What is it about law enforcement and ambushes, am I right? Speed traps, 5 AM bangs on the door, twenty-page Wrath & Glory supplements showing up out of nowhere…

Okay, so maybe one of those things is not quite like the others. This week saw the unannounced drop of Lex Imperialis, the Adeptus Arbites-themed supplement that brings the long arm of the Emperor to your Wrath & Glory table. Today we’ll be taking a look at what lies within, and see if it’s all we’d have hoped for.

Law & Order

As I talked about a bit in the most recent Warhammer RPG Weekly column, the Arbites have been having a bit of a moment for themselves lately. While the last time the Black Library took a sizable walk in their boots was with Matthew Farrer’s Shira Calpurnia trilogy (2003-2006)1, they did play an important role in Dan Abnett’s recent blockbuster, Hive. They’ve also been playable on the tabletop with Kill Team’s Exaction Squad, as well as in the video game realm in both Warhammer 40,000: Darktide from Fatshark and Owlcat’s Rogue Trader CRPG.

While this isn’t the first time that the Protectors of the Tithe have been playable in the world of Warhammer role-playing (they were a core career path in Fantasy Flight Games’ Dark Heresy in 2008), this is their welcome into the worlds of Cubicle 7 Games.

The new Lex Imperialis is one of the publisher’s digital-only mini-supplements, coming in at twenty pages of content with a sticker price of USD $5.

Let’s dive in.

Scarin’ the Nation

Lex Imperialis includes a lot more than just “guns and ammunition,2” offering a wealth of new toys for players to try out during their career in law enforcement.

Six New Archetypes

Players get a half-dozen new classes that represent the various forces of the Adeptus Arbites. Five of them are Tier 2, while for higher-power campaigns there’s the option of the Tier 4 Proctor-Exactant.

While this seems like a gap for Tier 3, remember that Wrath & Glory allows players to “upscale” their Tier 2 characters into Tier 3 “veteran” versions, so this isn’t the oversight it may appear. Let’s start by taking a look at the Tier 2 options:

• Arbitrator. Sort of your generalist lawman, their special ability The Eye of the Lex allows them to mark a single enemy, granting the entire team bonus dice to attack rolls against it. Unlike the others, whose special abilities are largely self-benefitting, the Arbitrator is a natural support and combat leader for the entire party.

• Castigator. Those badass Arbites you’ve seen with the riot shields and mauls? That’s these guys, the melee specialists. Whenever they take out a foe with a melee weapon, they can do it with an added flash of unbridled sadism that can destroy the will to fight of any foes still upright.

• Chirurgant. Your medicae. They get a bonus to healing when ministering to Arbites characters, but can also quite happily use their powers in the other direction when interrogating a suspect. When doing so, not only do they get a bonus to any such Test but if they’re successful, the group also gets 1 point of Glory.

• Leashmaster. Just like Solomorne Anthar in Rogue Trader, the Leashmaster is seldom seen without his trusty Cyber-mastiff sidekick. Their special ability is fairly tepid- they’re more intimidating when their buddy is nearby- but c’mon, it’s a pet class, and the pet itself is usually the cool. And this one delivers, with the Cyber-mastiff having a BATTLECRY ability (Go for the Throat!) that can take an enemy right off their feet at the jump).

• Revelatum. This one’s your scout and tracker class, they start with a new piece of equipment called the Soulguilt Scanner, a kind of Auspex that picks up on the presence of the guilty through detection of elevated biosigns associated with anxiety and deception. When used in combat, the Revelatum can deny a target the ability to use Cover or Stealth, and they also gain bonuses to Tests associated with tracking and scouting.

Meanwhile, the Tier 4 Proctor-Exactant- in addition to the usual upgraded stats and starting gear- also has the cool ability once per combat to command another Arbites to make a free movement or extra combat attack. These are leaders amongst the Arbites, typically seen commanding an Exaction Squad.

Ten New Talents

Serving as the “cold, dispassionate instruments of the Emperor’s law,” Lex Imperials puts an interesting twist on the roster of talents available to Arbites characters by shifting them away from Wrath and steering them to Glory. This is intended to reflect the more collective-minded orientation of the lawmen, where expressions of individual emotion are held in check.

Consequently, a number of the new Talents require the expenditure of Glory to activate- a fact which may require careful consideration of the feelings of others at the table.

But what you get for doing so may well be worth it, helping turn the tide of battle. Burn a point to trigger Break the Line, for example, and not only will you get a significant bonus to attack, but any enemies you damage with a melee weapon will also be Staggered for a turn.

It’s important to note, though, that just like police in the real world, Arbites typically don’t like to act without support and backup. A number of these Talents are parasitic, meaning they only work well when you’re playing alongside other Arbites characters.

For example, Fury of the Lawbringer is very powerful, converting a point of Glory into immunity to Pinned, Staggered, and Fear conditions- but it only shields those with the ADEPTUS ARBITES keyword. If you’re the only one standing to benefit in your party, not only is the power of the ability substantially lessened, but you’ll risk a bit of side-eye for expending that point of Glory.

One New Framework

Towards that end, Lex Imperialis offers you the oops, all cops option of creating an Exaction Squad together. Unlike a number of other Frameworks, this one locks every player into a single faction, and grants each Arbites in the party a Symbol of Authority (as well as a bonus to Intimidation when wielding it).

Of course, perhaps the largest bonus you’ll get from this Framework is an unstated one. With all of your party comprised of Arbites, every other member of the team will benefit from the Arbites-limited benefits from many of the abilities and Talents. Imagine that Fury of the Lawbringer rendering your entire squad immune to those status conditions. The Emperor Protects, indeed!

Other Goodies

As you’d hope to see, there’s plenty of Arbites lore and character creation tools in Lex Imperialis, and the supplement even has a random name generator if you’re stuck for inspiration.

I also comment the writers for preemptively solving the “Paladin Problem,” where a rigid and inflexible dogma-based character can risk derailing party dynamics. They did so by injecting just the right whiff of pragmatism into the character of the Arbites, a nice little offramp here:

Lex Imperialis also brings with it a small armory’s worth of wargear, and unfortunately here’s where the spartan design of the supplement hurts it a little. Take, for instance, the Arbites Combat Shotgun. It’s a little different than the stock-standard Combat Shotgun in Wrath & Glory, which has a Damage of 9 with the Assault and Spread traits. The Arbites model deals slightly less Damage (8), losing both Assault and Spread- but gaining Brutal and Rapid Fire.

Those are important distinctions that might get lost in the sauce, and that’s where “fluff” can play an important role. Consider the following passage from Imperium Maledictum’s Inquisition’s Player’s Guide:

That goes a long way towards making a weapon feel like a tool with a purpose, rather than just a collection of numbers on a stat block.

Overall Thoughts

That brings me to the final section, where we talk about some of the ways the product might be improved. Lex Imperialis overall does a terrific job of presenting the Adeptus Arbites, and I find it well worth the fiver. But if I was king for a day…

Surprise drops are a waste of good anticipation.

As you may notice from the Warhammer Wordforge here, I generate a ton of content around the Black Library. And yet even now, I still get that little jolt of excitement when I pop open the Sunday Preview on the mothership and see what new books are headed our way. The buildup of anticipation is a powerful thing, getting folks excited to buy a new product well in advance of its arrival.

By simply dropping Lex Imperialis into being, all of that opportunity is wasted. Sure, a 20-page PDF isn’t in the same league as, say, the 5th Edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay or the lost-in-the-warp Horus Heresy RPG. But it’s definitely something, easily worth a teaser piece a week in advance to whet the appetite.

Add three more pages.

As I noted above with regards to the wargear, take some time to expand upon the list of weapons and armor. Don’t just give us stat tables, tell us why these items are they way they are. Why would a player choose one shotgun over another? How do they fall into the different roles each character can take on the battlefield?

Give it one more read.

Editing issues tend to be a common complaint about Cubicle 7’s offerings, but Lex Imperialis only had a few oversights that would probably have been caught with one more pass. These include:

• An extraneous word (“who”) in one line: “Conspiracies that stretch across different worlds, or which are perpetrated by those few others who have the authority to persecute, are all within their remit.”

• Word duplication: “the Leashmaster unleashes their metallic beast, issuing metallic-sounding orders”

• A typo in the Proctor-Exactant’s skills (“3m” instead of “3,”)

• A redundant Requirement (“IMPERIUM”) in the Break the Line Talent

• The wrong section is highlighted on page 17 (the margin is highlighting FRAMEWORK but should be highlighting WARGEAR instead).

• Most significantly, confusing and ambiguous wording on the description for Vasov’s Auto-Oppressor’s mechanical effect (one target or many?)

Make no mistake, aside from the last one these are very minor, even trivial matters- but should Lex Imperialis make it into print one day, why not give them the chance to be corrected?

Overall, I think this is a great supplement, and as noted above well worth its modest cost. It gives players who have wanted to run Arbites (either individually or as a party) the tools to do so, offers a nice variety of Archetypes that don’t feel ‘forced,’ and is nicely laid out and organized.

Shira Calpurnia would approve.

Launched at the end of November in 2022, Fatshark’s Warhammer 40,000: Darktide is a good example of a game that continues to build in popularity as the base game is expanded over successive releases. Its first post-launch swing occurred one year later after a major overhaul of the game mechanics, and from there it’s spiked up with the release of additional playable classes. The Arbites came aboard in June of 2025, with the Hive Scum following at the end of the year. With last month’s addition of the Skitarii, the game once again saw a substantial rise in active players, and shows little sign of slowing down.

Meanwhile, over at Owlcat, its Rogue Trader CRPG recovered from a somewhat wobbly launch to hit its stride with its subsequent DLC’s, first with Void Shadows (September 2024), then Lex Imperialis (June 2025) and last month’s The Infinite Museion.

Cubicle 7 Games certainly hasn’t been blind to these developments, and released the Darktide Extraction supplement for Wrath & Glory early last year. This brought the video game’s creative sandbox to the tabletop, and soon after it also released Darktide: The Card Game to take full advantage of the license.

Little surprise, then, with both video games putting Arbites in the spotlight that we’d eventually see them expanded to the tabletop as well. What was surprising was the drop itself, as this week saw the Lex Imperialis PDF supplement for Wrath & Glory arrive without warning.

A 20-page digital supplement, Lex Imperialis is short but packed with new Archetypes, gear, and talents for players wanting to take the Emperor’s law into their own hands. And priced at USD $5, it’s easy on the wallet as well.

From a business perspective, these are smart moves as they leverage marketing that’s outwith Cubicle 7’s budget. They didn’t have to raise brand awareness for Darktide, for instance, that’s Fatshark’s job. I’d like to see more of these tie-in expansions, perhaps something with the Rogue Trader game (or Owlcat’s upcoming Dark Heresy CRPG). Even if it’s little more than stat sheets for the game’s main characters, it’s a smart move that shines a little more light on the awesome world of Warhammer tabletop role-playing games.

So this week’s surprise drop is certainly a welcome sign, and I’d love to see more releases like this one. The last time the Black Library gave us an Arbites-centered story was with Matthew Farrer’s Shia Calpurnia trilogy. which concluded in 2006 with Blind. Thanks to Lex Imperialis, now players can start making their own stories.

Sylvania: The Readers Respond

Last week I focused on the release of Sylvania: The Cursed County, namely the unexpected news that what had appeared to be a single-book release had instead been split into a three-volume series. Details are scant, but here’s what we know from Cubicle 7’s site:

• Sylvania, the Cursed County (July 2026): Lore sourcebook and setting guide.

• Sylvania, Vol. 2 (TBA): “Next comes a volume exploring the legendary vampires of the Old World, the most notable scions of Nagash's cursed blood, and the mortals who dedicate their lives to hunting these terrible creatures.”

• Sylvania, Vol. 3 (TBA): “The trilogy concludes with a brand-new adventure that will test the limits of your party's bravery and sanity.”

A number of folks at u/warhammerfantasyrpg, unsurprisingly, had reactions- which largely (but not entirely) skewed to the negative.

These are all fair points, and since I’m not one who likes to raise complaints without also offering solutions, a few quick thoughts here.

Expectation Management is Key

Somewhere in an alternate reality, Cubicle 7 was out in front of this with a massive teaser/reveal post that goes, not only are we going to Sylvania, but we’re going BIG with THREE books!

Suddenly there’s a lot to look forward to, and consumers have the right amount of lead time to set their expectations. This is interesting when we then look at Lex Imperialis, which we touched on at the outset. This was a surprise drop, so there was no expectation to manage. I’m curious as to the thought process there too, as it seems a missed opportunity to generate a little buzz in advance.

In short, the company’s products are great, but the core business functions (including marketing and fulfillment) sometimes seem to have a steep dropoff.

Cash Grab?

This one, too, is a foreseeable (and thus mitigatable) community concern. I’ve long maintained that role-playing games offer some of the highest entertainment value-for-dollar on the market, because players can game for years off of a small number of books. Each individual is the final arbiter of what constitutes value, of course, but there’s certainly a range where a product can be priced that doesn’t automatically raise a red flag.

The first thing I thought of was Dungeons and Dragons, which released a large setting expansion late last year with the Forgotten Realms: Heroes of Faerûn and Forgotten Realms: Adventures in Faerûn books. The former, which corresponds to what Cubicle 7 calls a “Player’s Guide,” was 192 pages1 and stickered for $50. The latter (effectively the “GM’s Guide”) was 288 pages and was $60.

If you put those two books together, you get 480 pages of content for $110- which equals $22 per 96 pages. Sylvania, The Cursed County is $40 for 96 pages, or nearly double what Wizards of the Coast/HASBRO was charging for its Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition campaign setting supplement.

Was it ever thus? On a lark I jumped in the time machine and took a trip back to the bygone days as a young DM.

Back in 1989, TSR released The City of Greyhawk boxed set, which contained two 96-page books, some maps, and some cardstock sheets containing adventure seeds. It was priced at USD $30 which, I kid you not, adjusted for inflation is $81 today.

It’s not apples to apples, since this boxed set had additional materials beyond just a pair of 96-page rulebooks, but the rulebooks were the primary content of the product. Here, at least, we find some relative “value parity” between Cubicle 7 and Dungeons & Dragons- albeit in its TSR iteration.

Putting it All Together

It might be a fun exercise to compare the “price per 96” for some of the other, more popular role-playing game systems to get a broader sense of where the industry is, but that’s outside the writ for today’s column. Still, being twice as expensive a product as the “World’s Greatest Role-Playing Game” suggests that Cubicle 7’s consumers may be more susceptible to price sensitivity23.

If nothing else, that underlines the importance of having strong expectation management from Cubicle 7’s marketing team. That didn’t happen here, and we’re seeing some of the result. While it’s a shame that the launch of the Sylvnaia trilogy has stubbed its toe right out of the gate, the product does appear to be selling well (based on the DriveThruRPG bestseller list, which we’ll get to in a moment).

Cubicle 7 does have two more opportunities to knock this one out of the park with the setting’s next two releases. I look forward to seeing how they’ll respond!

RPG Bestsellers

Bookwriters get their New York Times bestseller lists, so why shouldn’t we enjoy the same thing? While we don’t have any aggregated sales lists, we can use DriveThruRPG’s top-seller list as a reasonable barometer- and here’s this week’s snapshot!

• #2 (-1). Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Sylvania: The Cursed Country

• #6 ( - ). Wrath & Glory: Lex Imperialis

• #28 (-3). Warhammer The Old World: Talagaad Adventures

• #114 (-54). Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus GM’s Guide

• #119 (+5). Imperium Maledictum: Core Rulebook

• #121 (+4). Wrath & Glory: Core Rulebook

• #151 (-21). Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide

Total Books in Top 200: 7 ( - )

Well, the Fabula Ultima Bestiary (vol. 1) dethroned Sylvania this week- but not by much. The somewhat controversial setting guide slips to #2, but aside from the Adeptus Mechanicus books for Imperium Maledictum it was a fairly steady week.

I was particularly happy to see the Wrath & Glory Core Rulebook holding strong three weeks in a row, too. Supplements and splatbooks tend to be volatile markers, but the core books- how new players will typically invest in a game- can be some of the best markers for a game’s overall market health.

Sadly, we must bid auf Wiedersehen to the German Edition of Imperium Maledictum’s Core Rulebook, which impressively hung in there for two weeks on the Top 200 after its debut. Schade!

ICYMI

• Careless Conjuration continues its regular, limited series giving guidance to GM’s keen on running the classic WFRP campaign, The Enemy Within. “If you’ve spent any time in WFRP fan circles,” he writes, “you will repeatedly hear GMs asking how to get their players to actually engage with the investigation, or what they should do now that their players have given up and left Bogenhafen. Why is this so difficult?” This week’s installment dives deep, buckle up!

• Sylvania: The Cursed County got a close-up look over on Ill Met by Morrslieb this week, with a nicely comprehensive review. When we talk about value (as we did above), quality reviews certainly help contextualize the discussion.

• The Lorebeards podcast interviewed WFRP/The Old World writer/developer Vera Simila, whose credits include the High Elf Player’s Guide and Sea Wardens of Cothique4.

Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from Cubicle 7 based on the available preorder information we have. Note that Cubicle 7’s own delivery estimates appear to be just that- estimates- which is why many products have an upcoming delivery listed for Q1 while we’re already past that.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, with new or updated info presented in boldface.

To make this section more useful, starting this week I’ll be breaking them out by game.

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 1 (July 2026)

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 2 (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Temple of Spite (Q4)

Shipping 2027

• Sylvania: The Cursed Country

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game, Grand Duchy of Talabec Map Pack (May 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Starter Set (Q4)

• Warhammer: The Old World Roleplaying Game Gamemaster’s Screen (Q4)

Shipping 2027

• Talagaad Adventures

Shipping Q1

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Dark Gifts Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Spells Lore Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Artefacts & Wargear Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Core Rulebook (Standard and Collector’s Edition) (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Bloodwind Spoil Map (Q1)

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Age of Sigmar Map Bundle (July 2026)

Shipping Q1 2027

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Champions of Chaos: Carngrad Adventures

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory, Adventures in Gilead

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Imperium Maledictum Macharian Sector Map (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Collector’s Edition

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Gamemaster’s Guide

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Character Sheet Pad (Q4)

Undated

• (Nothing at this time)

Thanks for reading! If you found this week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly useful or interesting, might I ask that you kindly consider sharing it with others who may as well?

With much of my contemporary reading in service to writing reviews, audiobooks are my chance to “play catch-up” on the older catalogue of Black Library books. What you will find in this occasional feature is neither a full, formal book review nor a simple blurb, but rather something comfortably in between: impressions.

With my road trips to Houston becoming more of a regular thing, it’s been a great time to make good progress on the Horus Heresy. Originally released in May 2011, Age of Darkness is both the sixteenth book in the mainline Heresy series as well as its second anthology.

