Alright folks, today we’re gonna take a slight detour and pull back the curtain a bit on the business end of the Warhammer Wordforge. We’ll get to the books in a moment, but there’s a couple of important things I’d like to talk about first that involve the future direction of the site.

Nothing seismic, I promise!

First, let’s talk money. I’ve talked a bit before on Substack and monetization. In short, Substack makes its money from writers charging money for subscriptions, so naturally enough Substack tries to steer us towards charging money for our articles. Fair enough, but let me be absolutely, abundantly clear:

But1 in order to get the full features from Substack, I at least have to have monetization “enabled.” That doesn’t mean that I have to charge any money. Think of it this way: imagine I set two subscription levels.

Basic: Free!

Advanced: $5000 per month

Now obviously, nobody’s gonna go for Advanced2. But if I make all of my content available to folks at the Basic level (as opposed to gatekeeping select articles for Advanced subscribers3), then what you get is essentially what we have now with everyone reading for free- and Substack is happy that I’ve “monetized” the Wordforge.

Does that make sense? So the takeaway is this: please don’t be alarmed if you see a subscription offer in the next week or so when I turn on monetization. I’m just doing it to get the full range of functionality Substack provides for its platform when the monetization option is turned “on.”

All articles will be available to all tiers, so think of upgrading to a paid subscription as a ‘tip jar.’ It’s gratefully appreciated, but not required to get all of the same content multiple times a week here at the Wordforge.

Depth Charges

Finally, let’s talk metrics!

As a Substack author, there are several different ways I can measure the “success” of the Wordforge. Number of subscribers is obviously one of them, and so is number of views each article gets. Since subscribers get articles sent to their email, Substack also lets me know the “open rate” for each piece. In other words, what percentage of subscribers opened each email?

This week I did some poking around the backend and found another fascinating metric, this one called “scroll depth.” This one measures how far down the page each reader got when reading an article. If only 5% of readers are reading the last 25% of an article, it may be a good sign that your article is too long.

Let’s just say it was very insightful.

I’ve felt for awhile that the word count of Black Library Weekly (in particular) has been creeping up. They routinely now are as long as two “regular” 1500-word pieces, and not infrequently longer (10/5’s Marking a Milestone piece was just shy of 4,500 words).

So let’s just say as a result of looking at my scroll depth performance I’m going to make an effort to streamline these a little, making them more readable and giving your eyes a break4!

Cold Comforts (Redux)

I learned something interesting about Peter Fehervari this week that’s too cool not to share. In covering his signature pages from the Cold Covenant Special Edition, I had this to say last week:

Well, it turns out I was wrong. And not only that, but the truth is even cooler!

Jesse Bommersbach noted in the Black Library Nutters group that while the various inscriptions weren’t entirely unique, Fehervari was even more deliberate about them than I’d understood. Fehervari himself had responded to one of Bommersbach’s Facebook posts on the subject a couple years ago, and Bommersbach shared some screenshots.

This is wonderful insight as to what Fehervari is up to with these- and it’s definitely even more intricate (and awesome) than I’d thought. Fehervari remains one of the most unique presences in the Black Library- and it’s not hard to see why.

Wordforge on Facebook

Before we jump into everything else, just a quick reminder that for those of you on Facebook, the Warhammer Wordforge now has its own page here. Stop by and say hello!

Caveat Emptor

u/Trooper1911 shared a picture on r/BlackLibrary of some Horus Heresy books he’d come across in the wild. If you don’t recognize the cover art, don’t worry, there’s good reason.

They’re bootlegs!

Yes, piracy still impacts the physical world and not just the digital one, even in the world of books. Someone had printed these out from the eBook files, whipped up some seemingly-AI cover art, and bound them up in paperback form.

Forewarned is forearmed, and remember- the Emperor protects.

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 next installment of the Horus Heresy Saga is here with James Swallow’s The Flight of the Eisenstein. As usual, it will be offered in both standard hardcover as well as a Premium Edition, with the latter going up on the Wednesday Window of 4 November.

Ben Counter’s Galaxy in Flames arrives in paperback as book three of the Horus Heresy Saga. I do like the quick turnaround between hardcover and paperback on these (helped, no doubt, by them all being reprints).

Fans of fantasy are in for a two-fer this week, with Age of Sigmar’s Whisperblade by Hal Wilson arriving alongside Evan Dicken’s Old World, Cathay-based tale Blood of the Bastion. For Wilson, this marks his Black Library novel debut!

While not up for preorder, announced this week- at last!- was the second book in the Scouring series, Wrath of Terra, with John French behind the quill! While he’ll be picking up where Chris Wraight left off with Ashes of the Imperium, he noted in a short interview on the mothership that he’s very accustomed to that type of storytelling.

No timeline yet for release, but we’re definitely heading in the right direction.

Departures

Nothing new this week hitting the bookstore shelves, take a breather!

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• It was a Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame weekend, and we welcomed the Hall to its new home. A remarkable ten books from the Class of 2019 made their way in, including two new authors!

• This week we were very excited to sit down for a chat with Russell Zimmerman, author of the new Auxilia. We talked at length about the experience of writing IP tie-in fiction and the writer’s craft.

• In Warhammer RPG Weekly, we looked at Chaosium’s efforts in the war against AI.

• Then in Trench Crusade Weekly, Operation Leviathan- the game’s first-ever global event- came to a close!

Tabletop Battles

• Lore Friday offered up a review of Godeater’s Son by Noah Van Nguyen by Saelfe!

Warhammer Community

• Here’s the official Scouring update from this past week, and it’s worth the read as well for French’s mini-interview.

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• The latest three-part animation, Arkanaut, is set in Age of Sigmar and the second episode arrived this week. Look for the conclusion coming up this Friday!

Around the Webway

• Happy Orktober! Concilium Historica Imperialis dropped a very in-character look at Justin Woolley’s Da Freebooterz Code.

• Friend of the Wordforge Mira Manga sat down with Chris Wraight to discuss his Hall-of-Fame Horus Heresy novel, Scars! Mira- whose interviews are absolute delights- was kind enough to mention yer man here and even ask a question for me, which you can see at 47:425.

• Mira also teamed up with Arbitor Ian for the latest installment of their Warhammer Book Club. The entree at the table this week? None other than William King’s legendary Trollslayer!

• Not enough Mira and Ian? Howabout a video review of Tales of Heresy over at Arbitor Ian's Precinct House?

• Or maybe you were looking for a little more Fantasy coverage? Matt Dillon at Hammerblow Reviews has got you covered with a look at Gav Thorpe’s Hall of Fame book, Grudge Bearer6.

• It can be a lot of fun to jump into the time machine and look at the incredible works from the early days of Warhammer. This week the Fluffenhammer gang took a look at Space Marine, that seminal (and controversial) book by the late Ian Watson.

• The Unseen Library took a look at Richard Swan’s terrific Voice of Command and came to a similar conclusion as I did: it evokes the Gaunt’s Ghosts saga in the best possible way!

• Over at the WH40K Book Club, Jen and Keri reviewed Bjorn, the Fell-Handed by Justin D. Hill. “What we liked, we LIKED. What we didn’t like, well…”

• Jen of the WH40K Book Club also penned 12 Warhammer 40k Books That Have No Business Being This Good. It’s a terrific listpiece7, and the inclusion of David Annandale’s sublime (and underappreciated) The House of Night and Chain was spot-on.

• Finally, while not directly Black Library related, this art insight piece by Delphin Druelle on John Blanche’s depiction of the Emperor was just too good not to share!

Cold Open Stories

• No Warhammer content this week, but a very creepy audio version of What She Did to the Moon by Morgan Wodring is certainly worth a listen as we approach Halloween!

Quick Hits

• Rob J. Hayes (Anarchy’s End, No Quarter) teased the upcoming Kickstarter for the next phase of his GodEater Saga. “Fantasy in a world where humans steal magic and immortality by devouring angels!”

• Robert Rath (The Wicked and the Warped, Assassinorum: Kingmaker) is part of the Extra History team, and this week they dropped a new vid on Eleanor of Aquitaine! “Absolutely loved learning about this fascinating woman,” he shared, “and her horrible family (that keeps dying in weird ways).”

• Finally, Secret Passages #4 is now on Kickstarter! Billed as a “Retro TTRPG and Warhammer Zine,” it looks at Gorkamorka, the art of John Blanche, and features a piece by Jonathan Green (Necromancer, Magestorm)!

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

• Throne Questoris, by Victoria Hayward

• Cypher: Lord of the Fallen, by John French (Illustrated and Annotated Edition)

• Wrath of Terra, by John French

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition, estimated deliver-by date of 11/26)

Upcoming in 2026

• Shadow of the Silver Wolf, by Gary Kloster (hardcover, 10/31)

• Grey Knights, by Ben Counter (Special Edition, 11/7)

• Raptors: War and Shadow, by William Crowe (hardcover, 11/7)

• Crucible of Fire, by Tom R. Pike (hardcover, 11/7)

• Death Rider, by Rhuairidh James (paperback, 11/7)

• Ghost Legion, by Mike Brooks (paperback, 11/7)

• Armageddon: Season of Fire, by Jude Reid (paperback, 11/7)

• Treachery Unbound, by various (paperback, 11/7)

• Blood of the Bastion, by Evan Dicken (hardcover, 11/14)

• Whisperblade, by Hal Wilson (hardcover, 11/14)

• The Flight of the Eisenstein, by James Swallow (Horus Heresy Saga edition and standard hardcover, 11/14)

• Galaxy in Flames, by Ben Counter (Horus Heresy Saga edition paperback, 11/14)

• 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!

One of the fun little Black Library mysteries that has recently popped up is the curious case of a leaked copy (or perhaps copies) of James Swallow’s The Flight of the Eisenstein (Horus Heresy Saga edition).

