the dumps also as a result of that fire & forget publishing scheme. Edit: Jesus, I just read today's WarCom article about the great squatting in AoS 4.0 and my desire to continue collecting and building up armies for the game has just been greatly reduced. My willingness to put up with BL/GW bs has thus once again diminished.

Lol, Aximand is getting a model and his rules are banking harder on his conflict with Loken than the Siege did Saturnine will never not be bitter for me with how it treated various established characters, including Endryd Haar, who just had a model as well.

We can still look forward to an audible release if they hold it back from release on their own terrible store, at least :')

.....Damn, I actually had so many disappointments and missing things with the Siege and especially TEATD, I totally forgot about the Red Angel going completely unremarked. Also, we got absolutely zero Omegon since Slaves to Darkness, right? Was it ever explained who set off the trigger on the Terran hibernating Alpha Legion? It's also still maddening to me that we never received another moment with Fulgrim after he nope'd out from Dorn. Not even a PoV interlude in TEATD about how he's busy :cuss: at the south pole. Considering he was the only remaining Daemon Primarch on Terra, him being forgotten about and not even discussed by Dorn, Sanguinius and co as a major threat is just silly. Seriously, in hindsight, the Siege needed an actual Emperor's Children book. They had so many characters who we know were at the Siege (and Lucius, who just got forgotten 20 books ago), so much internal and external tension, a chance to show Fabius at his worst, most insane, during the cataclysm that is the Siege, a host of characters that Josh Reynolds did major work on... but it all went poof in a very unsatisfying way.

...this is getting ridiculous

That makes Audiobook and Ebook both having been unleashed before BL/GW noticed to change their scheduled dates. Funny, that.

Kinda wrong again on the fluff, aren't they? Hibou, Hasik & Torghun didn't renounce their oaths to the Khan, and when he showed up, they surrendered and wanted to atone. The schism was more intra-Legion, with neither side being truly certain about which side the Khan would commit to, but both thinking theirs was the correct choice. Loyalty to the Khan was not renounced, they believed they were actually fulfilling their purpose through their actions tipping the scales.