The volume contains nine short stories from some of the Black Library’s biggest hitters, and indeed six of them have been enshrined within the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame. For the audio talent, we get readings from Gareth Armstrong and Jonathan Keeble- both of whom we’ve profiled before in this series- but also one narrator that we haven’t.

Until now.

A New Voice

Banks’s background, like many of his peers, shows early theater and small-screen production credits (including Coronation Street and Footballers’ Wives) eventually giving way to finding a real stride in voice acting. Listed in nearly a hundred episodes of various Doctor Who podcast dramas, he’s also played Inspector Lestrade in the Sherlock Holmes series by Big Finish Productions.

His body of work for the Black Library is similarly extensive. He’s been the primary narrator for the Dark Imperium and Dawn of Fire series, the Watchers of the Throne Series, and plenty more. I find his range to be comparable to Gareth’s Armstrong, in that he has a strong reading voice and can carry a small number of characters, but struggles a bit in differentiation for stories with a larger cast.

That said, there are some voice actors that have fully claimed particular characters for me, such as Jonathan Keeble’s Gotrek or Stephen Perring's Commissar Cain. To this august company I must add Banks, whose Roboute Guilliman exemplifies the sound of this most analytical warrior and statesman.

It’s worth noting, too, that Banks isn’t just a professional putting in a shift. It’s always gratifying to learn that the creative talents bringing Warhammer to life are themselves fans, and as he shared in a Doctor Who podcast he’s a great fan of the lore and enjoys playing the game (though he admits to being challenged at assembly and painting).

To anyone who’s ever thought, “they’re just reading a book, how hard could that be?”, here’s what Banks has said before on what his workday can look like.

“Seventy different voices” certainly gives one pause for thought, let alone having to speak for seven hours a day, every day. For all that effort, though, we get some truly enjoyable stories- including three of the ones we’re looking at today.

The Stories

Rules of Engagement, by Graham McNeill

Narrated well by Gareth Armstrong, this was an excellent opener to the anthology. One of the things I appreciate about McNeill is that he’s interested in some of the more esoteric elements of the Warhammer universe. We’ve seen this with A Thousand Sons and the legion’s mysticism, his diving into the Cult Mechanicus with Mechanicum, and now here in Rules of Engagement we get a story about… the Codex Astartes.

Trust me, it’s way more exciting than that probably sounds. Guilliman has completed what is destined to become one of the Imperium’s most influential works, and now it must be put to the test. Outstanding.

Liar’s Due, by James Swallow

When Orson Welles broadcast the War of the Worlds radio drama back in 1938, it famously caused a national panic. Much of the story of a Martian invasion of Earth was presented in news-broadcast format, and listeners who didn’t catch the disclaimer at the start of the show might be forgiven for thinking something momentous and terrible was happening.

It seems a bit silly in hindsight, of course, but in fairness it was already a time of popular instability. The Great Depression, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the Hindenburg disaster, tensions in Europe… the pot was already simmering a bit. James Swallow channels this event through the Warhammer lens, telling a story of a series of news broadcasts heard by an isolated mining colony reporting that Horus Lupercal has accepted the surrender of the Emperor. I’ll give you twenty guesses at who might be behind it such a thing, but I suspect you’ll need no more than one.

Jonathan Keeble is terrific here, as ever, and this one’s another terrific tale.

Forgotten Sons, by Nick Kyme

Not every Warhammer story needs to be profound- indeed, most aren’t, though a surprising amount have their moments. If there’s one kind I have high expectations for it’s those that trade in their bolters and power swords for the cut and thrust of spirited debate.

When I reviewed David Annandale’s recent Word Bearers tale, Apostle, I was impressed that the author took a genuine attempt at serious religious conversion.

Sure it didn’t land as well as I’d hoped, with the conversions feeling far too easy than they should have- but I could credit the effort. The same here with Nick Kyme’s tale of a planet having to decide between siding with Horus or remaining loyal to the Imperium. Ultramarine Arcadese and Salamander Heka’tan have been tasked with acting as representatives for the Imperium, facing off against an iterator (orator) from the forces of the Warmaster to debate and persuade the planetary council to declare fealty to one side or the other.

It’s an interesting concept, and in fairness Kyme doesn’t make any pretense as to the speaking skills of the Astartes, but there was a great opportunity here for some stirring prose from both sides and it never really came together. The ‘arguments’ from both were fairly pedestrian affairs, of interest only because they did a good job referencing events of previous books in the series such as the destruction of Monarchia (The First Heretic, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden) and the assassination attempt on the Warmaster at Dagonet (James Swallow’s Nemesis). A shame.

Nor did much else really work for me on this one. Both of the story’s ultimate villains were a bit too moustache-twirly, though this one makes good question material for a Warhammer Pub Quiz due to the presence of a rare, shapeshifting xeno known as a Lacrymole. That’s one thing I love about the Horus Heresy setting is that it can feel like Star Wars with the wider variety of xeno species present in the universe (at least, before the genocidal Great Crusade snuffs many of them out.)

John Banks read this one, and was in his element with the smaller cast and wide range of tones (from oration to combat).

The Last Remembrancer, by John French

Interrogation stories make for good drama, which John French plays for maximum effect here in the story of a remembrancer found inside a Heretic Astartes ship, drifting into the edge of the Sol system. Rogal Dorn assumes responsibility for the interrogation personally, and must come to understand for what purpose the Warmaster sent him.

With a cast of three, this kind of drama is a perfect fit for Gareth Armstrong, and this one is like what NPR has referred to as “driveway moments,” news stories that when you’re listening in your car and pull into the house, you sit and listen to the rest of it because you’re so riveted.

Rebirth, by Chris Wraight

It’s difficult to discuss this one without giving away the story’s great reveal, so if you’d like to preserve the mystery I’d invite you to scroll down to the next one.

Chris Wraight plays with expectation here in another interrogation story, this one involving a member of the Thousand Sons captured while nosing about the ruins of Tizca searching for signs of Magnus, his Primarch. The reader sits alongside Kalliston through the story, with the identity of the interrogator concealed from both.

Wraight’s misdirection in the story is that you’re led to believe he’s been captured by Space Wolves, but in the story’s reveal you discover instead that it’s Khârn of the World Eaters, himself on a secretive mission in the ruins of the Thousand Sons homeworld. The writing is masterfully done, the reveal pulled off expertly, but I didn’t think that John Banks was the ideal fit for this one. He doesn’t have quite the “wet leopard growl” sound of the Space Wolves (or, for that matter, what I’d expect from the World Eaters).

The Face of Treachery, by Gav Thorpe

Nicelty performed by Johnathan Keeble, this one was really interesting. While many of the Horus Heresy stories stand entirely on their own, some of them carry a significance that’s not always obvious on first reading. This one is a perfect example (some spoilers ahead).

On the face of it, it’s the story of how Corvus Corax was rescued from the surface of Isstvan V following the Dropsite Massacre. That’s already highly consequential to the future of the Heresy, but it gets better. As the World Eater ship closes in to intercept the Raven Guard rescue vehicle, they’re thwarted at the last moment by a sleeper agent from the Alpha Legion.

Now, if you’re going in book order through the Heresy, you know from Legion that there’s a certain ambiguity of allegiance with Alpharius’s lot, and this is played here as the Alpha Legion putting their thumb on the scales to ‘preserve the balance’ of the conflict. But the deeper motives won’t make themselves known until later, in Gav Thorpe’s Deliverance Lost (Heresy #18).

It can be tempting to assume that short stories are in some ways less consequential than novels, but you sleep on them at your own peril.

Little Horus, by Dan Abnett

This was another consequential story, one that tells the tale of ‘Little’ Horus Aximand, onetime member of the Mournival, and his eventual embrace of Horus’s treason. The events of Isstvan III and V weigh heavily on his conscience, but as he hunts down survivors of Isstvan V a single swing of a sword will change the face of things to come.

While it’s written by Dan Abnett, this one was a miss for me. Part of that was the narration, which again was delivered by John Banks. Neither story nor delivery were bad, per se, but they suffered a bit following in the footsteps of some real bangers.

The Iron Within, by Rob Sanders

And here it is, my “best in show” story for the collection- and delivered by Jonathan Keeble, no less. You don’t get a lot of stories that focus on the Loyalist remnants of the Heretic Legions, but this one is fantastic.

It features Barabas Dantioch, a Warsmith of the Iron Warriors out of favor with Perturabo and exiled to lead an outpost on a remote backwater. With characteristic Iron Warrior determination, Dantioch has taken his punishment detail seriously, building an extraordinary work of military engineering in the construction of a fortress, the Schadenhold.

When a delegation of Iron Warriors loyal to Horus arrives, everything Dantioch has built- and everything he is- will be put to the test.

I loved this story, with its clash of Iron Warriors both sieging and being besieged. Another “driveway moment” story, once things kick off you won’t want to hit the pause button.

Savage Weapons, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden

Set in the Thramas sector, this one pits the Dark Angels against the Night Lords. Konrad Curze, Primarch of the VIIIth, reaches out under flag of parley to his opposite, Lion el’Jonson. Meeting on Tsalguasa with the barest of honor guards, much of the story involves a conversation between the two giants.

It’s hard to imagine such a chat ending in anything other than conflict, so you won’t be surprised that things soon go sideways. A sword is drawn, blood is spilled, and a head is taken, with Gareth Armstrong doing right by the narration involving two very different sorts of men.

Aaron Dembski-Bowden is well-loved for his ability to portray those wayward souls that have broken with the Imperium, and he’s in full form here. This is an excellent story, and a great way to conclude the anthology.

Overall, I found Age of Darkness to be a terrific collection. I was a bit wary going in given that I didn’t love the previous anthology, Tales of Heresy1, but this collection felt a lot stronger and more tied in to the ongoing narrative in many ways. The narration was a bit uneven in places, but overall an easy title to recommend.

Almost exactly two years ago, the Black Library issued a new Special Edition of 2020’s The Infinite and the Divine, the 2020 debut from Fall of Cadia and Assassinorum: Kingmaker Robert Rath. The book’s tremendous success came as a pleasant surprise not least to the author, who confesses in the books recent Illustrated and Annotated Edition that he pretty much shot the moon in asking for things from the editorial and studio staff, figuring this might well be the one novel he’d be allowed to write.

When in November of 2025 the book overtook Dan Abnett’s Horus Rising as the “#1 Book” on the shelf at Warhammer World, Rath’s tale of two bickering Necron frenemies had undoubtedly become one of the Black Library’s best. Little surprise, then, that Rath was greenlit for a sequel, and The Wicked and the Warped- up for preorder this Saturday- will be hitting bookshelves in a month.

And with a gorgeous Special Edition to pair with the last one, the Necron wing of my own Museum is going to need some extra space…

Value City

The other big news dropping on the mothership this week was upcoming changes to Warhammer+, Games Workshop’s subscription service whose most prominent offering is access to WarhammerTV.

Previously, a subscription cost USD $60 per year if you subscribed yearly, and $7 a month if you instead opted for monthly, and for that you got the following benefits:

• Access to WarhammerTV

• Access to The Vault (the digital archive of game books1 and White Dwarf back-issues)

• Access to the Warhammer 40K and Age of Sigmar digital apps

• Merchandise discounts and partner benefits (for example, the occasional promo code for a new Tacticus character)

• Your choice of one of the two Commemorative Series miniatures released exclusively for subscribers

Whether that was worth it or not is, of course, highly subjective. Amazon Prime has a lot of benefits, for instance, but if you only watch a movie a month there are probably cheaper ways to unwind.

That said, one could also argue that the real cost could be driven down even lower, simply by selling your promotional mini each month to recoup most of the cost of the subscription. If you’re not into collecting plastic, they retail for $45 and like most Warhammer plastic they don’t depreciate all that much. Sell the mini for sticker and voila, you’re looking at a $15 annual subscription. A buck-fifty a month.

To me, this subscription has always been a no-brainer, and with the addition of the Show and Tell series here on the Wordforge in regular rotation, I’d have been quite happy to keep going at the current rate.

But lo! As such things are wont to do, this week we learned that the cost of a subscription would be increasing. The annual is rising to $75, with the monthly rate moving to $8.50. Nobody ever likes to see prices of things go up2, but I was very surprised to see that the benefits would be going up as well.

There are two big differences with the new Warhammer+ subscription. The first is that, rather than having to choose one or the other, you will now get both of the Commemorative Series figures. That’s $90 in plastic for a $75 subscription, in addition to all the other benefits listed above.

And here’s the part that got me really excited: they are also introducing a hardcover annual yearbook. “This is a lavish, coffee table-style annual packed with photos and artwork,” notes the reveal, “celebrating the worlds of Warhammer.”

Back in my Magic: the Gathering heyday, one of my favorite casual collectibles were the Player’s Guides they’d include in Fat Packs from each set. Pictured below, these would have some short lore blurbs and summaries of what the set was about, perhaps featuring decklists or different mechanics, and spotlighting some of the highlight cards from the set. Get me a Warhammer Yearbook anywhere close to that, and I’m sold.

Since it’s included in your subscription it’s impossible to put a price on it, but since it’s hardcover I don’t think $20 is too crazy a valuation based on its size in the image above. That brings us to $110 value in actual, physical merchandise for your $75 subscription. That’s… really not bad, folks. Not bad at all.

Complaints in the community about Warhammer+ typically are complaints more about WarhammerTV, and tend to fall under two broad types.

First are complaints about the WarhammerTV animations, which- at least in the circles I move in- tend to be the biggest draw3.

Second, there are complaints about the variety of programming. I get it, not every show is for every person, and I’ll be the first to put my hand up and confess I’ve never watched a single episode of Scrap Demon (even if the concept admittedly does sound cool).

Part of this, I think, lies with Games Workshop’s marketing of the channel’s offerings. Up until recently it’s been fairly footnote-level stuff, a quick blurb at the arse end of a Sunday Preview. Lately, though, we’re getting something a lot more visually attractive and clever:

I love everything about this new graphic format. First, it tells me at-a-glance what’s coming up this week in a simple, attractive format. Second, it changes what to me felt like a “content dump” every week into a programming schedule by assigning shows unique days of the week. Compare the above to what it used to look like in the Sunday Preview articles:

New week, three new shows. That’s what I mean by “content dump.” It’s a tale as old as time: if you want consumers to take your product seriously, you need to take it seriously. This is a big step up. Bravo.

So sure, WarhammerTV isn’t going to be for everyone, just like some people think there’s not a lot they want to watch on Netflix, or AppleTV, or Hulu. That’s certainly fair.

But what I think has been put to bed here is the ability to call Warhammer+ a poor value. $110 in goodies… plus The Vault… plus discounts every month for Warhammer merch4… plus the other stuff. All for $75.

Seems good.

Feeling Edgy

Saw some incredible creativity this week that I had to share. Sprayed edges refer to the practice of coloring or decorating the ends of a book’s pages, so that when it’s closed it has a striking visual look. You see this frequently on the Black Library Limited and Special Editions, for example, but here one fan took it upon themselves to do a custom job.

The book in question is a French-language edition of The Horus Heresy Collection, Vol. I, which is an omnibus series collecting the Horus Heresy books that- get this- is only offered in French and German. Verrückt, non?

This stunning treatment is by Alquinas.art, and make sure to check out the reel here.

Right on Track

Last year I noted that community member Andrew Wilmot had created a free book tracking app for the Black Library, and since that time he’s continued to develop and update it. After a large update this week put it back on my radar, I gave it a spin. While I’ve never used any kind of book tracker before, I had an absolute blast walking through the different categories for a bit and flagging the ones I’d read.

I had to force myself to quit and get back over to writing the column, but not before I poked around the site a bit. There’s a lot of neat features here, from unlocking achievements5 based on what you’ve read to seeing community ratings and usage reports (catnip to us statheads).

The secret in the sauce is the layout and organization. The site’s default not only breaks things out into their respective categories, like the Horus Heresy or Age of Sigmar, but also into individual book series such as trilogies or “The Astra Miliatarum Series.” Browsing it not only is fun for marking what you’ve read, but also in seeing what else you haven’t in a particular category. If your to-be-read list needs some inspiration, this is a terrific way to find it.

Arrivals & Departures

In this section I look at what’s coming up around the corner (Arrivals) and what’s landing on bookstore shelves (Departures).

Arrivals

The big news for new books is Robert Rath’s The Wicked and the Warped. Everyone’s favorite bickering Necron frenemies are back at it, this time facing down the forces of Chaos.

Speaking of The Infinite and the Divine, that book is being again offered in hardcover this week. If you don’t yet own the book, or (like me) you only have it in softcover and welcome an upgrade, this is your chance.

Departures

Seeing their way off into the public square this week was a trio of hardcovers. Rob Young’s latest, Ghosts of Cadia, arrived in both standard hardcover as well as a Special Edition, and Longshot- the first novel to feature sniper Darya Nevic- enjoyed its hardcover reissue.

Meanwhile, the new edition of Guy Haley’s The Devastation of Baal also hit store shelves. Originally printed in softcover as part of the Space Marine Conquests series in 2017, it’s back in hardcover as well.

ICYMI

Here’s what’s been going on this week for Warhammer content!

Warhammer Wordforge

• Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame weekends are always big events, with The Hall Monitor series serving as a kind of director’s commentary on the project. This time around I looked at the Horus Heresy at the midway point, as well as showcasing some writers’ reactions to being inducted.

• I was also very excited to kick off a new initiative this week, the Black Library Reader Satisfaction Survey. If you haven’t had a chance to vote yet please do so, I’m looking forward to sharing the results with everyone in an upcoming Black Library Weekly!

• Finally, in this week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly we look at the new release from Cubicle 7 Games, Sylvania: The Cursed County!

Tabletop Battles

• Last Saturday saw five books get inducted into the Readers’ Hall of Fame from the CLass of 2013, as we next move forward to the books that released in 2014. Age of Sigmar is right around the corner!

• Fantasy reviewer Saelfe spent some time with Grombrindal, reviewing the Legend of the White Dwarf anthology- and came away pretty impressed!

• If, like me, you’re always curious about the lore and narrative content that comes in the different game boxes, there was also this review of the narrative elements in the new Kill Team: Exodites box!

• Finally, outside of Warhammer but always worth a mention, lynnding-library’s back with another BattleTech fiction review, this time of Jason Hansa’s A Skulk of Foxes.

Warhammer Community

• Salamanders fans had cause to rejoice this week, with the Pages from the Black Books series releasing a trove of lore about a prototype assault carrier designed by Vulkan himself.

• Got $1000 burning a hole in your pocket? Wētā Workshop has produced a new limited-edition statue for collectors, and it’s stunning. File this one under Black Library Bibliophiles, because it would be a wonderful addition to any Fantasy-heavy library display.

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• No Black Library content this week.

Around the Webway

• Cinderfall Gaming’s been busy this week, offering not one but two reviews! First up is Morvenn Vahl: Spear of Faith by Jude Reid, while their second one is a bit unusual. Lair of the Skaven is part of the Warhammer Adventures series, an AoS line aimed at younger readers. Cinderfall typically reviews the audiobooks, with this one being narrated by none other than Dr. Who star Billie Piper!