First it appeared on Vinted, where some lucky punter managed to nab it for the princely sum of £3. A week later, a copy sold on eBay for £49.55. The question, of course, was whether this was a legit copy or something else entirely, and given that we hadn’t by that point seen the cover art for the book it was anyone’s guess.

Well, when the mothership posted this week and revealed the cover art, it seemed to confirm the provenance of that leaked copy. How it escaped into the wild and ended up on Vinted to begin with remains an unsolved mystery, but that makes the auctioned copy one of the rarer oddities out there from the Black Library.

Of course, unlike a physical copy of Umbra Sumus, the value of the “fell off a truck” Flight of the Eisenstein will almost certainly evaporate once the official copies of the book are released. After all, how can you prove that any particular copy is the copy, right?

If I’m the person holding one of those copies right now, you’d better believe I’d be looking into how to get it slabbed and dated- if for no other reason than as a historical oddity. But for others, perhaps just having possession of it is story enough- and that’s perfectly fine, too.

Getting By with a Little Help from His Friends

It’s not often you’ll find a feature I can put in all three of the Weeklies here on the Wordforge, but the news this week about an upcoming campaign to help artist Karl Kopinski certainly hits the trifecta. That shows the incredible reach and influence he’s had over the length of his career.

Beyond being a studio illustrator for Games Workshop from 1998-2005, Kopinski’s art was a mainstay in the Black Library’s foundational Inferno! magazine, helping bring the worlds of Warhammer to visual life each month. His work also has graced role-playing game books from Rogue Trader’s Lure of the Expanse to Deathwatch’s Mark of the Xenos, and he’s illustrated more than two hundred Magic: the Gathering cards over the years.

Sadly, Kopinski’s health in recent years has been deteriorating. He’s been battling myeloma for several years before strokes and a heart attack left him unable to work for a time, and the road to recovery has been long and difficult.

Now, Factory Fortress is spearheading a campaign to help. “Karl is my friend as well as my housemate during my GW days,” noted Tuomas Pironen, “so I am so glad we can help him and his family.”

Joining them is MyMiniFactory and a large roster of contributing STL creators for a campaign that is preparing to launch. Amongst the other goodies you can receive in return for your support is a brand-new and exclusive Trench Crusade model, making this one of the best kinds of offers: one where you can do well by doing good.

Cold Comforts

When it comes to signing the autograph pages for deluxe editions, I’m not sure any Black Library author takes their mission quite as seriously as Cold Covenant’s Peter Fehervari.

Fehervari, you see, makes each autograph page a completely unique item, adding not only his John Hancock but also a one-of-a-kind message and/or glyph-like illustration. For instance, here’s what greeted me when I unboxed mine:

Sam Schwartz in the Black Library Nutters community on Facebook has started up an effort to collect all of the different ones. If you picked up a Special Edition of Cold Covenant, make sure to drop on by to leave a picture of yours- and enjoy images of the ones others have received!

Bulk Discount (Redux)

Last week I talked a bit about the wave of order cancellations we saw in the wake of the Cold Covenant Special Edition. Given that these appeared to be from folks who disclosed that they had ordered multiple copies, it seemed possible that Games Workshop was clamping down a bit on the practice.

Since then, a new possibility has emerged over at the Black Library subreddit.

If you subscribe to Hanlon’s Razor (“never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity, error, or carelessness”), then the wonky credit card system seems likelier than this being due to anti-scalper countermeasures. Since none of us (that I’m aware of) are inside GW’s IT department, all we can do is continue to observe, consider, and speculate.

As I said last week,

Whether its system issues or aggressive consumer protection, a little acknowledgement goes a long way.

If nothing else, this seems like a good time to remind everyone that I strongly recommend using vouchers on the Warhammer site. I’ll typically buy mine a couple of days in advance of the preorder window, so that when it comes time to execute I’m ready to go.

Wordforge on Facebook

Before we jump into everything else, just a quick reminder that for those of you on Facebook, the Warhammer Wordforge now has its own page here. Stop by and say hello!

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish

Earlier this year, my editors at Tabletop Battles (TTB) let me know that they were discontinuing their hosting of Black Library Weekly. With the first one having run on 03 March, 2025 (I’ll link it here as an item of historical curiosity), it had a run of over a year but wasn’t quite doing what the editors had hoped. It generated immediate traffic, but not the “long-tail” readership that they need to see for a return on their investment.

That makes complete sense. After all, how many people do you think are going back and reading the “back issues” of Black Library Weekly? But there were two important takeaways for me from that.

First, if it wasn’t for their support, Black Library Weekly would never have come to be. I was hugely grateful for TTB taking a chance on the column- to that point, I was just an occasional series writer- and I’m still proud to be writing for TTB today.

Second, if they hadn’t ended it, the Warhammer Wordforge itself would never have happened, either. Longtime readers will recall that I started this site as a way to continue running Black Library Weekly- and since then its grown into so much more.

And so it is in a similar spirit of gratitude that I share with you that TTB’s hosting of the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame has reached its conclusion too- and not for entirely dissimilar reasons. Each biweekly installment generates a lot of excitement, but as the drumbeat goes on and we move from year to year, those older articles don’t continue to generate as much traffic- the lifeblood of any content engine.

So what does this mean for the Hall? Three things.

First, it will be continuing without interruption. Just as Black Library Weekly made a seamless transition from TTB to here, so too will the Hall. Because Trench Crusade Weekly has the Saturday slot, we’ll be running the Hall every other Sunday beginning this coming one, 10/25!

Second, for those who have been enjoying the companion “director’s commentary” piece I’ve run concurrently here on the Wordforge, The Hall Monitor will be merging into the main feature! You’ll get everything all in one go rather than having to read two articles.

Finally, we’ll be able to expand the Readers’ Hall of Fame project itself. I’ve talked before about the potential for doing for novellas and even short stories what we’ve been doing for novels, and why we ultimately didn’t. Running the Hall here on the Wordforge means that those considerations will certainly be getting a rethink. We’re coming up on the end of the Hall of Fame coverage for novels (what I’ve called “maturity,” meaning we are current with the present time and then will revisit the Hall of Fame annually for a new class of books).

So please join me in thanking Tabletop Battles for the tremendous support they’ve extended since this whole initiative kicked off last November, and here’s to an exciting future of the project!

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

It’s that time of year again. With Games Workshop already putting Christmas ornaments and festive seasonals up for order, you knew Da Red Gobbo wasn’t far behind. This year’s installment is Da Red Gobbo’s Reckoning, penned by Chem Dog author Callum Davis.

Next, there’s the official announcement of James Swallow’s Flight of the Eisenstein. As the fourth installment of the Horus Heresy Saga, we knew it was coming up- and not just because of the aforementioned book leak- but it’s great to see the Premium Edition we’ll get to grace our shelves with.

Then for this week’s goodies in the Sunday Preview, first up is the Special Edition of Ben Counter’s Grey Knights. In addition to the deluxe treatment, it will also contain a bonus short story1.

We mentioned Da Red Gobbo earlier, but two more hardbacks are going up for preorder this week. William Crowe’s Raptors: War and Shadow joins Crucible of Fire by Tom R. Pike in standard hardcover.

It’s a bumper crop of books this week, with Jude Reid’s Armageddon: Season of Fire arriving in paperback. While we usually expect to wait longer between the hardcover and paperback editions of a book, I suspect the novel’s tie-in role for 11th Edition of the tabletop game put it on the fast track.

Then Rhuairidh James’ Death Rider (review) arrives alongside Ghost Legion by Mike Brooks.

Finally, almost burying the lede here is a brand new anthology collection, Treachery Unbound! A look at the cover reveals the names Jude Reid, Peter Fehervari, Jonathan Beer, and Mike Vincent, but no news yet as to whether these are reprinted tales, brand new ones, or a mix of both.

My guess is that it will have at least some previously-released stories for two reasons. First, because it’s in paperback, and the last new-story -driven anthology, May’s World Ablaze (review), was a hardcover release.

And second, earlier this year when I reviewed the anthology No Peace Among Stars I noted the conspicuous absence of Jonathan Beer’s Opportunity Cost. It was conspicuous because that anthology consisted of Theme Week eShort reprints, and while the other four stories from Cult Mechanics Week were present, that one was omitted.

Just a guess, but we’ll know soon enough!

Departures

This week saw us get our grubby mitts on two new releases: Peter Fehervari’s Cold Covenant, alongside Russel Zimmerman’s Auxilia. In addition, both Apostle by David Annandale (review) and John French’s Dropsite Massacre (review) were released in paperback. Plenty to read ahead!

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• This week’s feature was an audiobook review of Brutal Kunnin’, by Mike Brooks. Lots of orks, and lots of orky voices thanks to Tom Allenby’s narration!

• In Warhammer RPG Weekly, I examined the strong accountability statement that Cubicle 7 Games posted last week, promising to do better as a company. Powerful stuff!

• Then in Trench Crusade Weekly, it’s an in-person look at the incredible canvas map from Jared Blando- plus a new model release!

Tabletop Battles

• No Black Library content this week.

Warhammer Community

• So this isn’t specifically Black Library, but I join a number of folks in wishing that it could be! The lore around this year’s Grand Narrative Event dropped this week, and it’s incredible stuff. Hey James Workshop, a Kaelen Voss novel when?

• With the Khazalite Holds Army Set making its way into the wild, that means we get a new bit of flash fiction on the mothership as part of the Chronicles of Run series!

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• This past week saw the first episode of Arkanaut land. The latest three-part animation, this one’s set in Age of Sigmar and the next episode drops this Friday!

Around the Webway

• Showrunner Mike Flanagan, who is part of the team bringing the Warhammer 40,000 series to Amazon, recently sat down for an interview with The Process Unlocked. While the interview was wide-ranging across Flanagan’s other projects as well, Mars Garrett of Bell of Lost Souls kindly excerpted the Warhammer-relevant bits here.