• Speaking of Jude Reid, Kenny Boulder dropped a new book review this week of Fulgrim: The Perfect Son.

• The Fluffenhammer gang is back with their series that’s an issue-by-issue deep dive on Warhammer Monthly! This time up it’s the Kal Jerico-packed issue #29!

• Not just Cinderfall, Arbitor Ian and Mira Manga’s Book Club podcast dropped two episodes this week as well! First up is a look at Faith & Fire by James Swallow, then Mike Brooks’s Voidscarred goes under the microscope!

• Finally, just had to pass along this terrific read I saw this week on Substack from Thomas Rawlings, The Odyssey of Warhammer 40,000 - Exploring the links between Ancient Greece and Warhammer 40,000. Rawlings covers a lot of Warhammer history, and is well worth subscribing!

Cold Open Stories

• This week’s featured story is Lockwarden, by Graham Pritchett. “In the deepest depths, amid the darkest caverns, the Imperiums most profane secrets lie. The prisoners that are too valuable to kill, the creatures too dangerous to allow free. Arcane things are sequestered here, enigmas and mysteries set side by side and watched. But those things despise confinement and are always seeking that which is denied to them. A way out.”

• Also, a reminder that the current fast fiction competition’s deadline is the end of this month. Once again, I absolutely encourage anyone- even those folks who are just getting their pinkie toe wet writing- to give it a shot. After all, if I can do it, anyone can!

Quick Hits

• Given my involvement in fiction, I often get the question as to whether or not I’d like to be a writer myself. If I’m completely honest, while that intrigues me I think being an editor might be more up my alley. Thus I particularly enjoyed this piece from Danie Ware (The Triumph of St. Katherine, Aestred Thurga: Pyre of Faith), On Editors.

• As if Nottingham wasn’t already cool enough, the Mayhem Film Festival will have just gone on sale at the time this goes to print. An annual celebration of horror, sci-fi, and cult films, the co-director of the event is Steven Sheil (Tithemarked, Ghost Planet).

• Ben Counter (Battle for the Abyss, Phalanx) is one of the writers on the upcoming multimedia podcast project called American Abyss. It’s set in a quarantined town where all manner of strangeness has been occurring, and you can listen to the first episode here!

Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from the Black Library based on the available preorder information we have. As always, take all of this with a grain of salt unless it’s Games Workshop-confirmed.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, and anything in bold has been added (or updated) this week.

Upcoming but Undated

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Nate Crowley

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• Mephiston: The Box Set, by Darius Hinks (8/1)

• Archmagos, by Guy Haley (paperback, 8/8)

• The Relentless Dead, by Steve Lyons (paperback, 8/8)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The Ultimate Guide (hardcover, 8/11)

• The Wicked and the Warped, by Robert Rath (hardcover, Special Edition, 8/15)

• The Infinite and the Divine, by Robert Rath (hardcover, 8/15)

• Raldoron: Revenant, by Guy Haley (hardcover, Special Edition, 9/246)

• Words of Waaagh!, by DK Books (hardcover, 10/6)

• The Sundering, by Gav Thorpe (paperback, 10/6)

• Dropsite Massacre, by John French (paperback, 10/20)

• Apostle, by David Annandale (paperback, 10/20)

• Master of Rites, by Rob Young (paperback, 10/20)

• Death Rider, by Rhuairidh James (paperback, 11/19)

• Ghost Legion, by Mike Brooks (paperback, 11/19)

• Chem Dog, by Callum Davis (paperback, 12/17)

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Warlord of Warlords, by Denny Flowers (paperback, 12/17)

• Ashes of the Imperium, by Chris Wraight (paperback, 12/17)

Thanks again for joining me for all the going’s on in the Black Library, and see you next week!

The Hall Monitor is published every other week, the same day as the latest installment of the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame drops on Tabletop Battles. A cross between a director’s cut and a backstage pass, it’s a look behind the scenes at the Hall of Fame project.

Every author in the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame entered it somewhere for the first time. Even someone like Dan Abnett, with an extraordinary book count now sitting at seventeen hall-of-fame titles, experienced a moment where he instead had zero1.

Rookie moments- those inductions where an author is winning their first award- are exciting times at the Hall. I’m under no illusion that the population of Black Library authors are sitting at the edge of their seat like it’s Draft Day for the NHL, but it’s meaningful enough for some that it makes it extra enjoyable come each induction day.

For instance, here’s Sarah Cawkwell on the inclusion of Valkia the Bloody:

Then Graham McNeill, for False Gods:

And Mike Lee, for Nagash the Unbroken:

What’s also been fun is seeing the authors most familiar to the modern reader beginning to come into the frame as the initiative rolls on. Do you think John French had any idea, back in 2013 as he debuted with Ahriman: Exile, that not only would that series run for four more books, but that he’d go on to pen the Black Library Book of the Year in 2025 with Dropsite Massacre?

Alongside Frech, the Class of 2013 also includes Guy Haley, Peter Fehervari, and Steve Parker. For Haley, who was inducted for his book for Warhammer Fantasy, Skarsnik, it was a heck of a debut year that also included Baneblade and Death of Integrity. Fehervari, of course, kicked off the much-beloved Dark Coil series with Fire Caste, and for Parker this first-time honor came towards the end of a career that also incluced Rynn’s World and Gunheads.

Heresy Fatigue?

We’re now halfway through the 54-book mainline series of the Horus Heresy, and it’s a good time to talk about how this unfolded behind in the scenes with the Committee.

For those who are new to this initiative, we use a sort of bicameral system to determine which books get in. There’s the public, “Vox Populi” vote as well as an eight-member Hall of Fame Committee, and the support of both is essential for any book to get in. Unlike some sports hall of fame where the public vote is essentially a token, public support has a significant weight in the final results.

No series or imprint in the Black Library has ever been anywhere near as successful as the Horus Heresy. Horus Rising, the first book in the series, was released twenty years ago and still has a huge presence in the catalogue. Debates about “which ones are good” and “essential reading lists” abound in the gathering places of social media, and the Heresy is as alive today as ever it’s been.

From the Committee side of things, it was the most prominent example of what you might call “block voting.” That term refers to the practice of voting in books as a group rather than individually. We see this often with popular trilogies, and it’s also quite prominent with long-running character series like Commissar Cain and Felix & Grotrek. Sandy Mitchell’s Cain is an extraordinary character, and naturally those who love Cain tend to reflexively vote for any and all Cain books to get into the Hall.

On the Committee, meanwhile, we take a more granular approach, weighing the merits of each book individually. Did Cain’s Last Stand, the sixth book in the series, do enough on its own to warrant inclusion? Was that book- not the series, but just that book- “culturally, historically, or aesthetically” significant? The Committee is not a monolith; each person serving may have their own ideas and opinions (and usually do!), so if that book can gather the necessary 60% of the overall votes, in it goes.

With something as massive and long-running as the Heresy, the degree to which we’d see block support was a big question we discussed last March. Were the voters just going to auto-pick most Heresy books because they were Heresy? We’d soon have our answer- and it was an interesting look at how the books are regarded.

Here’s a table showing how the Vox Populi voted, with books showing “Yes” under VoxPop crossing the requisite 50% threshold. It also shows whether or not a book made it in, and- just as a lark- whether or not that particular book is part of the new Horus Heresy Saga reprint cycle.

The public voters threw their weight behind the majority of the Heresy titles, fourteen of the twenty-two eligible books (the five unlisted books are anthologies, which aren’t considered). That might seem a bit high on first blush, but it’s worth noting that from this list twelve books ultimately made it into the Hall. It’s not a perfect overlap; the people liked Betrayer and Mechanicum, but they didn’t quite secure enough Committee support to make it in. But you can hardly accuse the voters of irrational exuberance.

Plus, it’s worth noting that nine of the twelve-volume Saga reprint cycle came from the first half of the Heresy. I’d say its clear that the acclaim for the book line is well-warranted.

But if you’d like to see nuance, where it really gets interesting is when you look at the actual data behind that support. Here’s the same table, but I’ve added one more column which shows the percentage of popular support each book received in the polling2.

For statheads like me, this stuff is catnip. It also contextualizes the concerns around block voting. Sure the people are throwing a lot of support for most books in the Heresy, but it’s not blind support. The early books enjoy a huge push, but as the series continues to roll out opinions become a lot more split. Note that only 54% of respondents supported the induction of The Unremembered Empire, whereas Horus Rising was almost universal.

Whether or not this represents a kind of voter fatigue versus critical discernment one can only speculate, though the reception to the new Saga suggests that we’re far from over the Heresy- and I’m absolutely here for it. It’s certainly true that the series did suffer from bloat- even the early editors have noted they didn’t plan beyond the first few books and were sort of winging it a bit after that.

But from such moments, sometimes, serendipity happens.

The Vox Populi Top Twenties

So here are the updated Top Twenties for both halves of the Black Library. In weeks past we’ve put the Winners Leaderboard at the bottom, but because the Top 20 lists had no new entries this week, I’ve lead with the table that did.

Hall Winners Leaderboard

While I talked about the four ‘rookies’ collecting their first-ever Hall induction, we can’t help but notice Abnett nabbed another one as well. When your tally rivals the sum of the next three on the list, it’s safe to say your lead is pretty unassailable. Still, this is one of those lists where you can genuinely say that even making it is probably an honor. I’d certainly like to think so.

Correction notice: Previous iterations erroneously had Ben Counter at 3, this has been corrected to 2.

Fantasy

30K/40K

No big breakouts inductions this week to crack the Top 20 on either side. Let’s see if 2014 shakes things up.

That’s all for this time, thanks for reading!

This week’s big news is the release of Sylvania: The Cursed County, the latest supplement for Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. While the physical copies won’t be available until next year, the PDF is available and- as we’ll see in a moment- doing rather well for itself in the sales department!

As the Cubicle 7 Games release stated, this is the first of three books that will be set in that benighted province.

As the opening release, The Cursed County seems to be a sort of GM’s guide, with little content in the way of new goodies for players. It’s not clear that this was Cubicle 7’s initial intent when the content was announced under its original title, the Sylvania Setting Guide. Indeed, the rebrand came without announcement, and they even went back and updated the original announcement from a month ago on the official blog.

All the same, even if the book is an adjustment in release strategy it has delivered content a bit quicker than many expected. Here’s to seeing what’s around the next, dimly-lit and sinister corner!

RPG Bestsellers

Bookwriters get their New York Times bestseller lists, so why shouldn’t we enjoy the same thing? While we don’t have any aggregated sales lists, we can use DriveThruRPG’s top-seller list as a reasonable barometer- and here’s this week’s snapshot!

• #1 ( - ) Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Sylvania: The Cursed Country

• #25 (-10). Warhammer The Old World: Talagaad Adventures

• #60 (-37). Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus GM’s Guide

• #124 (-20). Imperium Maledictum: Core Rulebook

• #125 (-4). Wrath & Glory: Core Rulebook

• #130 (-46). Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide

• #168 (-27). Imperium Maledictum: Core Rulebook (German)

What a debut for Sylvania: The Cursed Country, straight to the top of the charts! Overall Cubicle 7’s titles slipped a bit this week, as evidenced by all the red, but still a decent showing overall. Titles that were clinging on by their fingertips last week, including The Old World Player’s Guide and both Imperium Maledictum Inquisition Guides, slipped off the slope this week altogether.

Finally, it was nice to see the German Edition of Imperium Maledictum’s Core Rulebook still tracking a week after it cracked the charts. Ausgezeichnet!

ICYMI

• Careless Conjuration rang in its first birthday this week, and celebrated with the next in it’s terrific series, The GM’s Guide to The Enemy Within. This week it’s a look at chapters 5-7, as the players arrive in Bogenhafen. Happy Anniversary!

• Wargamer highlighted a new Fighting Fantasy gamebook coming out, Sir Ian Livingstone’s Tomb of the Golden Skull, which features a cover from Karl Kopinski! “If you're under the age of 30, it's possible you might not know the name Fighting Fantasy or even what a 'gamebook' is,” notes Alex Evans, “but you should.” For games of a certain age like myself, these kinds of books were solo-RPG gaming before solo-RPG gaming evolved to what it is today. A terrific piece!

• u/ConflictBetter1332 shared a map of the Southern Chaos Wastes on the r/WarhammerFantasyRPG Reddit. Pictured above, it’s a lush rendition of one of the world’s most formidable locales!

• Some interesting things I’ve come across in the RPG world on Substack include:

  • Prepping a One-Shot to Last One Session by Chris Vicari tackles the time sinks that often can bloat a one-shot adventure

  • Terrific roundup of the broader tabletop landscape here from The Tabletop Engineer, including a great overview for those wanting to start their own zine!

  • Finally, while not directly RPG related, Warhammer history is a fascinating subject, and here’s the latest from Exploring Warhammer!

• Finally, if you happen to be subscribed to Black Library author John French (Dropsite Massacre, The Hollow King), his newsletter this week was all about his experience with role-playing games. He’s helped write several of the Dark Heresy RPG books, including The Inquisitor’s Handbook and Disciples of the Dark Gods, and noted that as he’s returning to RPG writing his newsletter will have more such content going forward (sign up free here). As he noted:

Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from Cubicle 7 based on the available preorder information we have. Note that Cubicle 7’s own delivery estimates appear to be just that- estimates- which is why many products have an upcoming delivery listed for Q1 while we’re already past that.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, with new or updated info presented in boldface.

To make this section more useful, starting this week I’ll be breaking them out by game.

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 1 (July 2026)

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 2 (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Temple of Spite (Q4)

Shipping 2027

• Sylvania: The Cursed Country

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game, Grand Duchy of Talabec Map Pack (May 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game Starter Set (Q4)

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game Gamemaster’s Screen (Q4)

Shipping 2027

• Talagaad Adventures

Shipping Q1

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Dark Gifts Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Spells Lore Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Artefacts & Wargear Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Core Rulebook (Standard and Collector’s Edition) (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Bloodwind Spoil Map (Q1)

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Age of Sigmar Map Bundle (July 2026)

Shipping Q1 2027

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Champions of Chaos: Carngrad Adventures

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory, Adventures in Gilead

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Character Sheet Pad

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Imperium Maledictum Macharian Sector Map (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Collector’s Edition

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Gamemaster’s Guide

Undated

• (Nothing at this time)

Thanks for reading! If you found this week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly useful or interesting, might I ask that you kindly consider sharing it with others who may as well?

Every week, part of my beat covering the Black Library sees me having the privilege of connecting with the community. Whether it’s one of the prominent gathering places like the Black Library Nutters group on Facebook or the Black Library subreddit, the writer-heavy circles on BlueSky or elsewhere, there’s a lot of passionate readers and collectors and that means a lot of thoughts about how Games Workshop is doing.

I cover a lot of these trends each Monday for Black Library Weekly, but a lot of this is anecdotal in nature (for example, a rough preorder window, or a Limited Edition people are getting excited about).

Wouldn’t it be useful, I started thinking, if we had something a little more rigorous, some way to measure community sentiment? From there, the Black Library Reader Satisfaction Survey was born.

I’ve endeavored to make the questions as neutral as possible, to help ensure we get an accurate sense of community sentiment. Because the Black Library is ever-evolving, this will be a twice-yearly initiative, each July and January, so we can see how community feeling changes over time.

It’s my sincerest hope that this accomplishes two main objectives.

First, it will provide a vehicle for us Black Library consumers to be heard in a quantifiable way, and get a look at the general feeling of our fandom.

Second, it offers Games Workshop an opportunity to get some insight on how their customer base is feeling about their performance- the good and the bad. During my Magic heyday Wizards of the Coast was frequently checking the pulse of the playerbase with a stream of surveys; perhaps GW might see the value in taking a page from that playbook.

To be clear I offer no illusions about what they do with it- that is well out of our hands. But this initiative represents an organized and good-faith attempt to compile feedback, and that is something that has value.

I thank you all in advance for sharing your opinion through the survey. I’ve tried to keep the number of questions reasonable out of respect for everyone’s time, and would greatly appreciate if folks would share the link to the survey with others so we can get the widest possible pool of responses.

Happy Monday, readers, and congratulations to all of you who strapped on your flak vests, limbered up your wallets and waded into the fray that was this past weekend’s Mephiston Boxed Set preorder. While I didn’t hear of any widespread or persistent issues with this window, it certainly seemed like this one- as expected- sold out very quickly.

People certainly do love their IX^th.

What did manage to land on my radar through all this was something that I’d never given much thought to, though, and that’s global variation in pricing. To this point I’d always simply assumed that I was paying approximately the same for my products as a punter in Paris or a collector in Kyoto. Turns out, that’s not the case. At all.

Pop quiz! Consider the following countries/regions:

• Australia

• Canada

• Europe

• Japan

• New Zealand

• South Korea

• United Kingdom

• USA

Which of them would you guess paid the most for the Mephiston Boxed Set this weekend. I’m talking sticker price for the item, no shipping or anything else.

The answer? Those of us here in the United States, with a retail price of $170.

Now, which of them would you expect paid the least? Here’s a hint: it’s not the UK.

Apparently, it’s Japan. The boxed set cost ¥15,500, which in USD (at time of writing) is… $95.48? This is such a wildly unexpected amount that I’m going to show my work just in case someone can tell me what I’m doing wrong here (if indeed I am).

Again, if I made an error somewhere here please let me know in the comments, because Japan paying about half of what I pay here in the US- and significantly less than what everyone else in the world pays, too- is the kind of anomalous data point that suggests a PEBKAC error1. Otherwise, it appears to be a factor of fixed pricing running afoul of a historically weak Yen- but I’m no economist.

Here’s what the rest of the spread looks like.

Ultimately, I present this as a curiosity rather than a cause for concern. Currency valuations fluctuate as a matter of course, and undoubtedly there’s a long time horizon for Games Workshop’s price-setting. Think steering an oil tanker, not a cigarette boat. It would be confusing if prices were “updated” every preorder window to account for changes in relative currency values, and certainly would add am measure of work for GW’s staff to monitor and update on the regular.

The question for me is simply this: do I feel like I’m getting proper value for the amount I pay for an item, or do I not?

And in the case of the Mephiston Boxed Set I did- and it turns out I paid a lot less than I paid about as much as our friends in Japan did due to an unexpected twist of fate…

The Rynn’s World Mishap (Update)

Last week I spoke about my disappointment at having my order of Rynn’s World thwarted by a Games Workshop fulfillment employee. When my local Warhammer store manager cracked open the box containing my shipment, instead of what I’d ordered it contained two Chaos Battleforce boxes. The store manager was able to replace the missing For the Emperor Illustrated and Annotated Edition from his store stock, but of course no such luck for a Special Edition release. He fired off an email, and the following Monday I was not surprised to find a confirmation from GW that a refund was being processed.