• The Poorhammer Podcast dropped their take on Robert Rath’s The Wicked and the Warped, “the third best “From Enemies to Lovers” story that I watched recently, right behind Bridgerton Season 2 and Malfoid memes.”

• The Fluffenhammer gang is back with their issue-by-issue crawl of Warhammer Monthly! This week they examined issue 32 and the return of Ehprael Stern!

• Fans of Gaunt’s Ghosts- or those keen to explore the series- can check out Arbitor Ian’s latest lore video, all about the Tanith First & Only.

• One of my favorite Black Library communities online is the Black Library subreddit, and this thread by u/OWN_SD, “Let’s talk about the unfinished/cancelled novel series of Warhammer part 2” is a great example of why. Seriously, this would make for a fantastic blog article, and here it is as a Reddit post.

Cold Open Stories

• All this month Cold Open Stories is releasing brand-new audiobooks specially-selected short stories, and it’s another 40K one this week! The Shaking is by Jared Lollar and performed by Robb Conlon, and was originally included as part of the ‘Enemy Within’ series.

Quick Hits

• Zeo Genesis rolled out a new short story by Robbie MacNiven (Oaths of Damnation, Vagabond Squadron). A sci-fi miniatures wargame, MacNiven joins fellow Black Library writers Gav Thorpe (Kill Team, Angels of Darkness) and Alec Worley (The Wraithbone Phoenix, The Martyrdom of Sister Ishani) who have written stories for the property.

• Josh Reynolds (Deathstorm, Dark Harvest) penned a quick reader-question piece on the subject of ‘lady space warriors’ and its contribution towards getting him fired from the Black Library (spoiler: it didn’t, and he wasn’t. “It’s stupid that I have to say that, in this, the year of our lord 2026,” he notes, “but here we are.”)

• Gareth Hanrahan (Rites of Binding, Grit in the Wheels) appeared on the Ludonarrative Dissidents livestream to talk about game design and some of the projects he’s worked on. You can find the recording here!

• And finally, Victoria Hayward (Deathworlder, The Feast of St. Luthera) standing on a base brandishing a warhammer is exactly what my kids would call “aura.” Enjoy!

Free Goodies!

As part of my Warhammer+ membership, I get bonus goodies sent to my inbox each month- most of which I don’t necessarily have a use for (but are nice to get all the same). If you play Tacticus, here’s a one-use code for some Requisition Orders, Blackstone, and Coins: 000HLBFTJRQW8U1

All I ask is that if you use the code, please comment below so everyone knows it’s been redeemed and is no longer valid.

Enjoy!

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

• Blood of the Bastion, by Evan Dicken

• Whisperblade, by Hal Wilson

• Throne Questoris, by Victoria Hayward

• Cypher: Lord of the Fallen, by John French (Illustrated and Annotated Edition)

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition, estimated deliver-by date of 11/26)

Upcoming in 2026

• Shadow of the Silver Wolf, by Gary Kloster (hardcover, 10/31)

• Grey Knights, by Ben Counter (Special Edition, 11/7)

• Raptors: War and Shadow, by William Crowe (hardcover, 11/7)

• Crucible of Fire, by Tom R. Pike (hardcover, 11/7)

• Death Rider, by Rhuairidh James (paperback, 11/7)

• Ghost Legion, by Mike Brooks (paperback, 11/7)

• Armageddon: Season of Fire, by Jude Reid (paperback, 11/7)

• Treachery Unbound, by various (paperback, 11/7)

• 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!

Okay, so let’s rip the band-aid off and deliver the bad news first. I know two weeks ago I promised to talk about the Black Library’s preorder process and compare it to some innovations other hobby companies have implemented, and then last week given how much content was already in the hopper I punted it to this week. But I’ve been working on that and expanding it, so I’ll probably end up doing a standalone piece with it rather than fold it into Black Library Weekly.

So if you cracked into the column today hoping to see that, I apologize, bear with me just a little longer. But on the upside, as we continue to monitor the “Wednesday Windows” of deluxe edition releases there was one rather intereting possible development that emerged this past week as Peter Fehervari’s Cold Covenant finally arrived. As to whether or not it’s a positive development, well, like the rest of them it rather depends.

Bulk Discount

In this case, it started with an early round of order cancelations.

Now, that’s nothing new on its own. Every preorder cycle for as long as I can remember, folks have occasionally (if somewhat inexplicably) received notification that their order has been canceled.

What made this round interesting is that some of those reporting a cancelation were folks who, for one reason or another, ordered multiple copies of Cold Covenant.

Now, there’s certainly a conversation to be had around the ethics and impact of this practice. On the rare occasion I’ve ordered an additional copy of a deluxe edition (such as, for instance, the book giveaway I ran last week), I’ll admit I feel a little twinge of what you might call ethical unease1.

Proponents will note that every copy they secure keeps one out of the hands of scalpers. Critics will note that it also keeps one out of the hands of legitimate buyers, and even if later sold at retail price still adds a potential layer of cost (shipping, which would normally be free to stores).

I’m going to sidestep that for today and focus on the cancelation of orders itself, because that’s the part that’s relevant to the anti-scalper initiative it seems that Games Workshop has been undertaking. Now of course, I don’t have any special insight here; like most of you, I’m on the outside looking in to see if I can make upstream sense of our downstream experiences. But it does seem to me that throttling multiple orders- in effect a post-facto enforcement of a “limit one per customer” stricture- isn’t an entirely unreasonable position to take. After all, if you’re going to hard-cap the number of products you’re going to offer, it makes sense to want to get them into as many different hands as possible (with the natural corollary being to disappoint as few people as possible).

The problem, as always, lies in communication, which in my experience is the element that companies tend to struggle with the most. In the absence of guidance and clarity, you’re relying on the community to read the tea leaves. You know how astropaths don’t send messages in the form of words and statements, but rather of psychic dreams and visions which require interpretation and discernment? It’s a bit like that.

Which is unfortunate, because clear statements of purpose and intent have the effect of reassuring a customer base that their concerns are being addressed. It’s free goodwill, just sitting there in a pile on the table. We’ve now (more or less) managed to figure out that the move to Wednesday Windows is to allow Games Workshop employees to monitor traffic and take necessary action during normal business hours. While yes, many customers worldwide have found the time inconvenient (and fairly so, it’s a big world), having official confirmation that this is being done to safeguard our interests could go some way towards mitigating the frustration that’s resulted.

By the same token, making a clear statement around quantity ordering would go even further, because if people knew that ordering more than one copy risked order cancellation, they might opt to simply be content with ordering one.

The problem with this- and here’s where we’ll park it for today- is that this can also open up a can of worms all its own. There’s no downside to letting the public know that preordering is moved to Wednesdays in order to more effectively fight bot traffic. But if you declare that orders in excess of two copies will be subject to cancellation, for instance, you’re in effect incentivizing the buying of two (an example of perverse incentive).

Ultimately, with all information being anecdotal it’s difficult to discern the signal from the noise2, but the scenario on the ground seems to be:

1. Games Workshop is taking more aggressive measures to combat scalper/bot ordering.

2. These measures are having unintended consequences to the community.

3. Games Workshop has chosen to remain opaque about what is happening.

So until #3 changes, all we can do is report on #2 and speculate on #1.

Wordforge on Facebook

Before we jump into everything else, just a quick reminder that for those of you on Facebook, the Warhammer Wordforge now has its own page here. Stop by and say hello!

Trick or Treat: October’s Black Library Giveaway

To ring in this year’s Spooky Season and celebrate hitting 500 subscribers on Substack, this month’s Black Library book giveaway offered you the opportunity to nab either the Galaxy in Flames Premium Edition or the Deathwatch Special Edition!

Congratulations to GDAR, selected through the magic of Random.org! GDAR was hoping for Steve Parker’s Deathwatch, so we’ll get that headed their way!

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 in the pipeline this week, as we not only have a book coming up for preorder this Saturday but also a Warhammer Community preview piece detailing three more!

Age of Sigmar has been playing catch-up nicely, with a first-half drought seeing some wonderful rainfall as we play into the back nine. Available for preordering this Saturday is Shadow of the Silver Wolf, the latest Neave Blacktalon book from Gary Kloster (Skaventide, The Last Volari). This will be available in standard hardcover only.

Next, there’s another Special Edition reprint headed our way with Ben Counter’s Grey Knights. Grey Knights was inducted into the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame as part of the Class of 2004, and as HoF Committee AJ of The Paladin Journal noted:

Then, we have the next installment of the tremendously successful Illustrated and Annotated Edition series with John French’s Cypher: Lord of the Fallen. Originally from 2023, this is an interesting choice (I personally might have preferred Ahriman: Exile myself, but that’s just me). A first-person story with a notoriously unreliable narrator, this will be a fascinating opportunity to get into French’s thoughts in crafting the tale, and I’ll be very excited to crack into this one.

Finally, a question I’ve had for awhile gets a delightfully affirmative answer in Throne Questoris!

Victoria Hayward’s Deathworlder was my 2024 Black Library Book of the Year. Wonderfully gripping characters thrust into deliciously grotesque Tyranid body horror as the planet melts down around them, I couldn’t put the book down. Since then, though, I’d been surprised that we hadn’t seen another longform story from her.

It wasn’t like she’d left the hobby. She often shares her visits to Warhammer World on social media, and she’d appeared on WarhammerTV’s Scribes & Scriveners at the start of last year. But the last time she was published in the Black Library was in 2024’s Advent Subscription, with The Feast of St. Luthera.

Well, look who’s back! Not only that, but with Throne Questoris we’re getting a proper novel follow-up to Feast!

No word yet on a release date or whether a deluxe edition will be on offer, but we should find out relatively soon.

Departures

Nothing! All of our wallets and purses marked themselves safe from new Black Library releases this week.

Right on Track (Redux)

One of the great things about being a part of a creative community is that a creative community likes to, well, create things. From book trackers to eBay agents to RPG character and scenario generators, I’ve enjoyed shining a little spotlight on these whenever they bubble up from love’s labors in the code mines.

The latest comes to us by way of Marton Holmos, who has created the site Ordo Canonicus as a way to track books and lists. “I have been getting deeper and deeper into the Warhammer 40k lore in the last few years and have compiled a pretty exhaustive catalog of relevant publications in order to track my progress through them,” notes Holmos, “including cross-references between anthologies and omnibuses and the works contained within them. It felt weird to just keep this database to myself and not publish it in some way.”

Holmos stresses that he’s “an enthusiast, not a developer,” but the site has all the basics covered: your books (and ways to denote whether you simply own them or have already read them), ratings (both individual and community), and ways to create custom lists. Its database is nicely interconnected too; mark an anthology as Finished, and it will also do the same for all of the individual short stories.

As with all such projects, the more it’s used by readers the greater its value becomes. As it’s still in early soft launch mode, things like community ratings haven’t been fully fleshed out yet but as more readers jump aboard and rate their books, the better the star ratings will be. The site is completely free to use, and Holmos is keen to hear from users what they’d like to see.

The combination of a simple, useful layout and deep catalogue makes Ordo Canonicus worth a look, and it joins other user-generated apps in enriching the options available for getting the most out of our passion and hobby!

No Books, Just Awesome

Okay, a slight detour here to highlight a couple of articles this week that aren’t Black Library related, but just too cool not to share.

First, Gav Thorpe (Luther: First of the Fallen, Kill Team) wrote about a recent interaction he had with a trio of fans. Instead, he accepted an invitation to be Guest of Honor to a small event celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Inquisitor game, and what they pulled together has to be seen to be believed. Incredible!

Then there’s this piece by Timothy Linward over at Wargamer, about an American Custodes player who has tracked his units’ every performance for the past four years.

This kind of ridiculousness only resonates with a certain kind of person, I suspect, but as it happens I’m one of those people. I remember tacking a baseball-like level of metrics in my games of BattleTech way back in the day, and even now I sometimes give in to the compulsion to track every military unit each city produces in games of Civilization, renaming them in-game to be 5th Berlin or 8th Washington (and then giving then official nicknames after particularly noteworthy battles).

Enjoy!

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• Last week’s Black Library feature was the second installment of The Writer Files, a companion series to WarhammerTV’s Scribes & Scriveners. Under the lens this time was Mike Vincent, who discussed his Night Lords work for The Remnant Blade!

• It’s another Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame weekend, which means a new installment of the companion series, The Hall Monitor. This one was a lot of fun, as we broke out the Top Twenty best-performing books (based on public voting data) for each of the four lines (Horus Heresy, 40K, Fantasy, and Age of Sigmar).

• Less of an article and more of a resource, I added a page on the site to keep track of the honor roll of Hall of Fame winners. The ‘Banner of Glory’ graphics at the bottom of the main articles were looking a little tired.

• In Warhammer RPG Weekly, we looked at the curious case of the vanishing Necromunda RPG which was revealed only three weeks ago as part of the Big Autumn Preview, plus the first book giveaway for the RPG side will see one lucky reader score a stunning Collector’s Edition of Imperium Maledictum’s Inquisition Guides.

• Finally, in Trench Crusade Weekly, this week was all about the October Rules Review- but we also checked out the officially-licensed coins from Baron of Dice.

Tabletop Battles

• Our Lore Friday review this week was my look at Richard Swan’s Voice of Command- one of this year’s surprise hits. If you enjoyed Gaunt’s Ghosts, make sure to check it out.

• Want to see who was inducted for the Class of 2018 for the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame? Here’s the main feature, and make sure to vote for the books of 2019 while you’re over there!

Warhammer Community

• No Black Library-related content this week, aside from the new book announcement. I mean, three new books, who could complain?

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• This week sees the next Scribes & Scriveners episode drop, this time featuring Noah Van Nguyen (Elemental Council, Blood of the Godeater). Look for a new installment of The Writer Files soon, which is our Scribes & Scriveners companion series (you can see the most recent one here).

Around the Webway

• Hall of Fame Committee Member Aasa Timonen dropped a review of Robert Rath’s The Wicked and the Warped over at The Warhammer Scholar this week.

• Want another look at The Wicked and the Warped? Jen and Keri of the WH40K Book Club have got you covered!

Cold Open Stories

• No new Warhammer content here this week (though a new non-Warhammer audiobook just dropped!).

Quick Hits

• Missing some spooky in your Spooky Season? Make sure to check out Sci-Frights, a pair of sci-fi/horror short novels by Paul Kane (Triggers).

• Richard Swan (Voice of Command, Tears of Raphaela) shared that he’d been signed to do another four novels in his Empire of the Wolf saga. Congratulations, Richard, just make sure to squeeze some more Black Library in there too if you can!

• Nottingham Library is hosting a Fantasy Festival event next March, and take a gander at some of the folks on the guest list: Dan Abnett, Jude Reid, John French, and Gav Thorpe? If you’re anywhere near Nottingham, it sounds like time very well spent!

• Can’t wait that long? Howabout seeing Victoria Hayward, Gav Thorpe, and Jude Reid this Sunday (10/18) at The Dukes in Lancaster for Litfest: Fair Realms: World-building in fantasy?

• On the other hand, if you happen instead to be in Hong Kong later this month, make sure to check out the Fireside Chat event with Robert Rath (Assassinorum: Kingmaker, The Infinite and the Divine). Tickets are HKD $200 (about twenty-five bucks in USD) and 100% of that is going to Read the Room’s children’s literacy programs.

• Maria Haskins (The Jagged Edge) shared that her story, Highway 1, Past Hope (originally published in The Deadlands) will be included in the upcoming Year's Best Canadian Fantasy & Science Fiction, Volume 4!

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

• Crucible of Fire, by Tom R. Pike

• Raptors: War and Shadow, by William Crowe

• Blood of the Bastion, by Evan Dicken

• Whisperblade, by Hal Wilson

• Throne Questoris, by Victoria Hayward

• Cypher: Lord of the Fallen, by John French (Illustrated and Annotated Edition)

• Grey Knights, by Ben Counter (Special Edition)

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition, estimated deliver-by date of 11/26)

Upcoming in 2026

• Cold Covenant, by Peter Fehervari (hardcover, Special Edition, 10/17)

• Auxilia, by Russell Zimmerman (paperback, 10/17)

• Dropsite Massacre, by John French (paperback, 10/17)

• Apostle, by David Annandale (paperback, 10/17)

• Shadow of the Silver Wolf, by Gary Kloster (hardcover, 10/31)

• 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!

There’s something deeply, heartwarmingly satisfying about seeing your passions reflected in your children.

Take hockey, for instance. My all-time favorite sport since my New England childhood, I never dreamt in a million years that I would have one of my Kentucky-born children want to play hockey.

One? The universe laughs. Now both my boys and one of my girls play the greatest sport in the world1.

As for Warhammer, all five of my kids have at various times enjoyed the modeling side of it with me, but three of them have gone beyond that and into the lore and culture of the universe.

Both these things overlapped this past weekend on a trip to Evansville, Indiana. My oldest had an away game, and we took the opportunity to stop in at the local Warhammer store on the way home. As it happens, I’d written before about my first visit to the Evansville store back in February. Not only did the store manager, Walker, remember me from that visit, but- and this is impressive- he remembered what I’d bought during that visit, too (an Eternus, Blade of the First Prince).

But for all the fun of a Warhammer store visit and building miniatures, not since the Warhammer Adventures book series have I seen Games Workshop release something so accessible to kids as last Friday’s Only in Death: 40,000 Ways to Die animation.

The hilarious four-and-a-half minute video is a cross between Loony Tunes and Happy Tree Friends- and folks, my kids ate it up. Not only was it wonderfully entertaining, but as an actual lore primer for the world of Warhammer 40,000 it was genuinely informative. Broad strokes sure, but you won’t get much else in so short a time.

Here’s to hoping there’s more where this came from.

Now, let’s dive into this week’s excitement. No giant story, but lots of smaller ones.

Wordforge on Facebook

Never one to be far from the bleeding edge of technology, for those of you on Facebook who like to keep tables on the Wordforge, I’ve created a profile for the site here.

Jokes aside, while I don’t have any particular love for Facebook, I do find myself there regularly as part of the Black Library Nutters community. So for those who call Facebook home, make sure to stop by and say hello!

Who Has a Story to Tell?

You know those podcasts which are full of reader-submitted stories based around a particular theme? u/Adept-Area9557 over on Reddit had a really interesting idea: what if we did one of those, and make it focused on Warhammer?

Here’s the pitch in their own words:

Stories can either be left on the Reddit thread or emailed to them directly at pro.raphraconte@gmail.com

I absolutely love this idea, and can’t wait to see what comes from it!

Remembering Rosaline

Speaking of moving stories to tell, Jeff Mott shared his this week on Facebook.

As many of you know I lost my wife to cancer a month ago, and Warhammer too has been a place of incredible refuge and comfort not only through our bereavement, but the entire two-year battle she faced. It’s a bittersweet joy to see that same spirit in the pages of White Dwarf.

Thank you so much for sharing, Jeff, and may her memory be a blessing.

What’s in the Box (Three-dux?)

Last week I talked about Games Workshop’s very eye-watering pricing for the Space Marines Limited Edition Codex, and what the fact that it didn’t sell out might portend for this week’s Adeptus Custodes Codex LE:

Welp, Games Workshop clearly hasn’t lost the ability to surprise. Despite many seeing the Custodes LE as even more sumptuous than the Space Marine one in terms of perceived value, the price was significantly lower. Dropping the price from USD $420 to $315 was rewarded by the collector community, with the Custodes Codex LE selling out.