Now here’s the interesting part, and where Games Workshop can do a better job at its communications with customers. Turns out, GW emailed my store’s manager to express their condolences about what happened, and let me know that not only would they be issuing me a refund, but they’d be adding a further $80 credit on top of it.

I’m very pleased with this response. I accept that, while frustrating, screw-ups can- and do- happen, and by accepting responsibility and putting me ahead with the bonus credit, that’s a fair consideration. My only thought is that it would have been better if they’d informed me of that response as well, rather than just the store manager.

The “refund is being processed” email made no mention of a dollar amount, so I had no way to know that they have approved a bonus credit. And unfortunately, the Voucher section of my account screen on Warhammer.com doesn’t have a transaction history, so unless I’m on top of exactly how much I’ve got in vouchers on the website I wouldn’t necessarily notice the increase.

It’s a small complaint, but hey, if you’re going to do something nice for a customer, wouldn’t you want to make sure they see it?

Overall, this was the second-best outcome I could have hoped for, with the best response being if they’d tracked down a copy for me and fulfilled my order. My heart is going to hurt a little when someone posts a picture of what’s in-stock at Warhammer World and I see a copy or two of Rynn’s World just sitting there on the shelf, because I know they hold a certain number of copies back for in-store distribution.

All the same, I can’t say it was unwelcome when it came to the boxed set I opened this week’s column with. I’d been on the fence about the set2, but getting that surprise voucher made the cost much more palatable.

The Six Guiding Principles of the Wordforge

I took the opportunity in Friday’s Warhammer RPG Weekly column to talk about my guiding principles when it comes to creating content about Warhammer. A lot of my Black Library readers have seen me talk about these on occasion, but a lot of RPG readers are coming here comparatively cold. It was a good exercise to sit and brainstorm, what do I stand for?, and thought it worth sharing over here.

They are as follows:

I meant it then and I mean it now, thank you to all of you reading this and this extraordinary community I find myself amongst. Now, let’s see what else is going on in the world of the Black Library!

Arrivals & Departures

In this section I look at what’s coming up around the corner (Arrivals) and what’s landing on bookstore shelves (Departures).

Arrivals

Thanks to a reveal piece on the mothership, some more exciting news for Blood Angels fans this week as Raldoron: Revenant, the next book by Guy Haley, was announced!

The book will be offered in both standard hardcover and Special Edition.

While Raldoron wasn’t in this week’s Sunday Preview, there were a couple of paperbacks that are right around the corner: Guy Haley’s Archmagos as well as The Relentless Dead by Steve Lyons (review).

Departures

Just one made the journey to the bookstore shelves this week, as the paperback Flames of Betrayal was released. It contains James Swallow’s Garro: Knight of Grey as well as the anthology Era of Ruin.

Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die

The famous line from Hunter S. Thompson came to mind when I saw this curiosity shared in the Black Library Nutters group by Eddie Arnold. This was a misprint of the new Horus Heresy Saga version of Dan Abnett’s Horus Rising.

While there’s a corner of the Magic: the Gathering community that chases oddities and misprints, we don’t see a lot of them on the book side of things. That’s not to say they don’t exist, as I previously covered my own misprint of Si Spurrier’s Hall of Fame novel Lord of the Night here. Still, this one was too warp-touched not to share!

ICYMI

Here’s what’s been going on this week for Warhammer content!

Warhammer Wordforge

• This week saw the next in the new White Dwarf Stories series, which explores that corner of the Black Library tucked away in the pages of Games Workshop’s flagship periodical. This time it was Answered Prayers, the latest by Goonhammer Book Award-winner Russell Zimmerman (Resounding, Seven Ships).

• While I talked about this earlier with the section on the site’s guiding principles, here’s another link to the latest Warhammer RPG Weekly piece which dropped last Friday.

Tabletop Battles

• TTB’s Lore Friday this week was my review of Death and Duty: An Astra Militarum anthology. Slightly problematic in that it shared four stories with No Peace Among Stars, the other anthology that released at the same time, it nevertheless had some ripping yarns!

• Longtime readers know I’m a sucker not just for the books, but for great ways to decorate your library and gaming spaces. Greg Chiasson reviewed the Secret Labs Dark Angels-themed gaming chair this week, and was pleasantly surprised!

Warhammer Community

• With the focus this week on the Ogor Mawtribes for Age of Sigmar, the mothership dropped an Ogor-themed Chronicles of Ruin story, The Law of Meat.

• The Pages from the Black Books series shifted gears (literally) this week, looking at the Knights of the Mechanicum

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• No Black Library-related content this week.

Around the Webway

• Arbitor Ian and Mira Manga’s Book Club dove into Dropsite Massacre this week, John French’s critically-acclaimed Horus Heresy tale. It was 2025’s Black Library Book of the Year, runner-up for the Goonhammer Book Awards’ Best 30K/40K novel, and my own Book of the Year to boot!

• Kenny Boulder also offered up a video review of the Twice Dead King Omnibus, by Nate Crowley

• The Unseen Library released a top-10 list of best audiobooks for the first half of the year, and a number of 40K titles made the cut! I love seeing more audiobook reviews, since they’re helpful in keeping my own pipeline full!

Cold Open Stories

• No spotlighted story this week, but Cold Open Stories announced two of the guest judges for the current story competition, Geneviève Laprise and Kat Peterson. The current fast fiction competition’s deadline is the end of this month, and I absolutely encourage anyone- even those folks who are just getting their pinkie toe wet writing- to give it a shot. After all, if I can do it, anyone can!

  ---

Quick Hits

• James Swallow (Flight of the Eisenstein, Nemesis) announced his next novel, Tasker, as well as two previous novels (Airside and Dark Horizon) will be getting US editions! He also has two stories coming up in Commando, Britain’s comic magazine of wartime drama.

• Scholarguard, the latest by John Sollitto (Rok Crackers, Redemption through Blood) is now available. “Hunter Hardcutt has a problem. His illustrious adventuring career has died on the vine. Thankfully, the perfect job just arrived in the form of a nervous scholar named Embergleam. He needs a bodyguard to protect him on his way back to the Arcane Institute. What could be simpler than walking an academic back home?” Obviously, nothing in this job will be simple.

• The Kickstarter for Echobound Adventures, the latest by Open Owl Studios, has gone live! A cooperative tabletop game for 1-4 players, it features extensive writing by Will McDermott (Lasgun Wedding, Underhive Apex). If you’re curious about the game, make sure to check out this review by Board Stupid as well!

• Analog Magazine’s July/August issue features a novella from Tom R. Pike (Dream of the Locust, Worm of Valhalla), called Red Ships. The story tracks the death of a culture over the course of a hundred years, and while looking into that I found this interesting little tidbit: “Look for his debut military SF novel, coming out in hardcover September 2026—though the powers that be won’t let him announce the title just yet.” A debut Black Library novel, perhaps?

  ---

Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from the Black Library based on the available preorder information we have. As always, take all of this with a grain of salt unless it’s Games Workshop-confirmed.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, and anything in bold has been added (or updated) this week.

Upcoming but Undated

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Nate Crowley

• The Wicked and the Warped, by Robert Rath (hardcover, Special Edition)

• The Infinite and the Divine, by Robert Rath (hardcover)

• Raldoron: Revenant, by Guy Haley (hardcover, Special Edition)

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• Ghosts of Cadia, by Rob Young (hardcover and Special Edition, 7/25)

• Longshot, by Rob Young (hardcover, 7/25)

• The Devastation of Baal, by Guy Haley (hardcover, 7/25)

• Mephiston: The Box Set, by Darius Hinks (8/1)

• Archmagos, by Guy Haley (paperback, 8/8)

• The Relentless Dead, by Steve Lyons (paperback, 8/8)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The Ultimate Guide (hardcover, 8/11)

• Words of Waaagh!, by DK Books (hardcover, 10/6)

• The Sundering, by Gav Thorpe (paperback, 10/6)

• Dropsite Massacre, by John French (paperback, 10/20)

• Apostle, by David Annandale (paperback, 10/20)

• Master of Rites, by Rob Young (paperback, 10/20)

• Death Rider, by Rhuairidh James (paperback, 11/19)

• Ghost Legion, by Mike Brooks (paperback, 11/19)

• Chem Dog, by Callum Davis (paperback, 12/17)

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Warlord of Warlords, by Denny Flowers (paperback, 12/17)

• Ashes of the Imperium, by Chris Wraight (paperback, 12/17)

Thanks again for joining me for all the going’s on in the Black Library, and see you next week!

My Warhammer writing journey began in 2024, when I got the itch to start writing about games- something I hadn’t done consistently in about a decade1. I pitched a series to Tabletop Battles (then called Goonhammer), covering the history of the Black Library from a 40K perspective. They greenlit it, and I was off to the races!

I’ll never forget how excited I was to see the 40K History of the Black Library make its way into the world- and how embarrassed I was when no less a personage than Marc Gascoigne- one of the three people responsible for the Black Library’s creation- then noted on social media that I’d misspelled two of their names.

It was a teachable moment, one on the importance of getting not just the broad strokes correctly, but the fine details as well. Regardless of how it felt in the moment, I was grateful for the lesson.

I had a similar moment with last week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly. In the column I talked about Jeff McAleer of The Gaming Gang, who was holding a big Summer sale of the review content he’d been supplied by gaming companies. It seemed to me a win-win-win: Gamers get deeply-discounted merch in like-new condition, Jeff’s charity of choice (Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital) gets a welcome donation, and Jeff gets to reclaim some shelf space in his game room.

After the article went live, I noticed this interaction on the r/40krpg subreddit:

Wait, 'calling out?' That wasn't my intent at all!

Perception is Reality

As a writer, getting the right words- and getting words right- means a great deal to me. While it genuinely surprised me that my piece could be read as 'calling out' a fellow creator for doing something I wholeheartedly endorsed, the upvotes made it clear that this reader was not alone in their interpretation.

A positive conversation with the poster helped clarify where my words had missed the mark, and I went back and refined the original piece to ensure my intent was clear. But it was a good and timely reminder of a hard truth in writing: if enough people are getting the impression of something, it doesn’t matter what my original intention was. My intent takes a backseat to their perception- and that becomes the reality.

It was also a useful lesson in ‘reputational capital.’ While I’ve developed a recognized voice in the Black Library community, I’m a relative unknown in the RPG space. I haven't yet earned the benefit of the doubt here that I might expect when covering Warhammer fiction.

One week older now, and hopefully a little wiser as a result, all of this also got me thinking about the idea of what I represent here. What are the ‘guiding principles’ that define the tone of the Warhammer Wordforge?

Here’s what I came up with.

The Six Guiding Principles

If you’ve been following my Black Library work, some of these should already sound familiar, but this is the first time I’ve sat down and written them out formally.

No snark. I’m not here to tear things down, but rather to give my honest opinions and assessments. I can dislike something without feeling the need to diminish it through mean-spiritedness.

“There Are No Bad Books.” This one comes straight from Magic: the Gathering’s head designer Mark Rosewater, who has often noted that there are no bad cards, just cards that aren’t for you. If I don’t like something, it doesn’t mean that someone else won’t love it and I always try to consider who the intended audience might be for something.

Protecting the "First-Time" Experience. You only ever get to experience something for the first time once, and I always seek to preserve that for the reader. I try to avoid or limit the number of spoilers I disclose, and will announce them in advance when necessary for discussion.

Knowing My "Lane" as a Reviewer. There’s no such thing as a universal reader- we all come into Warhammer with different levels of engagement, experience, and knowledge. How a novice perceives something may be different than a veteran, and that’s important to bear in mind when reviewing. (For instance, I’m a 40K vet but an AoS rookie).

Assuming Good Faith. Whether it’s the choices and decisions of individual writers, the editorial team of the Black Library, or Games Workshop as a whole, I always try to assume good faith as my default posture. I’ve been wrong far more often in life than I’ve been right when I’ve allowed cynicism to guide my thoughts and actions.

Responsible Reporting. Finally, truth and facts matter. While calling myself a “journalist” would feel a bit highfalutin, I share that profession’s value of factual accuracy in what I write. I don’t do clickbait or sensationalism in an effort to drive up engagement.

Will I always get it perfectly right? Almost certainly not. There will undoubtedly be more typos, misreads, and misunderstandings down the road- that’s just the nature of putting words out into the world. But having these six pillars as the bedrock of the Warhammer Wordforge ensures that when I do inevitably stumble, I have a clear map to help me find my way back.

Ultimately, covering the Black Library, the Warhammer RPG’s, and the wider Games Workshop universe is an absolute privilege. My goal is always to do right by the writers who pour their hearts into these books, and by you- the community- who share this passion with me week after week.

Now, let’s get to those books!

RPG Bestsellers

Bookwriters get their New York Times bestseller lists, so why shouldn’t we enjoy the same thing? While we don’t have any aggregated sales lists, we can use DriveThruRPG’s top-seller list as a reasonable barometer- and here’s this week’s snapshot!

• #15 ( - ). Warhammer The Old World: Talagaad Adventures

• #23 (-17). Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus GM’s Guide

• #84 ( - ). Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide

• #104 ( - ). Imperium Maledictum: Core Rulebook

• #121 ( - ). Wrath & Glory: Core Rulebook

• #141 ( - ). Imperium Maledictum: Core Rulebook (German)

• #171 ( - ). Imperium Maledictum: Inquisition Player’s Guide

• #174 ( - ). Warhammer The Old World: Player’s Guide

• #198 ( - ). Imperium Maledictum: Inquisition GM’s Guide

• #200 ( - ). Imperium Maledictum: Macharian Requisition Guide

An awful lot of dashes here, indicating that last week these titles weren’t in the top 200 of bestsellers. Terrific progress! While it might look like only the Adeptus Mechanicus GM’s Guide lost ground in the standings, some other titles fell off completely. Sons of Russ, the Wrath & Glory sourcebook for the Space Wolves, was a healthy #48 last week, now nowhere to be seen. Same with Temple of Spite (was #34) and Champions of Chaos (#25).

The German Edition of Imperium Maledictum’s Core Rulebook coming in at #141 was nice to see, since it appears to only have been released within the last week. Willkommen, Freunde!

Overall a lot of movement this week, highlighting the volatility of this measurement. The Zelda-inspired Twilight Sword RPG2 arrived with a splash with a number of offerings crowding the upper range of the bestsellers, but it’s still a solid week for Cubicle 7 Games.

ICYMI

• Sticking with DriveThruRPG for a moment, they have loads of Warhammer RPG titles discounted for their “Christmas in July” sale, many up to 50% off. Zekiel of Ill Met by Morrslieb provided a great roundup here.

• Careless Conjuration posted the next article in its series The GM’s Guide to the Enemy Within, focusing on streamlining the running of chapters three and four of volume one.

• Meanwhile, Awesome Lies reviewed Hirelings of the Old World, a PDF release that contained four NPC’s usable for WFRP’s 4th Edition.

• Ill Met by Morrslieb, on the other hand went quite a bit further back for its review this week, with this assessment of WFRP 1st Edition’s Warhammer Companion.

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Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from Cubicle 7 based on the available preorder information we have. Note that Cubicle 7’s own delivery estimates appear to be just that- estimates- which is why many products have an upcoming delivery listed for Q1 while we’re already past that.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, with new or updated info presented in boldface.

To make this section more useful, starting this week I’ll be breaking them out by game.

Undated

• Sylvania Setting Guide

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 1 (July 2026)

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 2 (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Temple of Spite (Q4)

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game, Grand Duchy of Talabec Map Pack (May 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game Starter Set (Q4)

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game Gamemaster’s Screen (Q4)

Shipping 2027

• Talagaad Adventures

Shipping Q1

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Dark Gifts Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Spells Lore Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Artefacts & Wargear Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Core Rulebook (Standard and Collector’s Edition) (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Bloodwind Spoil Map (Q1)

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Age of Sigmar Map Bundle (July 2026)

Shipping Q1 2027

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Champions of Chaos: Carngrad Adventures

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory, Adventures in Gilead

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Character Sheet Pad

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Imperium Maledictum Macharian Sector Map (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Collector’s Edition

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Gamemaster’s Guide

Undated

• (Nothing at this time)

Thanks for reading! If you found this week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly useful or interesting, might I ask that you kindly consider sharing it with others who may as well?

A new White Dwarf, a new Armageddon story! This time, though, instead of Cadians we’re getting to see the renewed conflict through the eyes of the Steel Legion.

If you’re somewhat new to the universe, the mystique of the Steel Legion may not be readily apparent. Loosely speaking, in spirit they were the Cadians before the Cadians were pushed, and in appearance the Krieg before the Krieg were pushed. You don’t see a lot of Steel Legion representation these days, but the players certainly remember.

So, too, does Rusty Zimmerman, who penned the short story Answered Prayers for the current issue of White Dwarf. After the five-month serial The Chronicles of Bain (reviewed here), we’re back to the standalone format with this tale of a Leman Russ detachment left behind on the battlefield when things go horribly awry.

Zim and Vigor

Zimmerman originally broke into tie-in fiction in 2012 with Neat, a story for the Shadowrun universe, and has continued to write for the property (his latest, Dark Synergy, just dropped in 2024). From there, he expanded into Earthdawn and BattleTech1, with his entry into the Black Library stable of writers coming in 2025 with the Death Guard short story, Seven Ships.

Released as part of a digital short story theme week, Seven Ships was my “best in show” pick in my review of Heretic Astartes Week, in no small part down to how deliciously he evoked the feel of the Legion through small details like the glint of mucous off a visor. It also won Zimmerman Best Black Library Debutant in the 2025 Goonhammer Book Awards, an honor he shared with Avalon Irons for Imperfect Engines2.

His next story, Resounding, was included in this year’s Death and Duty: An Astra Militarum Anthology, and I was pleased to see him get another out so soon with Answered Prayers. Here’s a spoiler-free look at the story (with spoilers in the next section clearly marked).

The Story

Zimmerman’s latest takes us straight into action on Armageddon alongside the Steel Legion’s armored 127th, the “unstoppable fist of the Morpheon Line.” Sergeant Valek Aertsev and his crew are part of a glorious push against the greenskin hordes, “six thousand souls riding in over five hundred Chimeras,” pushing back the orks like one shovels snow off a driveway.

Everything goes according to plan- until it doesn’t. Aertsev’s Chimera, the Faithful Perseverence, strikes a land mine, resulting in an inadvertent mobility kill as one of the tracks is shredded and its vox-array befouled. The rest of the assault pushes forward, leaving them behind in the middle of no-man’s land. Unable to go forward, unable to go back, and unable to call for help, they manage to “lever, heave, and curse” the Chimera into a nearby artillery crater for cover and wait for Imperial forces to return from the assault.

What they get instead are orks. Shooty orks during the day. Sneaky orks during the night. The tank crew and troopers they were transporting face dire straits and long odds as attrition whittles them down. In desperation, they’re forced to send an unsecured vox-call mayday, which would pinpoint their location to friend and foe alike.

And ultimately, the help they hoped for isn’t the help they get.

Impressions

Zimmerman’s last piece, Resounding, felt a little imbalanced due to a lot of character exposition in the early establishment of the story. It’s a difficult balancing act, giving the reader enough of your characters so that they can understand and engage with them, while making sure that the story’s pacing or tone isn’t adversely impacted (I’ll go into this a bit more in my upcoming review of Death and Duty over on Tabletop Battles).

Having only recently read Resounding, I was particularly sensitive to this going in to Answered Prayers, and was pleased to see a much more lean balance being struck. Zimmerman wastes very little time setting up the story, and the necessary character development gets braided together with the forward movement of the plot.

Indeed, he crafts a very tense and taut narrative here. Aertsev’s soldiers are in deep trouble, an island of the Emperor’s will in a sea of green. Time crawls by, with the hours of their remaining life measured in soldiers and bullets3 that they can’t replace.

If writing the White Dwarf Stories features has shown me anything, it’s that I’ve underappreciated the the Black Library content in White Dwarf to my detriment. Answered Prayers is a terrific little tale, and would fit just as well in a Theme Week or in-print anthology.

Bits n’ Pieces (Spoilers)

• So here’s where I get to talk about the story’s twist ending. As Aertsev’s crew throws the Hail Mary, we see the story’s title come into sharp focus.

• Turns out, they’re Blood Angels all right. Blood Angels in black armor. It’s one of those “oh shit” moments that suddenly gives the story an entirely new dimension, and credit to Zimmerman for never naming them as Death Company4.

• Indeed, this is one of those stories that, if read by someone new to Warhammer, would leave them genuinely puzzled, for it’s never explained why their Astartes ‘saviors’ then slaughter the Guardsmen just as eagerly as they did the orks. No explanation, no exposition- just a thing that happened in one tiny corner of a future where there is only war. Those can be refreshing for us property veterans, and White Dwarf is probably an ideal place to run them.

• While there’s an element of ‘be careful what you wish for’ here, I think the less obvious lesson might be, ‘when Astartes tell you to do something, do it.’ When the Blood Angels tell the Guardsmen to hide in their Chimera, they ignore it feeling like it would be a cowardly dereliction of duty to not do their part in fighting back the rampaging orks. Grimdark lit has a proud tradition of people finding out the hard way that sometimes doing the right thing is the wrong thing to do.

• One of the things I always look for in Warhammer is to see how different authors present machine spirits. There’s this ‘middle ground’ between superstition and supernatural with them, and the sweet spot (for me) plays firmly with the ambiguity in between them5. Zimmerman played it to perfection here.

• Finally- and this is totally a nitpick- but I’m starting to get a little fatigued of the “X and Y in equal measure” construction. There’s nothing wrong with it, I’ve just noticed it being used a lot lately and it’s become a little too conspicuous. In fairness to Zimmerman, it’s employed but the once here, and it’s hardly the thing writers can coordinate.

I found myself with a rare evening free this week, with zero competition for the television. Normally in my family of seven the competition for the remote (or PS5 controller) is hot and heavy, so this felt like getting the keys to the kingdom for a night. With no-one to object or interrupt, I could watch anything I wanted, anything at all1!

I landed, as one does, on Sharpe.

Sharpe was a television series in the UK that ran from 1993 to 1997, in the British style of a small number of movie-length episodes rather than the 30- and 60-minute installments more common here in the US. Based on the novel series by Bernard Cornwell, it follows the exploits of Richard Sharpe and his men during the Napoleonic Wars.

I watched the debut episode, which sees Sharpe’s men unexpectedly on their own deep behind the French front searching for the banker carrying the army’s wages, linking up with local partisans in the Spanish mountains who seek to bring Spain more fully into the war against Napoleon.

I found it thoroughly engaging, with terrific writing and acting and even a bit of humor sprinkled in. Nobody would call the period war historical ‘lighthearted,’ but it wasn’t nearly as grim as I’d somehow expected it to be. The action sequences and effects were fine, though you’d be under no illusions that you were watching something from the present day, with men falling about instantly dead on the battlefield rather than bleeding, screaming, and crying out for unseen loved ones.

And if that picture above reminds you in some vague, echoing way of Gaunt’s Ghosts, well, there’s good reason for that.

The Warhammer DNA

To his credit, Dan Abnett wears his inspiration on his sleeve. “I wanted to capture the spirit of the Sharpe books,” he shared in a 2017 interview with Track of Words about the Ghosts, “which is to say a brave and capable leader with a group of men who will often find themselves doing really unlikeable missions because they’re essentially disposable, and to have that sort of feeling about it.” He continued,

When he writes that Tanith marching song, Over the Skies and Far Away, Abnett’s providing a direct- if subtle- homage to the Over the Hills and Far Away of the Sharpe’s Rifles.

To be clear, Commissar Ibram Gaunt is hardly Richard Sharpe ported into the grim, dark future, but the struggles of the two have a number of parallels. Their burdens of command are cultural, with Sharpe being an officer elevated from the common soldiery, while both chafe against the ascendant military aristocracy (be it senior staff of the British Army or the Volpone Bluebloods).

Watching Sharpe- perfectly enjoyable on its own merits, mind- was like looking into the evolutionary history of one of my favorite Warhammer series, and one I’d absolutely recommend.

Want another? Widely held to be a direct influence on the conception of the Mechanicum, Walter M. Miller Jr.’s 1959 novel A Canticle for Liebowitz. In a post-apocalyptic setting, robed monks obsessively preserve humanity’s technological heritage, endlessly copying schematics and blueprints that they do not themselves fully comprehend. Each have their own language unintelligible to others, the monks employing Latin rather than Lingua-Technis, and are reserved and remote from the rest of society.

The copy pictured above is a beautiful special edition reissue from The Folio Society, and to date is the only non-Games Workshop work of fiction that occupies space in my Black Library Museum.

Making History

History and evolution had a central place in Robert Rath’s highly acclaimed The Infinite and the Divine, too, and there was a lot of excitement this week with the announcement that it would be getting a sequel.

The Wicked and the Warped will see Trazyn and Orikan reunite to track down a missing expedition lost on a planet that’s been corrupted by Chaos. No hint of a release date as of yet, but the launch will have a standard hardcover offered alongside a Special Edition.

Not only that, but in keeping with recent form the original book will be reissued in hardcover at the same time. If you missed it the first time back in October of 2026, now’s your chance to add it to your library as well!

And since we’ve got a bit of time before The Wicked and the Warped arrives, why not check out Robert Rath’s recommended reading list to make sure you’re ready?

Our July Giveaway Winner!

Last week we held a giveaway for Jude Reid’s Armageddon: Season of Fire, just the read for welcoming in Warhammer 40K’s 11th Edition and a Return to Armageddon.

After pulling up ye olde randomizer at Random.org, Periklis Begzos is our lucky winner! Congratulations Periklis, look for a message from me to get your shipping details, and I hope you enjoy the book!

Arrivals & Departures

In this section I look at what’s coming up around the corner (Arrivals) and what’s landing on bookstore shelves (Departures).

Arrivals

Just one for preorder this week- but it’s a big one! The Mephiston trilogy by Darius Hinks is arriving in a gorgeous-looking Limited Edition box set.

This is almost certain to be a high-demand item, and if you’re relatively new to the ordeal here’s the guide I wrote for Tabletop Battles that might be of some help!

Departures

Loads of books made their way to store shelves this week, with paperbacks of Robbie MacNiven’s Vagabond Squadron (review), Krakenblood by Marc Collins (review), and Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Starseer’s Ruin (review) now available for purchase.

Joining them were the Illustrated and Annotated Edition of Sandy Mitchell’s seminal For the Emperor, a new edition of Dan Abnett’s The Sabbat Worlds Crusade, and the Special Edition of Rynn’s World, by Steve Parker.

It was apparently my turn for a disappointing experience this week as Games Workshop’s order fulfillment bungled my online order. Instead of a box containing For The Emperor and Rynn’s World, clearly marked on the invoice included in the box, the order picker instead threw in two of the recent Battleforce: Chaos Space Marines Warbands and called it good.

Given that the alternative is that we all get replaced by robots I try to respond to such errors with grace, but I’ll admit given the difference in what I ordered and what I got I wonder if the picker even looked at the invoice.

My store manager came through, of course. After reclaiming both Battleforces for store inventory, he gave me the store’s remaining copy of For the Emperor. Alas all he can do for Rynn’s World is email GW’s customer service. I think we all can guess how this story ends, but perhaps the Emperor will provide after all.

UPDATE 7/13: I received a form email happy to tell me that my refund was being processed. Insert your “disappointed, but not surprised” meme of choice here.

ICYMI

Here’s what’s been going on this week for Warhammer content!

Warhammer Wordforge

• Since this week is a Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame week over at TTB, my companion piece The Hall Monitor dropped on Saturday as well. This time I talked a bit about the surge in inductions we’ve seen in 2010 and 2012, and what that might portend as we continue to move forward towards the modern day. Also, the fun Top 20 lists got an update too!

• This week’s featurette saw the return of Black Library Bibliophiles, the series dedicated to collection and display of the books we love. This time around I reviewed Wicked Brick, who makes officially-licensed Warhammer acrylic displays for the minis that take some inspiration from the Black Library!

• For the RPG players, this week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly highlighted a terrific idea from one of the community’s reviewers, who is selling his reviewer copies of board and RPG games for a charity benefit!

Tabletop Battles

• The big news this week was that eight books were inducted into the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame from the class of 2012- a tremendous accomplishment!

• I also provided this week’s Lore Friday review, diving into Justin Woolley’s swashbuckling ork-stravaganza, Da Freebooterz Code.

• Robert “The Chirurgeon” Jones is back this week with the next in his series of Lore Explainers on Armageddon. This time he zeroed in on the Second War of Armageddon, a stage where an ork by the name of Ghazghkull Thraka comes to prominence!

Warhammer Community

• The Pages from the Black Books series continued this week covering the war at Calth, this time focusing on the Mechanicum forces involved in that terrible clash.

• While discussed above, for those who may be skimming I’ll add the link to the Black Library article this week announcing The Wicked and the Warped here as well!

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• Deep Strike is the series that goes behind the scenes of Warhammer’s video games, licensed books, animations and more. This week they dove into Sigmar’s Toll, the 2025 Age of Sigmar animated series.

Around the Webway

• Terrific piece this week on Wargamer spotlighting Toby Longworth, narrator of many a Black Library audiobook whose “preposterously versatile voice has performed over 200 books and audio dramas for Games Workshop over almost a decade, somehow perfectly inhabiting a thousand different characters, from curt, feminine air traffic controllers, to lofty, booming primarchs, to daemonic warp-things with throats made from hatred.” I love to see the narrators get some attention, and Longworth isn’t one I’ve covered here in Audio Impressions- yet.

• The TTP Field Manual pod reviewed Adrian Tchaikovsky’s recent Age of Sigmar novel Starseer’s Ruin this week, as part of their book club series.

• Warhammer RPG site It Always Rains in Nuln gives a review of Rise of the Horned Rat, the End Times novel from Guy Haley.

• The Fluffenhammer crew has been doing an issue-by-issue deep dive into the pages of the comic serial Warhammer Monthly, which ran from 1998-2004. This week it’s the Mordheim-filled issue #28 under the microscope!

• Meanwhile in the Horus Heresy, Arbitor Ian and Mira Manga’s Book Club examined the anthology Mark of Calth, the 25th book of the series.

• Finally, over on Reddit the Black Library subreddit’s bi-weekly book discussion turned its attention to Nagash the Sorcerer, from Hall of Famer Mike Lee.

Cold Open Stories

• And now for something completely different! This week’s featured story is Hyperphagia, by Daniel Dolgos, a more lighthearted tale featuring- of all things- a squig! “Hunger is great sauce, as the Irish say. And no better creature on the 40K galaxy than a squiggly beast to put that saying to the test, because as much as Squigs are the Orks, primary food source, Squigs need to eat too. And my word, can they eat when they put their minds to it…”

  ---

Quick Hits

• Paul Kane (Triggers) saw his latest venture, the folk horror graphic novel Men of the Cloth, launch on Kickstarter this week. It’s based on Kane’s novelette of the same name, which also was the basis for the 2021 horror film Sacrifice. Looks great, Paul!

• Andrew Kenrick, former Editor of White Dwarf, published a new history book, Rex Juba. A biography of Juba II of Mauritania, it’s available here through Penguin Books, you can find preorder information for it here.

• Finally, last March I noted the Kickstarter campaign for a tribute anthology for legendary fantasy writer David Gemmell, one stacked with a lineup of Black Library writers. The campaign was successful, and preorders are now available for The Iron Code, including stories from Dan Abnett (Pariah, First and Only), Jonathan Green (The Dead and the Damned, Necromancer), Juliet McKenna (Fear Itself), Gavin Smith (Suffer Not a Human to Live, Apex Predator), Anna Stephens (Trisethni the Unseen, Gothghul Hollow), and Adrian Tchaikovsky (On the Shoulders of Giants, Starseer's Ruin)!

  ---

Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from the Black Library based on the available preorder information we have. As always, take all of this with a grain of salt unless it’s Games Workshop-confirmed.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, and anything in bold has been added (or updated) this week.

Upcoming but Undated

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Nate Crowley

• The Wicked and the Warped, by Robert Rath (hardcover, Special Edition)

• The Infinite and the Divine, by Robert Rath (hardcover)

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• Siege of Terra: Flames of Betrayal, by various (paperback, 7/18)

• Ghosts of Cadia, by Rob Young (hardcover and Special Edition, 7/25)

• Longshot, by Rob Young (hardcover, 7/25)

• The Devastation of Baal, by Guy Haley (hardcover, 7/25)

• Mephiston: The Box Set, by Darius Hinks (8/1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The Ultimate Guide (hardcover, 8/11)

• Archmagos, by Guy Haley (paperback, 8/11)

• The Relentless Dead, by Steve Lyons (paperback, 8/11)

• Words of Waaagh!, by DK Books (hardcover, 10/6)

• The Sundering, by Gav Thorpe (paperback, 10/6)

• Dropsite Massacre, by John French (paperback, 10/20)

• Apostle, by David Annandale (paperback, 10/20)2

• Master of Rites, by Rob Young (paperback, 10/20)

• Death Rider, by Rhuairidh James (paperback, 11/19)

• Ghost Legion, by Mike Brooks (paperback, 11/19)

• Chem Dog, by Callum Davis (paperback, 12/17)

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Warlord of Warlords, by Denny Flowers (paperback, 12/17)

• Ashes of the Imperium, by Chris Wraight (paperback, 12/17)

Thanks again for joining me for all the going’s on in the Black Library, and see you next week!

The Hall Monitor is published every other week, the same day as the latest installment of the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame drops on Tabletop Battles (here’s today’s). A cross between a director’s cut and a backstage pass, it’s a look behind the scenes at the Hall of Fame project.

Prior to 2010, the most books that entered the Hall in one year was six, which happened only twice. The first time was 2004, with early series work by Dan Abnett and Sandy Mitchell helping build a strong slate. The next time was 2006 with the advent of the Horus Heresy opening up a new category in the balloting.

That record wasn’t just broken, it was smashed by the incredible Class of 2010 putting nine books in the Hall. After a lull in 2011, we fell one book short of equaling the feat in 2012.

The simplest possible explanation for this is that, over time, the books just got better. As the Black Library grew in success, it could raise the standard of what it was looking for, offer more compensation1, and attract more talent.

Another consideration, though, is that we’re getting closer to the present day with each year. That means an increasing number of voters will be seeing books they’re more familiar with as time goes on. “Recency bias” certainly exists, but at the very least I’d like to think we’ll see a decrease in the proportion of “No Opinion/Abstain” votes in each poll.

I don’t have the answer to this, but it’s going to be interesting seeing if voting patterns change as we move into modernity. I might quibble with a book or two that missed out, but by and large I think the Hall’s gotten it right. It’s certainly been fun to watch! By the time we catch up to the current era later this year, we’ll have a much clearer picture of how things shook out.

The Vox Populi Top Twenties

So here are the updated Top Twenties for both halves of the Black Library.

Fantasy

No changes here again this week, 45% positive support seems to be a difficult threshold for Fantasy titles to hit right now, even if they’re still managing to find their way into the Hall. Remember, this number (the 45%) represents the percentage of public poll respondents that vote for the book to get in. It doesn’t have to get more than 50% support to be considered, it just needs to get more “yesses” than “noes.”

Still, it’s a good barometer of public awareness and enthusiasm for a particular title.

30K/40K

Some movement here this week, though, as three books climb aboard. The bottom of the table is fairly congested, and it won’t take much to see a large chunk of books fall off the table entirely.

Hall Winners Leaderboard

The top of the table continues to pull away from the middle, with Graham McNeill and Aaron Dembski-Bowden neck and neck. Abnett is nigh uncatchable, I’d wager, but it’s also a delight when we get to add new names to the table as well. Congrats again to Sarah Cawkwell (for Valkia the Bloody), and Josh Reynolds (for Neferata: The Blood of Nagash)!

Thanks for joining me on this look behind the curtains of the Hall, and if you haven’t already please make sure to vote your picks for the Class of 2013!

Another lifetime ago, I ran a Magic: the Gathering website called Ertai’s Lament, dedicated to a very small (but equally) fun niche aspect of the hobby: preconstructed decks. From Theme Decks to Intro Packs and everything in between, if it came prepackaged I was keen to discuss it, play it, and give it a review.

Eventually my little project got the attention of Wizards of the Coast, and I found myself occasionally receiving boxes in the mail of free goodies. I was delighted, of course, not least because it seemed to validate what I was doing. My audience was never vast but it was dedicated and passionate, and I was pleased to count some WotC folks as regular readers1. Getting free product felt a bit like I’d ‘made it.’

But it also came with complicated feelings.

I’d started the site purely out of passion for the game, a labor of love in much the same way Warhammer Wordforge is. I never monetized my content or sought to curry favor with the publisher in hopes of scoring product. And when that free product came, while it came with no strings attached I had to make sure to introspect and self-examine, to make sure that I wasn’t letting it influence any of my opinions or reviews.

Positively-influenced coverage doesn’t always have to be transactional, and indeed the notion of “access journalism” is often an unspoken social contract. “We’ll let you keep talking to our star athletes,” a sports journo might be led to understand, “so long as you aren’t asking questions we wouldn’t approve of.” Cross that line one too many times, and those doors might quietly close.

In a vacuum, there’s nothing wrong with reviewers getting free product for the purposes of content generation. Game products are expensive, and going out of pocket for them can add up very quickly- especially if you’re a site that has no monetization options to help offset that. By the same token, though, reviewers must forever be on guard against the appearance of influence. Credible reviewers, for instance, should always disclose whether or not they received free merchandise for the purposes of the interview.

I bring all this up this week to offer an example of what ‘doing it right’ can look like: the Summer Sale at The Gaming Gang.