The Space Marine Codex still remains available for order.

You don’t always have to take action to make your feelings known. Indeed, sometimes the best way to send a message is to do absolutely nothing at all.

I’d anticipated a price decrease, but this was well past what I could have even hoped to see. And now with the sellout, you can probably expect $315 to be the new $2502.

Love is a Battlefield (Redux)

Last week I talked about the notion of a Warhammer Romance line- a common subject of the community’s whimsical speculation and wishcasting- and how Catalyst beat them to the punch by releasing an official BattleTech Romance novel, Marie Bilodeau’s Hearts of Iron.

Firstly, if you’re curious about what that even looks like, Lynn of Tabletop Battles wrote an outstanding review that assess it both as a romance novel as well as a work of BattleTech fiction (her eye for detail with the mechs is truly next level).

But also, that prompted a comment from Auxilia and Seven Ships author Russell Zimmerman, whose body of work for BattleTech (for the moment) happens to exceed his Black Library footprint:

There are a number of reasons that a Warhammer Romance line almost certainly will never get past the conceptual stages- Catalyst’s market footprint is such that it can afford to take these sorts of creative risks moreso than Games Workshop’s- but that doesn’t mean that romance is not an element of the creative toolkit of the property.

I mean, c’mon, tell me this doesn’t look like a romance novel:

It’s not just me, right?

And believe me, the grim dark future is not immune. The love between Septimus and Octavia is part of the emotional core of Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s masterful Night Lords trilogy, Commissar Ciaphas Cain and Inquisitor Amberly Vail’s “offscreen” relationship is a key element of Sandy Mitchell’s Cain series, the impossible longing of Dan Abnett’s Gregor Eisenhorn and Alizebeth Bequin or doomed spark between Cherish and Loria in Hive…

When William King published Ragnar’s Claw over a quarter-century ago, it’s fair to say that the lore around Astartes (and much of everything else) was a bit less entrenched. Thus we can find even an unlikely attraction grow between a Space Wolf and Inquisitor, with passages like this that could come straight out of a romance novel:

So ultimately, perhaps the best answer we have to, "“will we ever see Warhammer Romance?” is, no… but it’s always been there.

Trick or Treat: October’s Black Library Giveaway

One of the great themes of the past two years of my life has been finding the blessings hiding inside of misfortune. A spirit of gratitude has seen us through some of the worst things that life has thrown at us, and my outlook on life and the world has been forever changed. For the better, I think.

When it came to pass that Black Library Weekly’s run at Tabletop Battles was ending3, I was deeply disappointed. I’d gotten my foot in the door over there at the beginning of 2025 writing book reviews and histories, but my Monday-morning riff on the world of the Black Library had become my signature work.

But that decision became the catalyst for the Warhammer Wordforge, and this past week I crossed the milestone of 500 subscribers.

That seemed like an impossible number when I started this last April, but here we are. Writing the articles here feels less like ‘content creation’ and more like having a chat about some of my favorite things with a bunch of fellow enthusiasts.

So to celebrate that nice little milestone, we’re doing an extra-special giveaway for October.

That’s right, October’s winner will get their choice of one of two recent, deluxe edition releases: the Galaxy in Flames Premium Edition or Deathwatch Special Edition.

How to Enter

As always, I’m not gonna make people do Stupid Human Tricks for my own amusement to enter the giveaway. It’s simple:

1. Be a Subscriber to the Warhammer Wordforge, and

2. Leave a comment on this article letting me know which of the two you’d like if you win.

Yeah, that’s it. Want a bonus entry? Then,

3. Go follow the Warhammer Wordforge Facebook Page.

Good luck everyone, and hey- thanks for your continued support of the page. It really does mean a lot.

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

With the new Tone Pro paints dominating this week’s Sunday Preview, for those of us who don’t paint it’s another Wallet Appreciation Week!

But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t some Black Library news in store, as the mothership dropped a teaser for Hal Wilson’s upcoming Black Library novel debut, Whisperblade.

Wilson seems to have followed the familiar short-story-to-novel path, with a trio of Age of Sigmar shorts under his belt (Past Returns, The Nameless, The Wanderer). Interestingly, The Nameless- originally part of 2024’s Wanderers of the Realms eShort week (and also one of the two standout short stories from On the Shoulders of Giants and Other Stories, reviewed here), was reprinted in this year’s Black Library Celebration mini-anthology.

I’ve never gotten around to tracking it, but I’ve long wondered to what degree the Black Library editors ‘prime the pump’ for upcoming releases by using these to shine a little light on specific authors or characters. If Wilson’s inclusion foreshadowed things to come (as it may well have), then this will put future such reprints in an interesting light!

Departures

Now on store shelves is Gav Thorpe’s Malekith Malerion omnibus, as well as the latest from DK Books, Words of Waaagh!. The latter is a 64-page book of Orkish quotes in the same vein as their previous release, Words of War.

Black Library App Sales for October

You know what else turning of the month means? A new slate of sales on the Black Library app! As a reminder, this is a relatively new (and 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 (typically 50% off the eBook, 66% off the audio).

For October, the following are on sale:

• Blacktalon, by Liane Merciel (audio, ebook)

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

• Ushoran, Mortarch of Delusion, by Dale Lucas (audio, ebook)

• Horus Rising, by Dan Abnett (audio, ebook)

• The Return of Nagash, by Josh Reynolds (audio, ebook)

• Renegades: Harrowmaster, by Mike Brooks (audio, ebook)

• Demolisher, by Andy Clark (audio, ebook)

• Red Tithe, by Robbie MacNiven (audio, ebook)

With four of these (Horus Rising, Dark Imperium, The Return of Nagash, and Red Tithe) being Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame-winning books, it’s not a bad time to stock up!

Meanwhile, there are some titles popping up for sale on Audible. While not one of the highly-awaited sitewide sales, the Warhammer Horror collections I saw for about six dollars (USD) apiece. That’s a steal for three full-length novels, and a great listen this time of year.

Caveat Emptor

Craig Lewis of the Black Library Nutters group on Facebook had this cautionary tale to share this week in relation to the Special Edition of Mike Vincent’s Helbrecht: Sin of Hope.

The email read as follows:

Now I know what you’re thinking, because we all thought it too. This raises a lot of red flags we’d associate with scammers, right down to the “please buy a voucher but do not redeem, just give us the code” instructions.

But he’s not the only one who’s received one of these this week, it seems. Andy Shiels also reported having the same email4, and confirmed after a call to customer service that it was, indeed, legitimate.

As always, the best response when confronting anything that seems dodgy is to take no action until you’ve confirmed its legitimacy.

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• With Spooky Season fast approaching, I thought I’d dive into a Warhammer Audiobook to greet October properly. It was so good that it never made it that far… My review of Josh Reynold’s Dark Harvest audiobook was this week’s Warhammer Wednesday feature!

• For the Warhammer RPG Weekly, there was a new product teased by Cubicle 7, this one for the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.

• Finally, in Trench Crusade Weekly, we looked at the incredible cartography of Jared Blando.

Tabletop Battles

• Our Lore Friday review this week was my look at Justin D. Hill’s terrific Bjorn, the Fell-Handed.

Warhammer Community

• No Black Library-related content this week, aside from the aforementioned announcement of Whisperblade. The Pages from the Black Books series concluded last week as well.

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• For Warhammer+ subscribers, there’s a massive JOYTOY bundle being given away for the month of October. The announcement is here, but you’ll have to scroll down a bit to find it.

• The release date for the next animation, the Age of Sigmar tale Arkanaut, has been revealed to be 16 October. Another three-part story, it will be a weekly release so you won’t have long to wait for the whole thing!

Around the Webway

• At Boundary’s Edge was back this week with more book reviews, taking aim at Death Rider by Rhuairidh James as well as William Crowe’s Veterans of the Fall.

• Jen and Keri of the WH40K Book Club reviewed Ghosts of Cadia, by Rob Young.

• While not specifically Black Library-related, Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame Committee member Aasa Timonen penned a fascinating scholarly piece originally intended as a presentation at the recently-concluded Warhammer Conference, The Madness of King Ushoran: Hegemonic consent in Flesh-Eater Courts. I always enjoy reading things that make me feel smarter, and it’s a bonus when it’s Warhammer-related!

Cold Open Stories

• For October, Cold Open Stories is giving us a special treat: audiobooks of selected flash fiction tales! They kick things off with One Hundred and Fourteen Kilos, written by Mario F. Telarico and narrated by Ann Hurd.

Quick Hits

• Adrian Southin (Da Stink of Defeat, Path of Grief) shared that he’s been a key part of the writing team for the upcoming Gears of War: E-Day video game. It releases tomorrow, so we’ll have plenty of opportunity to see what he’s come up with. Congrats, Adrian!

• Tom R. Pike (Crucible of Fire, Worm of Valhalla) has a new short story appearing this month in the pages of Analog Magazine. Conscience is “about an LLM that goes rogue, eliminates all life, feels vaguely bad about it, and simulates people to try over and over again to try to coax us into forgiving it.”

• Richard Swan (Voice of Command, Blood Harvest) revealed the cover art for his upcoming novel, Blood Dynasty. This looks to be an April 2027 release, so there’s just a little more to wait for this conclusion to the Great Silence trilogy. Where Magick fails, industry prevails!

• Kieron Gillen (Marneus Calgar, Crown of Destruction) has been writing an ongoing series listing out his top 100 RPG’s of all time. This week he’s posted the grand finale, the top ten, and it’s terrific reading.