I don’t know Jeff McAleer personally, but because he frequently reviews Warhammer RPG he’s on the radar of sites I check every week when I write up the ICYMI segment below. This week, he’s kicked off a massive sale of gamebooks and board games he’s received for reviewing purposes. Two things make this particularly notable.

First, from what I could tell his pricing is at least half off what you’d pay at full retail. Sure most of these have been ‘used,’ but generally no more than just for the purposes of a review. A gamebook flipped through a bit before being shelved is little different from what you’d expect to see at a friendly, local game store.

Second- and here’s the coolest part- Jeff is donating the sale’s proceeds to the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. Okay sure, if you’re really cynical at heart you could point out that in so doing, he’ll be getting a tax writeoff come next April, but that’s Gargamel-level thinking. Gamers benefit by getting great games at ridiculous prices, the Hospital benefits from the donation, and Jeff gets to reclaim some shelf space in his home (and don’t all us tabletop gamers know how precious a commodity that is!).

I couldn’t help but break my “no new boardgames” rule when I saw Robotech: Attack on the SDF-1 by Strange Machine Games for only USD $15. With a sticker price of $50, even with shipping I’m likely paying only half. I was grateful to see someone else had already snapped up the bundle of four Twilight: 2000 box sets for just $80, lest I be sorely tempted myself.

And at time of writing, Cubicle 7’s Darktide: The Card Game is still there for $15, and the Wrath & Glory Starter Set is just $20.

Back to Ertai’s Lament, I typically used that free product from Wizards in giveaways to the readers (and here again, Gargamel might say- not entirely without merit- that this is self-serving promotion2). But at the end of the day, putting products back in the hands of gamers is always going to be a win. This is a terrific idea for a great cause, and I encourage everyone to check it out.

Well done, Gaming Gang!

RPG Bestsellers

Bookwriters get their New York Times bestseller lists, so why shouldn’t we enjoy the same thing? While we don’t have any aggregated sales lists, we can use DriveThruRPG’s top-seller list as a reasonable barometer- and here’s this week’s snapshot!

• #6 (+3). Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus GM’s Guide

• #25 (+127). Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Champions of Chaos

• #26 ( - ). Warhammer The Old World: Starter Set

• #34 ( - ). Warhamer Fantasy Roleplay: Temple of Spite

• #37 ( - ). Imperium Maledictum: Voll Adventures

• #48 ( - ). Wrath & Glory: Sons of Russ

• #66 ( - ). Wrath & Glory: Darktide Extraction

Interesting week! Five different titles that weren’t on the charts last week pop up today, and in top-half positions one and all. Cubicle 7 continues its three-week streak of having a title in the Top 10 as well. Seems good!

On the other hand, a number of titles that charted last week slipped off the Top 200. Some of these, I imagine, are fairly routine fluctuations. Things like the Wrath & Glory Core Rulebook have been available for some time and are unlikely at this point to see sustained demand, but I was sad to see the new Carngrad Adventures slip away so quickly.

Still, Soulbound folks will be delighted to see a surge of interest in the core Champions of Chaos book, so there’s some consolation to be had. Two weeks ago it wasn’t even in the Top 200, and now it’s #25.

ICYMI

• Don’t look now, but Warhammer The Old World’s Player’s Guide is an ENNIE finalist for Best Layout and Design! The ENNIEs- essentially the industry’s equivalent of the Oscars- have been going since 2001, recognizing some of the best in tabletop gaming. Winners will be announced at GEN CON, so fingers crossed!

• Big congratulations to Zekiel, who rang in the third anniversary of Ill Met by Morrslieb! Good content creation is a lot like small businesses- so many of them fold within the first year. It takes a lot of dedication to keep things going after that heady, early “new car smell” wears off, so here’s to the next three (and beyond!), Zekiel!

• Speaking of dedication, the Lorebeards continue to display an almost fanatic workrate. In addition to plenty of lore content, this week also saw them dive into a topic near and dear to many the GM: cartography! They talk about the newest Old World map here, then interview cartographer and WFRP writer ‘Mad’ Alfred Nuñez here.

• Careless Conjuration continued its series The GM’s Guide to the Enemy Within, discussing events and social encounters for the campaign.

• Great conversations and content on Reddit this week, including:

  • Taking a pulse check on how people are feeling about the state of Imperium Maledictum.

  • Homebrewing non-Imperial human societies

  • u/NerdyFrida shared an illustrated collage (above) of her Enemy Within party’s progression that’s just superb. Great things can happen when you game with artists, folks!

  • Ways to prevent combat from bogging down games in Warhammer: The Old World

• Finally, here’s some interesting content I enjoyed on Substack this week as well!

  • Time for the Danse Macabre as we explore the origins of the Eldar Harlequins, on Exploring Warhammer

  • The Real Problem With Generation Ships, by Vincent S. Gehring

  • A Practical Guide to Designing Villains, on Behind the Screen

  • How to write an OSR adventure, by the Copy/Paste Co-Op

Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from Cubicle 7 based on the available preorder information we have. Note that Cubicle 7’s own delivery estimates appear to be just that- estimates- which is why many products have an upcoming delivery listed for Q1 while we’re already past that.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, with new or updated info presented in boldface.

To make this section more useful, starting this week I’ll be breaking them out by game.

Undated

• Sylvania Setting Guide

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 1 (July 2026)

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 2 (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Temple of Spite (Q4)

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game, Grand Duchy of Talabec Map Pack (May 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game Starter Set (Q4)

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game Gamemaster’s Screen (Q4)

Shipping 2027

• Talagaad Adventures

Shipping Q1

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Dark Gifts Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Spells Lore Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Artefacts & Wargear Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Core Rulebook (Standard and Collector’s Edition) (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Bloodwind Spoil Map (Q1)

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Age of Sigmar Map Bundle (July 2026)

Shipping Q1 2027

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Champions of Chaos: Carngrad Adventures

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory, Adventures in Gilead

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Character Sheet Pad

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Imperium Maledictum Macharian Sector Map (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Collector’s Edition

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Gamemaster’s Guide

Undated

• (Nothing at this time)

Thanks for reading! If you found this week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly useful or interesting, might I ask that you kindly consider sharing it with others who may as well?

I’ve long been a believer that if you want to see something in the world that isn’t there, rather than wait for someone else to come along and make it happen you should roll up the sleeves and get to work.

Back in 2024, for instance, I was amazed to find that there just wasn’t a cohesive body of work out there chronicling the history of the Black Library. Sure there were bits and pieces all over the place, but a true narrative? I reached out to Tabletop Battles (then Goonhammer) and offered to write it, a series that became the 40K History of the Black Library.

In a similar vein, I was genuinely surprised to find that there had never been a real “Hall of Fame” for the Black Library. Sure, Games Workshop made a modest and short-lived stab at it in 2016, asking authors of the day to select books to include, but after just nine selections it quietly shuttered. I rolled up my sleeves and got to work, and now it’s been a continuous project since last November that has- with the help of the community- examined every novel each year has produced, and inducted over fifty of them into the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame1.

So in short, if you want to see something in the world, give it a go yourself instead of waiting for someone else to2. You might be waiting forever.

Enter Wicked Brick

This same philosophy is what brought Wicked Brick into the world. A decade ago some collectors in Cambridgeshire realized that their collectibles didn’t have any quality protection and display options. The market has always been a bit of a laggard here, given that it responds to market forces that have already hit a critical threshold before making preservation products available.

For instance, Ty’s Beanie Babies were introduced in 1993, but it took around four years (and a massive craze) to see plastic “tag protectors” begin being offered. It took slightly longer for Funko to roll out Pop! Stacks, acrylic display and protection cases for their vinyl figures. It’s notable that in each case, third party manufacturers beat the official companies to market by about a year, which gives some idea of market agility.

Not seeing the kinds of solutions they were after, the founders of Wicked Brick opted to bootstrap their own. “We loved collecting,” they note on their company site. “We just didn’t love how our collections looked sitting on an open shelf. Dust, UV light, the odd knock. We knew there was a better way to show them off. So we built it. A display that did what nothing else on the market could: protect the set, enhance how it looked, and let the collectible be the focus.”

In 2024, Wicked Brick landed the license to produce official displays for Warhammer, and it’s these that are in the spotlight in today’s feature.

Plastic, Meet Paper

My own Black Library collection has two components, the Library and the Museum. The former is exactly what it sounds like- bookshelves full of books, arranged in whatever formation happens to be most aesthetically (and organizationally) pleasing in the moment, but the Museum is where the Black Library truly comes to life.

Plastic miniatures are a key component of my displays, and today we’ll look at Abaddon, the Despoiler, who stands vigil in front of the Liber Chaotica and (a presently non-limited edition) Black Legion by Aaron Dembski-Bowden one of display shelves.

More specifically, we’ll look at his containment field, a Wicked Brick Limited Edition. Let’s get a closer look.

Wicked Brick has adopted the FOMO-inducing “limited” model for many of their releases, which is more or less industry standard at this point. All Wicked Brick products are made to order, which means that any limitation is entirely arbitrary and artificial. It also means that you’ll typically experience a wait time of 8-10 weeks between order and delivery3.

Assembly

Wicked Brick products are shipped unassembled, meaning it’s on you to put the thing together. This makes complete sense, lest you pay significantly more postage for what would, ultimately, amount to a bunch of trapped air. Assembly was fairly simple and straightforward, and there are instructions on the website.

Pricing

When I ordered it this past January, the Abaddon Limited Edition case was USD $67, and I also purchased a pair of the standalone plaques (like the one above that says ABADDON, but instead for the Ultramarines and Thousand Sons) for $17 apiece. An introductory promo code knocked 10%, and adding in shipping and duties the total came to $131.61.

Looking now, prices have come down a bit. The same case now goes for $54, with the non-limited edition priced at $48. The plaques are currently $14 apiece.

So that’s the second pain point with these, after the long order time. They’re not cheap, even if they’re a little less now than when I pulled the trigger. Factoring in all of the associated costs, this will set you back about the same as a Special Edition book, though mileage will vary depending of course on geography (they’re UK-based).

Satisfaction

In all other regards, I couldn’t be happier. It’s a very sturdy construction, and the Limited Edition looks fantastic. Having a Black Library quote as the background image (from The Talon of Horus, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden) makes it a perfect accessory for highlighting your favorite characters or legions in your museum or library.

I found the upcharge over the Standard Edition to be worth it, as the text gives it a certain museum-display quality I find irresistible. Here’s what the regular one looks like, for the curious:

If I won the lottery tomorrow I’d order one of everything. In the meantime, I’ll have to be a lot more selective (such as this upcoming one that appears to be for Gaunt’s Ghosts). And if you’re interested in the Abaddon Limited, at time of writing Wicked Brick appears to have sold 95 of them, meaning there are only 5 left.

Other Options

There are plenty of other offerings in the Limited Edition range of displays, many of which fittingly enough bear quotations from the Black Library.

For example, here’s our main man Bjorn with an excerpt from Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame inductee Battle of the Fang, by Chris Wraight.

For a more current example, howabout Ferren Areios from Rob Young’s Master of Rites.

Marrying Black Library books with miniatures displays is absolutely inspired stuff, and I’ll be keen to see what else they have in store.

Beyond that, they also have some products that are fitted to IKEA shelving solutions. The IKEA Billy shelf is one that many Black Library collectors swear by, and having an acrylic window that slides right in is a great way not only to display your memorabilia, but to keep the dust off your books as well.

Community Shelfies

Finally, some shelfies that caught my eye recently from around the community, because as much as I like to look at what’s in my own study, it’s a blast to see how others are displaying their own collections!

First up is u/g1aice’s beautiful collection of omnibuses for Warhammer Fantasy. Some of these- in particular the later Gotrek & Felix ones- can be difficult to source and/or pricey, and it’s great to see them together. I’ll share here that seeing Malus volume two before Malus volume one was a bit triggering, though.

I liked this display from u/ChillSappho, because it shows how even a small collection of books can be turned into a terrific display for anywhere in the house. I haven’t managed to convince the wife to let me expand my bookshelves beyond the study, but this might be the way to go.

Loads of deluxe goodies on these shelves, which comes to us courtesy of Ryan Hamilton in the Black Library Nutters group! I’m still kicking myself for not getting that Astra Militarum canteen when it was originally offered during last year’s Black Library Celebration.

Where to begin here? Obviously the Siege of Terra Limited Edition run is the star of the show (though I love the cheeky cameo of Justin Woolley’s Da Freebooterz Code Special Edition on the third shelf), and this helps illustrate why so many people went so mad for them. It’s a breathtaking centerpiece, but Paul Benham’s accessories- particularly the skull, brown-glass bottles, and candle- alongside the rich hue of the bookshelf give this almost a wizard’s study vibe. The Horus Lupercal bookends holding down a rack of Horus Heresy hardcovers is a very nice touch, too.

Congrats on completing the collection, Paul!

I’m genuinely envious of u/Joker8392 here for two reasons. First, for having all those lovely Siege of Terra maps, and second- just as important- having the wall space to display them. My copy of The Primarchs Collection: Visions of Glory and Despair is still sitting in the box, awaiting the day when I’m able to frame and mount them somewhere.

That’s it for this week, may your books be abundant and your shelves overflowing! Next time, we’ll look at what happens when chocolate and peanut butter collide.

If there’s an upside to having to drive back and forth between Louisville and Houston, where my wife is staying for her clinical trial, it’s that there’s lots of time to unwind with a good audiobook. After all, if you’ve going to be a captive audience for fifteen-odd hours, you might as well make the most of it, right?

As a result, I’m not only am I well stocked for Audio Impressions for the foreseeable future, but I’m even behind in writing them up for the Wordforge. Nice problems to have!

As longtime readers may recall, because so much of my active reading is determined by what I’m looking to review for Tabletop Battles, I’ve struggled a bit to find time to round out my Black Library experience. Progress on the Horus Heresy, for example, had slowed to a crawl, and I was dismayed to think I’d never get to dive into some of the classics like Trollslayer, by William King. Published in 1999, there’s not much demand for a review of the book now, relegating it to the dreaded “background/pleasure reading” category which gathers far more dust than attention.

Audiobooks have been a real game changer, and I couldn’t be happier. I almost exclusively listen to them in the car, but with five kids to drive to their respective activities that offers up a surprising amount of book time. While I’ve been mainly focusing on the Heresy and old fantasy titles, this last trip I nabbed another long overdue: Brutal Kunnin’, by Mike Brooks. Stories like these make the time- and the miles- just fly by.

With another trek southward coming up in a week or so1, I’d love to hear any recommendations you might have for some particularly delightful audiobooks. Feel free to leave a comment, or hit me up on social media!

Now, let’s see what the week’s brought our way!

July Giveaways

Welcome back to Armageddon! To ring in the arrival of Jude Reid’s Armageddon: Season of Fire, we’ve got a hardcover copy to give away to one lucky subscriber (and remember, subscribing is free!).

To enter, simply make sure you’re a subscriber to the Warhammer Wordforge, then leave a comment on this article telling me what the best Black Library book you’ve read so far this year.

That’s it! I’ll pick a name at random next Sunday from all entries, and the book shall be on its merry way to their library.

While you’re at it, Mythicanum is a new content channel that’s releasing Warhammer lore content, and to celebrate their first milestone of 100 subscribers, they’re giving away a hardcover of the Era of Ruin anthology.

Black Library App Sales for July

A new month means a new slate of sales on the Black Library app. As a reminder, this is a very new (and very welcome) approach; previously there was only one eBook offered on sale each month. With the introduction of the new app, each month appears to be bringing with it a much larger number of eBook and audiobook releases at a discounted price (50% off the eBook, 66% off the audio).

For July, these are:

• Eight Lamentations: Spear of Shadows, by Josh Reynolds (eBook)

• Dark Imperium, by Guy Haley (audio, eBook)

• Farsight: Crisis of Faith, by Phil Kelly (audio, eBook)

• For the Emperor, by Sandy Mitchell (audio, eBook)

• The Lioness of the Parch, by Evan Dicken (audio, eBook)

• Blood of Sanguinius, by Darius Hinks (audio, eBook)

• Storm of Iron, by Graham McNeill (audio, eBook)

• Cadian Honour, by Justin D. Hill (audio, eBook)

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Arrivals & Departures

In this section I look at what’s coming up around the corner (Arrivals) and what’s landing on bookstore shelves (Departures).

Arrivals

Lots of goodies incoming, including most of what was recently teased on the mothership. First up is Ghosts of Cadia by Rob Young, the next chapter in the story of sniper Darya Nevic. It will be offered both in standard hardcover as well as a Special Edition, pictured above.

Darya’s first novel was 2023’s Longshot, which as part of the Astra Militarum series was released only in paperback. In conjunction with Ghosts of Cadia, it’s now being offered in a standard edition hardcover as well!

Another book making a reappearance in hardcover is Guy Haley’s The Devastation of Baal. Originally part of the Space Marine Conquests- another paperback series- this was originally published in 2017 before being brought back in 2023’s Lords of Blood omnibus.

And finally, speaking of that Lords of Blood omni, look what’s being offered en francais?

Departures

Maming its way into the world this week is Graham McNeill’s False Gods, the Horus Heresy Saga edition, which was offered both in standard edition hardcover as well as a Premium Edition. Dan Abnett’s Horus Rising appeared in paperback as part of the Saga, and Andy Clark’s Gloomspite- offered once again in hardcover- also joined in the fun!

Half-Year “Spend Ask” Check-In

Now that we’re halfway through the year, I thought I’d check in and see how the Black Library’s “spend ask” was doing.

Spend ask refers to the amount of deluxe product Games Workshop is releasing during a particular time. “Premium” product here is any non-standard edition, from Special/Limited Editions right down to Illustrated and Annotated Editions. Listed in USD, this is the dollar amount you’d expect to shell out if you bought one of everything.

Two quick things jump out at me here. First, 2026 has seen an increase from the previous year, but it’s fairly modest. Quarter 2’s increase of $40 is the retail cost of a single Illustrated & Annotated Edition.

Second, it’s probably time to start getting your wallets ready. As you can see, the second half of the year is always where the pain increases. At the moment, we already know there’s a hit coming with the Mephiston Box Set from Darius Hinks. What else might be on offer- and if we’ll get another Mega Limited Edition- only the Black Library knows, but forewarned is forearmed.

ICYMI

Here’s what’s been going on this week for Warhammer content!

Warhammer Wordforge

• First up on the Wordforge, I put together a kind of how-to guide for the site, including guidance on quickly and easily tailoring subscriber notification emails to make sure you’re only getting the stuff you want. This will remain pinned to the front page for reference for awhile.

• This week’s featurette was a look at the newly-completed Aeronautica Imperialis animation, as the last episode dropped about a week ago.

• For the RPG players, this week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly had a relatively quiet week, though Cubicle 7 Games’ bestseller positions on DriveThruRPG were almost universally up!

Tabletop Battles

• Heroes of the Black Library received a new installment, with Commissar Ciaphas Cain in the spotlight! This series covers the character’s history in print, plastic, and even covers goodies to decorate your library.

• Togepi stepped in for this week’s review, giving us a look at Chris Wraight’s Ashes of the Imperium, the kickoff novel for the new Scouring series.

Warhammer Community

• The Pages from the Black Books series continued this week covering the war at Calth, where the Ultramarines were betrayed and nearly destroyed by the Word Bearers.

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• Nothing new in the world of the Black Library here, though the long-running Loremasters series featured the Word Bearers this week.

Around the Webway

• If you’re missing a few of the DK Books Warhammer releases, such as The Art of Warhammer Video Games, this might be a good time to remedy that, as Mars Garrett of Bell of Lost Souls put together a list of current sales and discounts for them.

• Jordan Sorcery’s GW Book Club is back, this time with a walk through the pages of the Warhammer Armies: Undead codex from the game’s Fourth Edition.

• Cinderfall Gaming posted a first look at the new Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The Ultimate Guide, the latest offering from DK Books.

• If you’re relatively new to the Black Library, the TTP Field Guide pod may have just the thing for you this week, choosing a book for each faction in the game.

• Many years ago there was a television commercial which asked, “how many licks will it take to get the center of a Toostie Pop?” u/ChillSappho took a similar approach to the Black Library this week in a terrific Reddit post worked out how long it might take a reader to get through the Black Library. Warning: there’s math!

• Finally, a couple of notable reader reviews on Reddit:

  • u/NewSpeak2050 assessed Chem Dog, by Callum Davis

  • Farseer, by William King, was given an unsparing review by u/PlatoIsOverrated

Cold Open Stories

• This week’s featured story is Rejoice, by Kyle Tam. “Sometimes the most unsettling horrors in the 41st Millennium don’t arrive with bolter fire or daemonic invasions. Sometimes they begin with a single message... and an invitation to rejoice.”

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Quick Hits

• Anna Stephens (Gothgull Hollow, Trisethni the Unseen) shared that her new “pun-riddled fantasy heist” novel, An Honesty of Thieves, will be published in March of 2027.

• Maria Haskins (The Jagged Edge) is a nominee for the 2026 Ignyte Awards, which has public voting open until 16 August. She’s up for the Critics Award and is a regular contributor covering speculative fiction for Strange Horizons magazine.

• Now this is interesting: Josh Reynolds (Neferata, Road of Skulls) shared a free short story he wrote for the shared universe, Hookland. The whole thing’s worth a look, as Josh talks a bit about the Hookland concept and plenty more.

• Jonathan Green (The Dead and the Damned, Crusade for Armageddon) has released a special edition boxed set for the five-year anniversary of his ACE Gamebook Dracula: Curse of the Vampire. A new chapter offering a “behind-the-scenes” look, postcards, a pin badge and more, they are individually signed and numbered.

• James Swallow (Nemesis, The Flight of the Eisenstein) shared a blog post this week outlining some of the things he’s been working on, including a new novel as well as helping bring his Dark Horizon to television!

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Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from the Black Library based on the available preorder information we have. As always, take all of this with a grain of salt unless it’s Games Workshop-confirmed.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, and anything in bold has been added (or updated) this week.

Upcoming but Undated

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Nate Crowley

• Mephiston: The Box Set, by Darius Hinks

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• Rynn’s World, by Steve Parker (Special Edition, 7/11)

• For the Emperor (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Sandy Mitchell (7/11)

• The Sabbat Worlds Crusade, by Dan Abnett (hardcover, 7/11)

• Krakenblood, by Marc Collins (paperback, 7/11)

• Vagabond Squadron, by Robbie MacNiven (paperback, 7/11)

• Starseer’s Ruin, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (paperback, 7/11)

• Siege of Terra: Flames of Betrayal, by various (paperback, 7/18)

• Ghosts of Cadia, by Rob Young (hardcover and Special Edition, 7/25)

• Longshot, by Rob Young (hardcover, 7/25)

• The Devastation of Baal, by Guy Haley (hardcover, 7/25)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The Ultimate Guide (hardcover, 8/11)

• Archmagos, by Guy Haley (paperback, 8/11)

• The Relentless Dead, by Steve Lyons (paperback, 8/11)

• Words of Waaagh!, by DK Books (hardcover, 10/6)

• The Sundering, by Gav Thorpe (paperback, 10/6)

• Dropsite Massacre, by John French (paperback, 10/20)2

• Ashes of the Imperium, by Chris Wraight (paperback, 12/17)

Thanks again for joining me for all the going’s on in the Black Library, and see you next week!

When I was growing up, my local hobby store carried a small selection of Dungeons & Dragons and a few other role-playing game lines. Blinn’s was a cozy shop right next to the Metro-North tracks, just down the way from my middle school, and I could go from browsing the games there to the Fairfield Public Library and hang out reading Dragon magazines until it was time to get picked up.

Blinn’s was… not what you’d today call a Friendly, Local Gaming Store (FLGS). They were, at best, local and a store (LS). The hobbies they catered to were things like metal army soldiers, model kits, and dolls- none of which I’d had any interest in at all1. I always felt very unwelcome whenever I set foot in there, likely because I seldom was able to buy anything myself but constantly wanted to look at all the role-playing game books they had on the shelf.

Forty years later, I’m far more spoiled for choice. I can get just about anything I want to get online, and in the case of Cubicle 7 Games’ products there’s even an added incentive for doing so (namely, the free PDF of the book when you buy a hard copy). But there’s nothing quite like walking the shelves of a well-stocked gaming store, whether it’s my own local “home” (Derby Comics & Games in Shelbyville, KY), a gaming mecca like YottaQuest in Cincinnati, or area players like Miso’s Game Room in Louisville or The Rusty Scabbard in Lexington.

So if you’re one of the fortunate who has an FLGS in your area, I would definitely encourage you to give them as much of your business as you’re able, because that’s how you keep an FLGS in your area.

Alright, I’m stepping off the ol’ soapbox for the day, let’s talk books!

A Glass of Port

Talagaad Aventures hit the virtual bookshelves this week, with the physical copy to follow further down the line. It had an impressive debut, climbing to the fourth-best-selling RPG on DriveThruRPG.

Consisting of five standalone adventures, Talabec Adventures has helped get The Old World off to a well-supported start and includes the following:

RPG Bestsellers

Bookwriters get their New York Times bestseller lists, so why shouldn’t we enjoy the same thing? While we don’t have any aggregated sales lists, we can use DriveThruRPG’s top-seller list as a reasonable barometer- and here’s this week’s snapshot!

• #4 (new). Warhammer The Old World: Talagaad Adventures

• #9 ( - ). Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus GM’s Guide

• #63 (+18). Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide

• #96 (+6). Imperium Maledictum: Core Rulebook

• #114 (+22). Wrath & Glory: Core Rulebook

• #128 (+22). Imperium Maledictum: Inquisition Player’s Guide

• #145 (+58). Warhammer The Old World: Player’s Guide

• #152 (+69). Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Champions of Chaos

• #155 (+21): Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Carngrad Adventures

• #165 (+20). Imperium Maledictum: Macharian Requisition Guide

• #168 (+28). Imperium Maledictum: Inquisition GM’s Guide

This was a very good week for Cubicle 7, with almost every book improving its position alongside that strong debut from Talagaad Adventures. I know I ran this out to the top 250 or so last week, but I”m going to cap this at the top 200 going forward.

The biggest jump was Soulbound: Champions of Chaos, moving up almost 70 points. Nice!

ICYMI

• Sprues and Brews reviewed Journal Tactica: Zone Mortalis this week. I know what you’re thinking- that’s tabletop, not RPG!- but I always find these sorts of supplements to be terrific tabletop lore sourcebooks that can be woven in to RPG campaigns. In fairness, we’re all in a bit of a holding pattern for the Horus Heresy RPG…

• AngelAnvar of Careless Conjuration released the second part of The GM’s Guide to the Enemy Within, this time focusing on an overview of the campaign itself.

• The Grim imPortents folks announced that they’re getting ready to kick off season two of their series, focusing on a play of Warhammer: The Old World. New players take on a new adventure, The Hand that Feeds.

  ---

Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from Cubicle 7 based on the available preorder information we have. Note that Cubicle 7’s own delivery estimates appear to be just that- estimates- which is why many products have an upcoming delivery listed for Q1 while we’re already into Q2.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, with new or updated info presented in boldface.

To make this section more useful, starting this week I’ll be breaking them out by game.

Undated

• Sylvania Setting Guide

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 1 (July 2026)

• Limited Edition Warhammer Fantasy Map Bundle 2 (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Temple of Spite (Q4)

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game, Grand Duchy of Talabec Map Pack (May 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game Starter Set (Q4)

• Warhammer: the Old World Roleplaying Game Gamemaster’s Screen (Q4)

Shipping 2027

• Talagaad Adventures

Shipping Q1

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Dark Gifts Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Spells Lore Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Artefacts & Wargear Card Pack (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Core Rulebook (Standard and Collector’s Edition) (Q1)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound, Champions of Chaos: Bloodwind Spoil Map (Q1)

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Age of Sigmar Map Bundle (July 2026)

Shipping Q1 2027

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar Soulbound: Champions of Chaos: Carngrad Adventures

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer 40,000: Wrath & Glory, Adventures in Gilead

Shipping Q2

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Character Sheet Pad

Shipping Q3

• Limited Edition Imperium Maledictum Macharian Sector Map (July 2026)

Shipping Q4

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Collector’s Edition

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Player’s Guide

• Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Imperium Maledictum: Adeptus Mechanicus Gamemaster’s Guide

Undated

• (Nothing at this time)

Thanks for reading, and see you next week!

Welcome, readers and writers alike to the Warhammer Wordforge, home to Black Library and Warhammer RPG content alike.

Herein lies everything you need to know to get the most from your visits, including:

• The weekly schedule of content

• How to manage your email notifications

• Subscribing to the Wordforge (spoiler: this site is 100% free)

• The role of AI (another spoiler, I don’t use AI in my writing)

• Reader article submissions

Weekly Schedule

Mondays

Black Library Weekly, the site’s flagship column that’s been in circulation for over a year (first over at Tabletop Battles/Goonhammer, and now here), runs every Monday. From new and upcoming books to conversations with the authors, plus all the news and happenings from around the webway. If you want to stay up-to-date with the Black Library, this is your ticket.

Wednesdays

On Wednesdays we run a Black Library featurette, which is usually one of the following:

• Audio Impressions: reviews of Warhammer audiobooks

• Black Library Bibliophiles: a series devoted to the curation of the physical collection and personal libraries

• The History of the Black Library: A long-running series walking the history of the Black Library from inception to present day. Primarily focused on 40K, at least for the moment. (/foreshadowing alert)

• Show and Tell: reviews of WarhammerTV content (typically animations)

• White Dwarf Stories: Some Black Library gems are squirreled away within the pages of White Dwarf, Games Workshop’s monthly magazine. Each episode we look to uncover another one.

Fridays

For you Warhammer role-playing game fans, Warhammer RPG Weekly is your version of Black Library Weekly. Each week we’ll look at what’s going on in the wide world of Warhammer RPG’s!

Saturdays

Every other Saturday brings a new installment of The Hall Monitor, the “behind-the-scenes director’s commentary” of the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame project over on Tabletop Battles. Also, RPG features (coming soon) will be released on Saturdays as well.

Managing Your Notifications

That’s a lot of content, which can mean a lot of email notifications in your inbox. It is a top priority of mine to make sure you enjoy your experience with the Wordforge, and towards that end I’ve looked to make it easy to adjust your notifications of new content to your liking.

Here’s how.

While you’re on the site, click on your profile in the upper-right corner to bring up your menu options. Click on “Manage Subscription,” as shown below.

That will then bring up this handy interface, where you can select which content you’d like to have emailed to you, and which content you wouldn’t.

So maybe you’re here for RPG content only, so you can deselect Black Library Weekly and Black Library Features. Don’t want RPG stuff? Deselect Role-Playing Games. If you’re a Black Library reader and only want one “digest” email a week? Then just subscribe to Black Library Weekly, because that column will have links to everything else I run each week.

The first category, “The Warhammer Wordforge,” is only used for site content (like this article), so that’s going to be pretty uncommon.

But this way, you can make sure you’re getting exactly the amount of email notifications you’d like when you subscribe to the Wordforge!

Let’s Talk Subscriptions

This is Substack, and Substack loves to push monetization because that’s how it makes its money. Even the word “Subscription” makes it sound like something that costs money, so it’s important to be abundantly clear about pricing at the Warhammer Wordforge.

In short, there isn’t any. Articles, subscriptions, it’s all free. In fact, with a name like “The Warhammer Wordforge,” if I started charging to read my content I’d potentially be exposed to risk of a DCMA from Games Workshop, which historically has been somewhat aggressive in such matters.

At some point I’m probably going to activate an optional monetization model, mainly because you have to have monetization turned on to gain access to all of Substack’s content and services. But that will be the equivalent of a ‘tip jar.’

One more time: all content on the site is free to read, access, and share. There is no paywall at the Wordforge!

Abominable Intelligence

All of my writing is 100% AI-free. I think AI is an incredible tool that has been managed abysmally, without regard either for creator rights or downstream impacts. My use of AI is minimal and specific: I have a NotebookLM that I upload all of my articles into, and when I need to see when I last spoke about a certain topic or what stories I’ve reviewed over time, I’ll ask it.

In other words, it’s my archivist assistant. I don’t use it for any of my writing. And why would I, writing is the thing I love to do. Robots make good labor-savers, but poor thinkers.

Reader Submissions

While presently I have only published articles I’ve written, I am open to the right pitch. It doesn’t pay and I won’t insult anyone by promising them “exposure,” but I can offer editing and mentoring. Feel free to reach out!

Creating Content Yourself?

Don’t hesitate to give me a head’s up! I’m always on the lookout for creators to highlight in the site’s weekly columns. I do ask that they be specifically related to the Black Library or Warhammer RPG space; general lore content- while cool- is beyond the scope of what I’m covering.

And that’s it! Thanks for your support, and for being a reader. Don’t hesitate to connect if you have any questions or feedback, too!

Welcome to the latest installment of my latest occasional series, Show and Tell, where I dive into the world of WarhammerTV’s suite of video programming.

Some exciting news last week on the Preview Show as WarhammerTV’s next animation, The Butcher’s Nails, will be landing this August. It’s a one-shot for the Hammer & Bolter series, but I’m delighted to see the programs continue at a steady pace.

Meanwhile, last Friday saw the final installment of the most recent series, Aeronautica Imperialis, come in for a landing.

The Story

On the planet Sigma-Nova, the men and the machines of the Imperium toil away at the planet’s surface, mining the rocks for precious ore and minerals. Little do they know, however, that the site is considered sacred by the Aeldari of the Saim-Hann Craftworld, the Tracts of Fuethán1 “where our god once walked.”

Naturally with no open dialogue and mutual hostility and mistrust, there’s only one way to settle this: war.

Thrust into this cauldron is Kae, wing commander of Steel Flight. As we open, she and the trio of Thunderbolts in her squad have made planetfall and are on their way to report in at the Aeronautica base attached to the mining facility. As they near the landing, a chilling sight awaits them below: a graveyard full of destroyed Imperial aircraft.

Ambushed by nimble, sleek- and deadly- Aeldari Nightwings led by a pilot named Idranith, Kae’s entire squadron is destroyed, all pilots killed in action.

Before she’d arrived, Kae had never seen an Aeldari. Now, she can’t wait to kill one.

As Kae integrates into the Thunderbolt force defending the base, the “phantom” Aeldari fighters appear from nowhere- and disappear just as quickly. Outclassed in the air, and uncertain of where their xenos enemy is based, the desperate Aeronatica pilots get picked off again and again, their identifier tag getting posthumously added to the wall of honor.

What they need is a lucky break.

They’re about to get one.

The Talent

Details on the cast and crew are thin, as usual with these, but we do know a couple names attached to the voice talent.

Kae is brought to life by Elsie Lovelock, herself no stranger to Warhammer productions having voiced the navigator companion (and combat nuke) Cassia Orsellio for Owlcat’s Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. She also supplied some Imperial Guard voices for Space Marine II, was Queen Ansurek in World of Warcraft, Kennen for League of Legends, and loads more.

David Monteith, meanwhile, plays the role of Romas, the base’s flight commander. He’s been in plenty himself, including Baldur’s Gate III, Metaphor: ReFantazio, and 007: First Light.

At time of writing no actor had been identified for the role of Idranith, the Aeldari pilot, which is somewhat baffling. That said, voice actor Christoper Tester- who has featured in several Warhammer video games including the role of Heinrix van Calox in Rogue Trader- was delighted to get his first appearance in a Warhammer animation thanks to a ‘cheeky cameo.’

While story duties were handled by the “Warhammer Storyforge,” whoever that is2, Dan Abnett does have a writer’s credit on IMDB. Given his work on Double Eagle and Interceptor City, the pieces would certainly fit!

Production duties were handled once again by M2 Animation. They’re the studio behind other Warhammer fare such as Pariah Nexus (reviewed here), The Tithes, and Angels of Death.

Notes & Impressions (Spoilers Ahead)

• I watched this with two of my daughters, aged 12 and 11. While it’s listed as being recommended for ages 15+, that’s largely down to a couple of instances of mature language rather than any gore or adult-oriented content. They both really loved it, one rooting for the Imperials and the other cheering on the Aeldari. Something for everyone!

• I’m personally a big fan of swears in my stories, because that’s how (most) real people speak. It’s authentic and genuine, even when an author prefers to use ‘swear substitutes’ (like drokk, frakk, or fething). Nobody’s getting shot by an Ork and crying out, “heavens to Betsy, I’m hit!”

• I found the animation a bit stylistically uneven here. Check out the cockpit sequences, where there’s a sort of blocky angularity that reminded me a bit of The Clone Wars or the (criminally underrated) Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles.

• Compare that with your first look at Kae out of the cockpit, now looking more like Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. This aesthetic duality persists throughout the entirety of the series.

• Shot of the Series Award goes to this one, the fireball from a crashing Thunderbolt illuminating a speeding cargo train. It’s almost blink-and-you-miss it from the second episode, but it’s a hell of a moment.

• GW has gone full-court press on this release over at the mothership, with each episode not only getting a callout article, but each one also getting a trailer. Extra credit for this one even having a callout for where you can buy Thunderbolt minis3, well done.

• Terrific dialogue in episode two, with the Aeldari discussing the nature of humanity. “But they keep coming. They may be brief things, but given long enough…

• Overall I enjoyed this one, it was an hour well-spent with some fun dogfighting action and a solid story that would have benefited from another fifteen minutes of length to really fill out. Idaneth’s fateful choice at the end, in particular, was less of an emotional beat than it could have been due to time compression. Still, the parallels in the story arcs between Kae and Idoneth were fertile territory for storytelling.