• While I don’t generally post paywalled content here5, I’m making an exception for this one. Si Spurrier (Lord of the Night, Fire Warrior) is launching a Patreon for his next novel, The Cretan Project. A historical/mythical novel featuring the legendary minotaur, what’s intriguing about this project is that Spurrier will essentially be opening up ringside seats to the writing process. If you’ve ever wanted to write a novel of your own, or even just wondered how the sausage gets made, this might be worth checking out!

• Finally, Anna Stephens (Gothgul Hollow, River of Death) will be appearing at FantasyCon in Glasgow this weekend. She’ll be doing a reading, signing books, and even have some goodies to give away! Other authors in attendance will include Adrian Tchaikovsky (Starseer’s Ruin, Day of Ascension), Cameron Johnston (Faith in Iron), Mike Brooks (Da Big Dakka, Ghost Legion), Michael J. Hollows (Ashes of Grimnir, The Warp’s Curse), Gavin Smith (Suffer Not a Human to Live, Apex Predator), Sarah J. Daley (Sigmar’s Fist), and John French (Dropsite Massacre, Ahriman: Exile).

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

• Crucible of Fire, by Tom R. Pike

• Raptors: War and Shadow, by William Crowe

• Blood of the Bastion, by Evan Dicken

• Shadow of the Silver Wolf, by Gary Kloster

• Whisperblade, by Hal Wilson

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition, estimated deliver-by date of 11/26)

Upcoming in 2026

• Cold Covenant, by Peter Fehervari (hardcover, Special Edition, 10/17)

• Auxilia, by Russell Zimmerman (paperback, 10/17)

• Dropsite Massacre, by John French (paperback, 10/17)

• Apostle, by David Annandale (paperback, 10/17)

• 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!

I was torn this week as to which image I wanted to use for the column’s featured image. Since I wanted to discuss the new Limited Edition Codex for the Adeptus Custodes, the official pitcure of the book and all its goodies was the obvious choice. But then a small part of me was tempted to cheekily go with that well-known GTA6 meme, oh shit, here we go again.

Obviously I went with the safer option, mainly on account of visual presentation rather than any pearl-clutching about profanity. But the feeling is definitely there- we’re right back to last week’s conversation around the USD $420 Space Marine Limited Codex.

Déjà vu all over again.

What’s in the Box (Redux)?

As with the Space Marines Limited, the Custodes box is filled with a trove of goodies for the collector. While this isn’t directly Black Library related, of course, that hardly matters- people don’t shell out this kind of money for a simple Codex when they could get that on its own at a fraction of the price.

No, this is shelf candy, and Black Library folks- especially those who like to turn their libraries into display museums like me- are every bit as much a target market for products like this as the wargamers.

In addition to the Codex and gaming components, you also get:

• A miniature metal Custodian vexilla

• Adeptus Custodes lapel pin

• A decorative, hinged wooden dice vault filled with ten dice

• Six art prints

• A cloth map of the Imperial Palace

That’s a lot of goodies! While we won’t know until Saturday’s preorder window opens up, it may be a safe bet to assume the pricing will be comparable to the Space Marine Limited Edition. I don’t see it going any higher, but as I see it there’s a small possibility that it might be lower.

At time of writing, the Space Marine one is still available to preorder. It does seem clear from Games Workshop’s preferred production and marketing practices that their preference is to run on the lean side of the supply/demand matrix. Put another way, they have a demonstrated preference for underproducing in order to ensure a product sellout rather than risk having to hold unsold inventory- even if that means leaving potential profit on the table.

To the consumer community this tends to appear like Games Workshop is leveraging FOMO to drive sales, but I suspect the reality is a bit more prosaic.

This all is to suggest that GW may have gotten the price wrong this time around. There are two reason consumers will generally turn their nose up at these kinds of offerings. Either the perceived value isn’t there, or the value is there but the price itself is too high a barrier to overcome for most.

When this happens, a smart business will either adjust the price downward and accept a lower profit margin, or reduce the contents of the offering until it better matches the price point realities of the consumer base. It’s far too late in the game to do the second one for the Custodes, but we might see a slight, downward revision in the sticker. I’m not sure GW will be happy with two pallets of unsold Limited Edition Codex stock occupying vital space in the warehouse.

That said, I wouldn’t expect the price to drop much, and certainly not to the $250 that many of us (myself included) assumed was going to be the price point for these based on last year’s Chaos Codexes.

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

There’s been widespread feeling that GW has been taking the piss with these, so to speak, which the lack of sellout status has only reinforced. In the week I’ve had to reflect and consider- and decide that I actually prefer having two kidneys, thanks- I’ve opted to choose gratitude on this product offering.

Sure the price point sees me safely on the outside of the shopfront glass, looking in. But you know what? I’m glad that Games Workshop is making this stuff. It might do well to fine-tune its pricing and/or product bundling decisions, but I’d rather have these trinkets and curious out in the world than never existing at all.

As someone who has spent a lot of effort creating book displays (with a personal code of only using officially licensed merchandise), having more options is always going to be better than less. Our current options are fairly limited (Starforged is great, but a lot of their offerings are made as wearables), and I’d love to see more shelf candy in the Sunday Preview.

The thing about FOMO too is that missing out on something often conveys advantage on your next FOMO saving throw. If we continue to get these limited offerings that price out the majority of consumers, it will ultimately just be something- like Wednesday preorder windows- that we adapt to or just walk away from.

Winners, Losers, and the Sin of Hope

Last Wednesday saw our third midweek special preorder window, a topic I discussed at some length here when it was announced. In short, with three Special Edition releases in a row offered in this new window- and a fourth now on the way as of yesterday’s Sunday Preorder- we can safely assume that this is the new normal.

I’ve talked quite a bit already about who loses in this arrangement. Because it’s a single, global window (despite allocation of product appearing to remain regionally-based), it hits different folks at different times. I have to make sure I’m free at 10:00 in the morning (not always easy for those of us at work), while punters in Australia have to stay up until midnight (also not always easy).

But there do appear to be winners here, too.

Given Helbrecht: Sin of Hope’s attractive design and the fact that Black Templars are a popular faction for collectors, I genuinely expected this to be another quick sellout.

It wasn’t.

If this were a traditional Saturday preorder window, the first thing I would have concluded is that the consumer reception to the book’s treatment was a bit underwhelming. We’ve seen that before, such as with Robbie MacNiven’s Vagabond Squadron.

But ever since the move to Wednesdays, we’ve seen increased inventory throughout the day after the initial window opens. We know that Games Workshop appears to be taking additional, recently-implemented action against scalpers1, and having the preorder window open while it’s still normal operating business hours in the UK suggests they’re taking the most active hand yet in thwarting scalpers.

While it’s fair to say that when scalpers lose we all win, but for those who used to be able to preorder their deluxe editions on Saturdays but now cannot due to work or other commitments no amount of “greater good” rationalization is going to balm that frustration2.

The best advice I can give at the moment is to try and align with other small groups of collectors that are ordering extra copies. I don’t know what the number of copies is that one can safely order, but I’ve ordered a couple for several of the most recent releases without cancellation. I’ve noticed a small uptick in coordinated “buddy ordering” in the Black Library community, but it’s fair to say that like any network of social contacts it helps to establish yourself and build up a bit of goodwill through active participation3.

Given how many satisfied customers I’m seeing throughout the day, delighted that they were able to take advantage of a surprise inventory restock, I think a lot of folks have been pleased with GW’s more aggressive, anti-scalper order cancelation methods even if it means having to deal with a second window.

That doesn’t mean that it’s the end of the argument, though. There are a number of ways that Games Workshop could lean even further into a pro-consumer stance, making their products even more widely available. Indeed, other hobby companies have been successfully implementing some very interesting options in this space, and we’ll look at two of them next week.

Giving Props

I’m a huge fan of the extraordinary creativity in the Warhammer community, and have shined the Black Library Weekly spotlight on incredible projects ranging from handwriting stories onto scrolls to book rebinding and beyond.

The latest initiative that caught my eye is this stunning Mordheim rulebook, shared by Michael Corrie. As a Mordheim player back in the day before life got in the way, his passion was rekindled when he found a group at a nearby gaming store still were playing the game.

Imagine sitting down from your opponent and they pull that out of a satchel. Just try not to say, klaatu barada nikto.

One can never be too careful with that sort of thing.

Love is a Battlefield

Pardon the pun, but for some time the Black Library community has flirted with the notion of a Warhammer Romance line, similar to how we had Warhammer Horror and Warhammer Crime. But in life as in love, fortune favors the bold and while we dared to dream the impossible dream, Catalyst Games made the first move.

This might look like an April Fool’s Day social media prank, but fair play to Catalyst for seizing the zeitgeist and going for it with a full, 343-page romance novel set in the Battletech universe.

Since the pandemic, romance fiction has had an undeniable renaissance, driven in no small degree by the “BookTok” effect. As a lifelong hockey fan, for instance, I’ve long been accustomed to my sport flying relatively under the radar- but Rachel Reid’s Heated Rivalry has certainly put more eyes on the sport.

Unlike Crime and Horror, I’m not sure Warhammer Romance would have been able to quite escape being buttonholed as a meme experiment (fun as it might be). The IP’s general tone as well as market position only serve to reinforce a certain conservatism- larger properties many not be as inclined to take risks or indulge in whimsy (though, in fairness, they did try a book line for younger readers with 2019’s Warhammer Adventures series).

But a property like Battletech is in a great position to extend themselves with this sort of thing- and now thanks to Marie Bilodeau’s Hearts of Iron they have.

UPDATE 9/28: This comes by way of Russell Zimmerman, author of the upcoming Auxilia and noted BattleTech author to boot! “Fun fact: this is the SECOND BattleTech Romance novel. One came out last year, Hungry Like The Wolf, which was ALMOST a joke product and a Valentine's Day release...but then did so well they decided to continue the line.”