That’s it for Aeronautica Imperialis! With the next animation not dropping until this August (The Butcher’s Nails), next time I’ll be going back into the archives. A little Heresy, perhaps?

Being in the US preorder window means getting an early look at how things may be going when it opens up in Oceania, a fact I talked about last week when things didn’t quite get off on the right foot. This week seemed to be a similar challenge, with inventory appearing to go out of stock almost instantly.

But this week, the real excitement seemed to be reserved for us in the North American region. And what a ride it was.

The preorder window opened up at 12:55pm EST for me right as rain. One minute Cain and the gang weren’t there, then they were. My must-have was the For the Emperor Illustrated and Annotated Edition, with the Special Edition of Rynn’s World a close second. The pair of library decoratives- the Cain/Jurgen mini and Valhalla banner- would be nice-to-haves.

My cart full, I went to check out with my pre-loaded voucher and got this:

That wasn’t immediately concerning; this is an error I see weekly, and usually a refresh or two puts it to bed and allows me to proceed.

Not this time. Refresh after refresh, the red box kept reappearing.

At first I wondered if there may be a rush on the site, the kind of thing we saw last June with the Era of Ruin special preorder window that was almost instantly crashed by botters. But very quickly the flags went up on the play in r/BlackLibrary, and the number of people saying they were having site issues told me this was a system issue, not a stock one.

Despite all the frustration, that came as some relief. Last week when Oceania’s stock went out immediately, some came back in an hour or two later. Perhaps we’d see that happen here?

Ten minutes went by, then twenty. Ordinarily that’s a death sentence for preordering, but at this point I was determined to see it through. I was eventually rewarded for my persistence with a momentary change of scenery:

You don’t say.

But I kept at it, because what else was I going to do. I saw this twice, confirming some sort of technical issue at work:

There won’t be a test, but this will be important later.

Sweet Success

The dam broke at 1:33pm, thirty-eight minutes after the preorder window opened. Someone posted on r/BlackLibrary that they’d managed to break through and complete their order, so I figured any refresh now would see my order complete. When it didn’t, I removed the Cain/Jurgen mini on a whim to see if that might make any difference. Whether that measure was causal or coincidental I’ll never know, but it worked on the very next attempt.

Then I went back and bought Cain, easy as you like.

When situations like this happen, an order confirmation never feels truly safe. It wouldn’t surprise me if three days from now I got an order cancellation notice from Games Workshop, but for now I’ll take the win.

Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch

Soon after, I dropped in at my local Warhammer store and chatted a bit with the store manager. He shared that they’d had some issues with the in-store preorder as well, but ultimately was able to resolve it and everyone waiting to preorder got everything they wanted.

Then he shared something interesting. While he doesn’t know any more about this stuff than anyone else (he’s a store manager, not GW IT), he suspected there might have been an issue with the newly-implemented product recommendation window that triggers upon checkout.

I didn’t connect the two things in my head right away, but upon reflection one certainly could call that recommended-product window a “carousel,” right? And it was intended to pop up during checkout, right?

Hmm.

The Fallout

On the one hand, system issues happen. It sucks and it’s frustrating, but there hasn’t been a site invented yet that is immune to them. Games Workshop should get a certain amount of grace here, not least because these are luxury goods rather than life necessities1.

But by the same token, we can’t have conversations around website reliability in a vacuum. That’s because at the end of the day, it’s all part of the consumer experience, a conversation that also includes:

• FOMO capitalization

• Artificial scarcity

• Customer integrity assurance (read: anti-scalper countermeasures)

• “Spend-ask” considerations

• Premium product exclusives/incentives

Obviously, much too much to tackle in one go. But I think while it’s important to recognize Games Workshop’s efforts to make the Black Library consumer experience more enjoyable (anti-scalper measures, the introduction of de-limiting measures for premium products, and printing on demand come to mind), we also need to acknowledge when things fall short.

If you missed the carnage and want to see how the day went, here’s the subreddit’s preorder megathread. Have at it.

Of course, it wasn’t all bad news…

The Emperor provides?

Every Librarian’s Nightmare

Some people call us ‘worriers,’ but I prefer the term advanced contingency planners.

And of all the misfortunes that could befall a family, I have to imagine a house fire is way up there. In my mental imaginings of such a calamity, I think how I’d get my wife and five kids out of the house first. The younger kids upstairs can climb out onto the roof of the garage if they had to, while the teenager downstairs can clamber out of his window. Come to think of it, he’s probably started doing that already.

Then, of course, the critters. The budgies first, as their tiny respiratory systems are the most delicate. Then the reptiles, the rats, and the guinea pigs. The cats are on their own- that’s what you get when you can’t be bothered to exclusively use the litter box. You want to make independent choices, do you? Well have at it.

With the pets rescued- thus avoiding lengthy therapy bills for the kids- I’ve got just enough time to dash in one last time, for the barest essential of family treasures.

Like I said, I’ve thought about this a number of times, replaying the scenario in my head. Drilling for the possibility should it oneday occur. The only part I haven’t quite figured out yet is how to explain to my wife how I managed to come out with an armful of Warhammer books instead of our wedding album. But I’m working on it.

Earlier this month on the Black Library subreddit, u/GovernmentFast9743 shared that this had tragically come to pass, and unlike my imagined scenario, he lost his entire Warhammer collection. Three armies’ worth of miniatures, five bookshelves’ worth of books. Terrifying.

But there’s a happy ending to this one, and that’s why I wanted to share it this week.

When u/dvduster read about what happened, he reached out to u/GovernmentFast9743 and offered to help rebuild his library. He had a score of Black Library hardcovers and Special Editions that he’d be happy to let go for about ten bucks a book. And if that wasn’t enough, he’d drive the four hours down to Florida to meet up and hand-deliver them.

In any collector community it can be easy to get caught up in the goings-on of the parasites and opportunists who make finding older books or preordering new ones such a painful process. It’s great to have a reminder that at the same time, the community does look out for its own as well.

Best of luck in your collecting, u/GovernmentFast9743, and glad it was only your material possessions that were damaged in the fire. For u/dvduster, you get this week’s Unsung Hero Award for your selfless generosity. Communities like ours are always the better for having people like you in them.

The Big Reveal

Exciting news dropped this week with another surprise tranche of reveals from the Black Library. While I’ll never be sad to see one, I always find this method of whetting consumer appetite to be a little… anticlimactic? Just as with this past March and some Ork-themed books, I have to wonder if there isn’t perhaps a way to use these tasty reveals that has a little more impact? It’s not like Games Workshop is any stranger to generating excitement about upcoming products:

But the important thing in the end is the books, and boy howdy do we have some treats in store!

Ghosts of Cadia, by Rob Young

Look who’s back! Fresh off Master of Rites (review), Rob Young returns to the Astra Militarum with this sequel to 2023’s Longshot. That story was sort of a 40K version of the movie Enemy at the Gates, with sniper Darya Nevic going scope-to-scope with a t’au rival, and I’m delighted that Darya (and Rob!) are back in action.

The book will be offered both in standard hardcover as well as a Special Edition (pictured above).

Longshot, by Rob Young

Now this is an extra surprise. Similar to what they did with Andy Clark’s Demolisher last December, they’re bringing back the preceding book in an upgraded format. While Steel Tread received the same Special Edition treatment that Demolisher did, here we just get a standard hardcover release. No complaints here, I’m never loved how the Astra Militarum Series books are softcover-only, and will be delighted to replace mine with a hardcover copy.

Mephiston: The Box Set by Darius Hinks

Brace for impact! Blood Angels deluxe editions command some eye-watering prices on the secondary market, and I expect this one will provoke a similar preorder frenzy upon release. Darius Hinks’ original Mephiston trilogy was released from 2017-19, and just from the pictures this looks to be one of the more attractive of the recent spate of boxed sets.

The Devastation of Baal, by Guy Haley

Originally printed in 2017 as part of the Space Marine Conquests softcover series, like Longshot this one from Guy Haley is coming back for a hardcover treatment. Over the years a good number of Black Library books have been released as softcover-only, so I like seeing opportunities for upgrades for those who like the look and feel of a good hardback.

We probably won’t have too long to wait for these, and with the Blood Angels highly involved with Armageddon there’s a good chance these releases will be tied into something… a Codex, perhaps?

The Big Summer Preview Show

Despite its recent run of technical issues, I always enjoy these shows and look forward to them even if there isn’t the promise of much Black Library content. After all, any library is only improved by having miniatures on display with the books, so even if there isn’t much for the Library, there may be some treasures for the Black Library Museum!

I enjoyed Saffgor’s writeup over at Tabletop Battles, and while I didn’t see much in the miniature department that screamed Black Library this time2, I was excited to see that there’s an upcoming animation. The Butcher’s Nails will be a one-shot episode for the Hammer & Bolter series, featuring the World Eaters. The first-person POV looks kinetic as hell, and you can be sure it’ll get reviewed here in an upcoming Show and Tell.

Arrivals & Departures

In this section I look at what’s coming up around the corner (Arrivals) and what’s landing on bookstore shelves (Departures).

Arrivals

Just one this week, the last of the Siege of Terra series in paperback from. Flames of Betrayal combines the Era of Ruin short story anthology (review) alongside James Swallow’s novella Garro: Knight of Grey.

Departures

We’re getting this glut of terrific paperbacks right now, so I hope folks who missed out on them the first time around in hardcover are taking full advantage. First up is Jonathan Beer’s Necron story Tomb World, which had a terrific focus on the Imperium’s logistical vulnerability. I reviewed it here, and interviewed the author here.

The Remnant Blade showed Mike Vincent taking on the Night Lords- no small task after they’ve been so closely identified with Aaron Dembski-Bowden for so long! Vincent leans a little less into a sympathetic portrayal, navigating the Byzantine intrigues of the Chaos warbands (review).

Mike Brooks’s Voidscarred cleaned up at the awards last year, taking Best 30K/40K Novel in the Goonhammer Book Awards as well as runner-up for the official Black Library Book of the Year. TTB’s Falcon40K reviewed it here.

Finally, the gorgeous Special Edition of Jude Reid’s Armageddon: Season of Fire arrived this past weekend for any of you lucky devils who managed to snare one. Fetching in black and gold, it’s pure shelf candy.

ICYMI

Here’s what’s been going on this week for Warhammer content!

Warhammer Wordforge

• For this week’s featurette I jumped back into the pages of White Dwarf, taking a deep dive into the five-part serial The Chronicles of Bain by Black Library newcomer Neil Andrew Miller. I thought he knocked it out of the park, but don’t take my word for it- read it for yourself if you’ve got this year’s back issues handy!

• For the RPG players, this week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly looked at the new Sons of Russ release, as well as how Cubicle 7 Games’ releases are performing on the DriveThruRPG bestseller list.

Tabletop Battles

• The big news, of course, was that this was a Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame week over at TTB. 2011 saw a trio of titles inducted, a respectable number but just a fraction of what got in for the star-studded Class of 2010.

  • Please don’t forget to vote! We’re using Google Forms now for the public voting, so it should be easy for everyone to make their voice heard for the Class of 2012!

• I returned to the Beyond the Black Library occasional series this week over on TTB, penning a review of White Feathers, Crimson Leaves- Aconyte’s latest Legend of the Five Rings novel from Black Library veteran Josh Reynolds (Neferata, Lukas the Trickster).

• While we’re afield of Warhammer for the moment, you can also check out Lynnding-Library’s BattleTech book review of By Civil Blood Betrayed, the third book in the Dominion Civil War tetralogy by Bryan Young.

Warhammer Community

• The Pages from the Black Books series continued this week with an excerpt for the Ultramarines. This is taken from 2015’s The Horus Heresy: Book 5: Tempest, and is a free download at the mothership!

• As discussed in detail above, here’s the link to the Black Library reveal this week. Plenty of goodies in our future.

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• The final episode of the newest animated mini-series, Aeronautica Imperialis, dropped this week on WarhammerTV. Here’s the announcement over on the mothership, but you’ll need to be subscribed to enjoy the actual show.

• There’s also a new episode this week of Scribes and Scriveners, the Black Library interview feature. This time around they’ve corralled Denny Flowers to talk about Ghazghkull Thraka: Warlord of Warlords!

Around the Webway

• The Black Library subreddit’s most recent book discussion was, appropriately enough, Helsreach, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden.

• Jen and Keri of the WH40K Podcast took aim at Rich McCormick’s Zardu Layak: The Crimson Apostle this week, feeling it came up a little short. I can’t say I disagreed.

• We got a two-fer this week from Cinderfall Gaming! First up was the review of Death Rider by Rhuairidh James, and then Tom Huddleston’s The City of Lifestone. If that second one isn’t quite coming to mind, it was part of the “Warhammer Adventures” series aimed at younger readers. Not something you see reviewed every day!

Cold Open Stories

• This week’s featured story has an intriguing premise. My Name is Roboute by Jennie Ruskin looks at the life of a normal, everyday person in the Imperium, one whose name carries no small weight. “A name can affect a personality, in ways that go far beyond self-perception. It can influence not only how a person sees themselves, but how others see them too. Worse still, it can great expectations. His name is Roboute. His name is grand, a marker of greatness. But he is not.”

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Quick Hits

• It’s Scribe Award season again! These awards are kind of like the Oscars for the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers (IAMTW), awarding those creative voices who bring excellence to the world of tie-in writing (such as for Warhammer or any other established property). A number of our Black Library writers made the shortlist this year, and the winners in each category will be announced next month at the San Diego Comic-Con.

  • Josh Reynolds was nominated for Return of the Monster Men (Adapted)

  • Tim Waggoner (Skin Man) had three nominations: Terrifier 3: The Official Movie Novelization (Adapted), Conan: Spawn of the Serpent God (Original Novel – Speculative), and Conan: Marked for Death (Short Story)

  • Carrie Harris (The Strength of Symbols, A Forbidden Meal) for Snagged (YA/MG)

  • Sarah Cawkwell (Silver Skulls: Portents, Valkia the Bloody) for Thunder’s Edge – Echoes of Memory (Original Novel – General), which I reviewed here.

• The latest from Adrian Tchaikovsky (Starseer’s Ruin, On the Shoulders of Giants), Green City Wars, which he describes as “a cyber/solarpunk noir detective story starring a raccoon” arrived in bookshops this week!

• Gareth Hanrahan (Castle of the Exile, The View from Olympus) did an AMA over at the r/rpg subreddit, on the occasion of his latest venture, the Merryshire Detective Club RPG. Its crowdfunding launch is just three weeks away, and you can check out Wargamer’s terrific feature on it here.

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Coming Attractions

Here’s a list of the known upcoming releases from the Black Library based on the available preorder information we have. As always, take all of this with a grain of salt unless it’s Games Workshop-confirmed.

This section will be updated weekly in this column, and anything in bold has been added (or updated) this week.

Upcoming but Undated

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Nate Crowley

• Ghosts of Cadia, by Rob Young (hardcover and Special Edition)

• Longshot, by Rob Young (hardcover)

• Mephiston: The Box Set, by Darius Hinks

• The Devastation of Baal, by Guy Haley (hardcover)

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• False Gods, by Graham McNeill (hardcover and Premium, 7/4)

• Horus Rising, by Dan Abnett (Saga edition paperback, 7/4)

• Gloomspite, by Andy Clark (hardcover, 7/4)

• Rynn’s World, by Steve Parker (Special Edition, 7/11)

• For the Emperor (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Sandy Mitchell (7/11)

• The Sabbat Worlds Crusade, by Dan Abnett (hardcover, 7/11)

• Krakenblood, by Marc Collins (paperback, 7/11)

• Vagabond Squadron, by Robbie MacNiven (paperback, 7/11)

• Starseer’s Ruin, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (paperback, 7/11)

• Siege of Terra: Flames of Betrayal, by various (paperback, 7/18)

• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The Ultimate Guide (hardcover, 8/11)

• Archmagos, by Guy Haley (paperback, 8/11)

• The Relentless Dead, by Steve Lyons (paperback, 8/11)

• Words of Waaagh!, by DK Books (hardcover, 10/6)

• The Sundering, by Gav Thorpe (paperback, 10/6)

Thanks again for joining me for all the going’s on in the Black Library, and see you next week!

“Do something you love,” the old adage goes, “and you’ll never work a day in your life.”

When we announced the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame last November, we had no idea how it was going to be received- only that it was an idea long overdue in the community, and since it had never been done before it was time someone gave it a go.

From where I’m sitting, quarterbacking the logistics of it, it’s been an absolute blast. I’m working with great people, enjoying seeing the discussion in the reading community, and getting a ringside seat week after week on the incredible, unfolding history of the Black Library.

I’m gonna miss all this once its done.

Now I guess technically, as long as the Black Library keeps printing books (and may that be as enduring as the Emperor), this project will never really conclude. But by the time 2026 comes to a close, we’ll have worked our way through the Black Library’s catalogue and caught up to the present day.

That’s what I refer to as the project “reaching maturity.”

In most halls of fame there’s a certain “cool-off period” between when a player retires from the sport and when they become eligible for induction to the hall. That helps ensure that their candidacy is both assessed dispassionately, removed from hype and sentimentality, as well as the full impact of the player is understood. I wouldn’t want to be doing a Readers’ Hall of Fame for 2026 at the start of 2027, right?

What that cool-off period for us in this project isn’t fully sorted yet, but will probably be either two or three years. That means the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame will eventually transition from biweekly to annually, though, likely becoming something of a Spring tradition on Tabletop Battles much like the Goonhammer Book Awards1 will be.

So I hope you’re enjoying it while it lasts this year, folks, because we certainly are loving the ride. And if you’re reading this, that means you probably are too- and thank you for helping make this project such a success!

The Vox Populi Top Twenties

So here are the updated Top Twenties for both halves of the Black Library.

Fantasy

I’ve been delighted to see Fantasy rage against the dying of the light. We all know that the entire line is about to be nuked from orbit, replaced by Age of Sigmar, and we’ve watched Fantasy seem to slip from contention for the Hall. But reports of its death have proved premature, with Mike Lee’s Nagash the Unbroken arriving in the star-studded Class of 2010, and Blood of Aenarion by the legendary William King now enshrined as of today.

However, no Fantasy title from the Class of 2011 managed to score high enough in the Vox Populi vote to knock anyone off its perch, and the table remains the same as it did two weeks ago here.

30K/40K

We did see a touch of movement on this side of things, though, as Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Blood Reaver landed at the #14 spot. That means we bid farewell to Dan Abnett’s Prospero Burns, which at 76% approval slips off the Top Twenty.

Hall Winners Leaderboard

Congratulations first to Chris Wraight, notching his first entry into the Hall of Fame- one that’s unlikely to be his last.

Second, William King and Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s wins help solidify them in a strong “second tier.” It’s amazing to think that just a couple years ago we weren’t even mentioning ADB, whose success mirrors the early days of Abnett and King.

Thanks for joining me on this look behind the curtains of the Hall, and if you haven’t already please make sure to vote your picks for the Class of 2012!