Thanks for the correction, Russell!

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

It’s here! Since the reveal that we’d be getting a new Peter Fehervari book, folks have been waiting with bated breath for the drop. With the Dark Coil series, Fehervari has managed something fairly unique in the modern era, carving out a little playground all for himself in Warhammer 40,000. Few could be surprised at the recent induction of his first novel, Fire Caste, into the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame, and Cold Covenant is his first new novel since 2020’s The Reverie.

The book will be available to preorder this coming Saturday (10/3) in the regular window, with the Special Edition the following Wednesday in the now-seemingly-official midweek window.

I’m also very excited about this one, as it’s Russel Zimmerman’s novel debut. You may recall at the start of the year Zimmerman cleaned up at the Goonhammer Book Awards, co-winning in both the Best Black Library Debut and Best IP Tie-In Novel (non-GW) categories. Not only that, but he just had a short story recently grace the pages of White Dwarf #525, Answered Prayers (reviewed here).

If I have a gripe, it’s my long-running one about the Astra Militarum novels being offered first in paperback rather than hardcover. But that’s just a quibble, I’ll be delighted to grab this one on Saturday’s preorder!

Finally, John French’s masterpiece Dropsite Massacre (review) and Apostle by David Annandale (review) both arrive in paperback. If you missed either one the first time around, I can certainly recommend both!

Departures

Plenty of reads have departed the printer's and are now on store shelves. The Dawn of Fire Omnibus Crusade of Vengeance, Mike Vincent’s Helbrecht: Sin of Hope, the paperback of Rob Young’s Master of Rites (review), and The Sundering omni by Gav Thorpe.

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• As this was a Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame Weekend, my companion piece The Hall Monitor also dropped this past Saturday. A sort of “director’s commentary” on the Hall of Fame project, this time I talked about Guy Haley’s extraordinary 2017!

• There was a new Black Library Bibliophiles this past week as well, looking at the surprisingly-engaging topic of whether or not you should save your deluxe edition packaging for your books. We also looked at August’s deluxe offerings in a new short-video clip format, and showed off some truly amazing community shelfies!

• For the Warhammer RPG Weekly, we enjoyed a bit of calm after the previous week’s big news. It’s nice to have quiet weeks from time to time, but it doesn’t mean we didn’t have a few things to cover.

• Finally, in Trench Crusade Weekly, I’ve built my first mini- one designed by the new Head of Miniatures at Factory Fortress!

Tabletop Battles

• Here’s the article for the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame, where an incredible nine books were inducted this week from 2017! Don’t forget to check in and cast your votes for the Class of 2018 as well!

• For Lore Friday, Saelfe reviewed the recently-reissued Gloomspite, by Andy Clark.

• Finally, this one’s a curveball but it’s the kind I love to see: Warhammer, Death Metal and the Midlands: An Interview with Ash Moore of Mutagenic Host.

Warhammer Community

• This week’s Pages from the Black Books is the last of the series, but they’re going out with a bang! The final download is from an unreleased Black Books installment, focusing on the Emperor’s Children!

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• The supercut of Aeronautica Imperialis drops this Friday, alongside the show’s original soundtrack. I reviewed the show here, and if you haven’t seen it this is a great opportunity to see the entire, uninterrupted version.

Around the Webway

• The lads of the TTP Field Manual pod gave a review this week to Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s classic Grey Knights tale The Emperor’s Gift.

• At Boundary’s Edge delivered not one, but two book reviews this week for Black Library offerings! In addition to the World Ablaze anthology, Jude Reid’s Armageddon: Season of Fire went under the microscope, “the best introduction to Warhammer 40,000 I’ve seen in recent years.”

• Ill Met by Morrslieb took a break from the RPG content this week to treat us to a book review of William King’s Hall-of-Fame classic, Trollslayer.

Cold Open Stories

• This week’s featured story is A Mind of Their Own, by Justin Ackermann. “The Hive Mind is an amalgamation of trillions, a psychic gestalt that controls every Tyranid organism. It is all the component parts know. But what happens to those creatures if the psychic link is served? Do they revert to feral animals, or does their nature drive them to new and unexpected behaviour? And who in their right mind would deliberately engineer such a scenario…?”

Quick Hits

• Victoria Hayward (Deathworlder, The Feast of St. Luthera) met her end this week- at least, as a character in the pages of 2000AD! The legendary comics magazine “was a formative text I read as an impressionable 11 year old after finding a stash of Halo Jones & covertly reading it in between music lessons - so this is a very meaningful privilege,” she shared.

• In the wake of some recent scandals surrounding the Horror Writers Association, Tim Waggoner (Skin Man) asked whether or not writing organizations are obsolete.

• Finally, if you’re near Colchester or will be finding yourself nearby in a couple weeks, James Swallow (The Flight of the Eisenstein, Nemesis) will be appearing at the Commando and British Weekly Comic Swap Meet!

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

• Crucible of Fire, by Tom R. Pike

• Raptors: War and Shadow, by William Crowe

• Blood of the Bastion, by Evan Dicken

• Shadow of the Silver Wolf, by Gary Kloster

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition, estimated deliver-by date of 11/26)

Upcoming in 2026

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

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

• Cold Covenant, by Peter Fehervari (hardcover, Special Edition, 10/17)

• Auxilia, by Russell Zimmerman (paperback, 10/17)

• Dropsite Massacre, by John French (paperback, 10/17)

• Apostle, by David Annandale (paperback, 10/17)

• 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 last time I saw so much furor over the question “what’s in the box,” the movie Seven was still in theatres. But Warhammer fandom had a lot of opinions this week as the new Space Marines Codex Limited Edition went up for preorder- and if I’m being candid so did I.

A Space Marine Codex doesn’t automatically scream Black Library, but as I like to highlight in my occasional series Black Library Bibliophiles1 many of us book readers and collectors like to doll up their displays with all sorts of other goodies and physical memorabilia. With Games Workshop appearing to slow down a bit on the “Mega Limited Editions” of Black Library books in favor of boxed sets (such as the recent Mephiston one from Darius Hinks).

Here’s a list of Mega Limited Editions or other major physical-goods releases:

2017

• Gaunt’s Ghosts: The Warmaster, by Dan Abnett

2019

• Realmslayer Script Book, by David Guymer

2020

• The Helwinter Gate, by Chris Wraight

2021

• Sabbat Worlds Crusade, by Dan Abnett

• The Vincula Insurgency, by Dan Abnett

2022

• Ahriman: Exile, by John French

• Warboss, by Mike Brooks

2023

• The Fall of Cadia, by Robert Rath

• The First Founding, by John French, David Guymer, Guy Haley, Nick Kyme, and Callum Davis

2024

• Morvenn Vahl: Spear of Faith, by Jude Reid

• Interceptor City, by Dan Abnett

2025

• Trollslayer, by William King

It’s a pity we’re not seeing more of them, as these are some of my favorite things to decorate my Black Library Museum with. Here’s the shelf where I keep Dan Abnett’s Interceptor City (alongside Vagabond Squadron, by Robbie MacNiven), for example:

For that reason, I sat up and took notice when they announced that the Space Marines Codex would be releasing in a stunning Limited Edition alongside the regular release and a Collector’s Edition.

Look at that beauty! All told, the Limited Edition promised the following:

• The 223-page Codex with magnetic attachment for one of six different metal Chapter badges

• The six different Chapter badges, of course

• A metal Crux Terminatus icon

• Six full-color art prints

• A bunch of game stuff, including tokens and cards

Not only was this a stunning treatment for the Codex, but almost everything would find a home in my personal displays. All six of those Chapter badges, for example, could find a home with their respective faction’s shelf, alongside those lovely prints.

Last year, you may recall that Warhammer similarly released a set of four, Limited Edition Chaos Codexes, each themed on one of the four Chaos-pledged chapters of the Emperor’s Children, Thousand Sons, World Eaters, and Death Guard.

Each contained a similar slew of goodies in addition to the Codex, datasheet, and stratagem cards. Adding six metal objective markers, five art prints, and- perhaps most exciting of all- a quarter of a Chaos medallion that magnetically snapped together to form the whole if you went in on all four releases- there was plenty here to beautify the Chaos wing of any library or bookshelf.

Each released at USD $250, meaning if you wanted to assemble the full medallion Voltron-style, you’d be out of pocket $100. I’d naturally assumed the new Space Marine Codex would follow suit2; even if the Codex Space Marines was a standalone release, $250 seemed about right.

I was wrong.

Very quickly on Saturday it became apparent that this was going to run a lot more, and the usual community water-coolers were abuzz with the resultant sticker shock.

It was $420.

Impact Craters

I’m used to seeing arguments against Games Workshop’s business practices, from the price of things to their availability. Heck, I'd even started a biannual survey of Black Library Readers to help the community gauge this very thing.

If I can tweak a famous aphorism a bit, I’d note that a complaint can travel halfway around the world before a compliment even puts its boots on. Online fandoms are notoriously skewed towards the critical, leading to such pithy observations such as “if you put a twenty dollar bill inside each booster pack of Magic, they’d complain about how it was folded.”

That doesn’t, of course, mean they’re necessarily wrong. But generally speaking, based on the inaugural survey results most Black Library readers are fairly happy at the value-for-dollar proposition of the Black Library’s deluxe offerings, and while the Space Marine Codex Limited Edition isn’t specifically Black Library… it’s close enough.

What was particularly interesting here was just how widespread the reaction was- and not just in the Black Library circles.

Not all of the feedback was negative, of course, but the volume of outrage was especially high. And, at times, rather creative, as posted by u/WarsmithUriel:

The Zimmerman Defense

Black Library author Russell Zimmerman (Seven Ships, Auxilia) took a different approach, posting about the price on social media:

Zimmerman goes on to break down the different components of the release, asking how much each item might expect to command individually.

My Takes

I don’t think Zimmerman quite hits the bullseye here in his valuations (for instance, the Starforged officially licensed accessories look considerably more sturdily-built than the magnets and Crux here), but the underlying principle is sound3. Here are some of my thoughts surrounding this as someone who was really looking forward to getting this for the Museum- and ultimately didn’t.

This isn’t about a Codex.

I saw a lot of comments to the effect of, “this is way too much for a product that will be quickly revised and then obsolete in three years.” There’s a reason there’s still a very healthy secondary market for historical Limited Edition tabletop game products, and it has nothing to do with the rulesets inside.

Do you think the person paying a steep collector’s price on this particular edition of the Deathwatch RPG rulebook is doing so because they want to run the game at their table, or because of how it looks:

Heck, I don’t even play the tabletop game, so the Codex itself was only ever going to be a lore book for me.

In short: you don’t buy this for the shelf life, you buy this for the shelf candy.

This is about more than a Codex.

Imagine drawing an invisible line down the center of a table, a line which reads, “if it’s not worth it to you, don’t buy it.”

On the one side of this table go all of the arguments against buying something that are specific to the product. That could be anything from, “it costs too much for what it does,” “I don’t really need or want it,” or any other product-based buying decision.

Once you’ve taken all of those out of the objection pool, a lot of what is left behind are broader concerns about consumer emotion and sentiment. Thoughts about how much things should be priced at or in what quantities they should be produced, outrage at corporate greed or FOMO, and the like. For these consumers, they have a boundary around what corporate behavior is acceptable and what is predatory or exploitative.

For many, the price of the Space Marine Codex Limited Edition was a gross violation of that sort of tacit social contract. There’s a certain range of behavior from companies within which their operations will feel to many like they are valued as customers. Go outside of that with a “cash grab,” and many instead begin to feel like resources to be exploited.

Companies make money.

But that’s just it, though. Companies do exist to make money, and companies that don’t soon cease to be companies at all. A strong balance sheet is one of the surest ways to preserve both your going operations as well as directional independence. Is there anyone who looks at Magic: the Gathering under HASBRO and says, “you know what Warhammer really needs?4”

It’s not a blanket defense of Games Workshop to note this; companies always have to balance their operations with consumer sentiment. If tomorrow they added a zero to every item on the webstore, for instance, they’re not suddenly going to make ten times the revenue. And indeed, try to boil the frog too fast and it will hop out of the pot.

But I don’t put a lot of weight in sentiments that say Games Workshop is “greedy,” because that’s the business of business. I am more likely to take issue with an argument that says, “the negative impact of this item’s pricing will offset the marginal gain of releasing it at that price point.” Now that’s a conversation, but not one I’m seeing much of in the wake of this.

Finally, these are luxury goods.

This, to me, is the most important point. Warhammer books are luxury items, so it’s difficult for me get behind arguments that appear to treat them as necessities (though it pains me a bit to say this, because to many of us books are pretty necessary for life’s enrichment). But just as I say not every book needs to appeal to every reader, nor must every product appeal to every consumer. It’s okay to not be a part of every target audience.

Indeed, as Zimmerman pointed out the book cost of the 11th Edition Codexes have gone down, making them more affordable than before.

At time of writing (Monday afternoon), the Limited Edition Codexes are still available on the US webstore. The $100 Collector’s Editions are sold out. That seems relevant somehow, but the degree to which it matters will depend on how quickly the remaining stock sells out. If it takes another week to do so, then it’s not a significant pain point. If we’ve still got available stock a month or so on, well, that’s a different matter.

We won’t boil the ocean on this today, but the ongoing dialogue is a very interesting one and it’s one we see here amongst Black Library readers and collectors with regularity.

Back to School

This weekend will see a number of academics, scholars, and experts descend on the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies in Germany for an annual conference. You might be surprised to learn that the area of focus each year is Warhammer.

This is the third year in a row the Warhammer Conference has been held, and this isn’t just a fancy excuse for folks to get together and wargame5. Seriously, take a look at a few of the presentations:

• Never Going Home: Space Marines, Soldiery, and the Indelible Mark of War.

• Girard’s Scapegoat Mechanism as Resolution of Mimetic Crises in Warhammer 40,000

• Mathhammer vs. Narrative Play: Ludonarrative Dissonance on the Tabletop

• Ruined, Infinite, Sublime: The Aesthetics of Warhammer 40,000 as Baroque Accumulation

• Skulls, Servitors, and Sustenance: The Work of the Dead and HumanRemains in Warhammer: 40,000

• The Zen of WAAAGH!: Deconstruction, Reconstruction, and Positive Satire in the Orks of Warhammer 40,000

• The RIPPLE Effect in the Inquisition: Strategic Placement Through Dan Abnett’s Eisenhorn and Ravenor

If you’re cut from similar cloth as me, you might need a moment to pick your jaw up off the floor. And while most of the events are in-person, they will also be streamed online FREE. You can find the schedule and links here:

• Saturday’s events

• Sunday’s events

And just to bring it back to the Black Library for a sec, here’s a presentation from the inaugural conference by Victoria Hayward, author of my 2024 Book of the Year, Deathworlder. Entitled “The Jungle Made Us: An Author’s Reflections on Writing Catachan,” I’d love to see more Black Library writers jumping aboard to do the same for future conferences!

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

I don’t actually deserve any of the credit, of course, but I’m enjoying the cosmic coincidence that has been seeing a dambreak of Warhammer fantasy after asking why we hadn’t seen much from it back in early August. First it was Blood of the Godeater by Noah Van Nguyen, then Shadow of the Silver Wolf by Evan Dicken. And now this week we get the exciting reveal of Gary Kloster’s next story, Shadow of the Silver Wolf.

This is the third Neave Blacktalon story, behind 2018’s Blacktalon: First Mark by Andy Clark and Liane Merciel’s 2024 follow-up, Blacktalon. Debuting in 2023, she was also featured in the Blacktalon animated series on WarhammerTV.

While Kloster has dabbled in Necromunda, the Horus Heresy, and Warhammer 40K since arriving at the Black Library in 2020, Age of Sigmar has been something of a specialty including the recent Queen of the Rose Throne and 2024’s Skaventide.

Departures

Both Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom by Marc Collins and Voice of Command, Richard Swan’s novel debut arrived on store shelves this week. Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom also arrived in its striking Special Edition form as well!

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• This week’s Black Library feature was a review of the audiobook for Daemonslayer, by William King. I listened to loads of Warhammer audiobooks on my drives to and from Houston, and still have a healthy backlog of reviews to come!

• In Warhammer RPG Weekly, we looked at the concept of anticipation management. How do you keep your customers excited at your new offerings, and what could Cubicle 7 Games learn from Games Workshop?

• Finally, Trench Crusade Weekly examined two recent business decisions from Factory Fortress that might have flown under the radar, and what it portends for the future of the game!

Tabletop Battles

• This week’s Lore Friday was my review of Robert Rath’s The Wicked and the Warped. I didn’t expect to write a review as critical as I did when I first cracked open the book, but while this one was a miss for me, it was a hit for many others for the exact same reason.

• While this would normally have been a Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame weekend, the massive crush of new features around the new Space Marines Codex pushed it back a week on the publishing schedule. No harm done, it will be up this Saturday with the winners of 2017!

Warhammer Community

• The mothership was all about the Big Autumn Preview Show this week, which didn’t have any Black Library content in it. It never fails that many of us get our hopes up, but generally speaking if you don’t see a Black Library logo in the marketing collateral, you’re not going to see any new books6. That said, there were some things to be excited about (beyond just the amazing new models):

  • The new teaser trailer for the upcoming Astartes II animated series

  • The teaser trailer for another WarhammerTV animated series, this one set in Age of Sigmar called Arkanaut.

  • The announcement of a new roleplaying game set in Necromunda

• Finally, this week’s Pages from the Black Books download covers the battles around Nostramo Sector during The Scouring. Ave Dominus Nox, baby!

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• Nothing for the Black Library this week.

Around the Webway

• Arbitor Ian and Mira Manga dropped the latest Warhammer Book Club episode this week, looking at Dan Abnett’s The Unremembered Empire.

• Not specifically Black Library related, but here and there I’ve talked about some of the different literary awards that Black Library authors have been nominated for. At Boundary’s Edge did a terrific job rounding up the big players for this year, so if you wanted to learn more about them all in one place (and learn who won this year), make sure to check it out.

  • They also have their own annual awards, the Boundies, at the end of each year- and three Black Library books won last year including Justin D. Hill for Hell’s Last.

Cold Open Stories

• Lots of excitement this week! First up, a winner was declared in the most recent fast fiction contest, “Laughing Matters,” with Taylor Araujo’s incredible Commissar Delecta’s Moment of Heroism taking the crown. I Had a chance to read an extended version of the story and it’s absolutely hilarious. You can see- and read!- all of the winners here.

• Then we’ve got the announcement of the next flash fiction contest, “Love in the End Times.” Here’s a chance for all you clamoring for grimdark romance to put pen to paper and make it happen. “For this Fast Fiction writing competition, we want you to explore affection, devotion, and connection through the lens of Storge, Philia, Eros, and Agape. We aren’t looking for cheap romance tropes or fourth-wall-breaking self-insert romances – we want the raw, tragic, bizarre, or profound bonds that bloom on the precipice of annihilation.”

Quick Hits

• John French (Ahriman: Sorcerer, Dropsite Massacre) is always on my shortlist of, “reasons you should sign up for author newsletters.” This week we were treated to a brand new short story, right in our inboxes! A story “about a community growing in the husk of a dead city. It’s about having somewhere to sleep. It’s about ghosts.” Want to read it? Here you go- and don’t forget to subscribe!

• A list entitled Ten Great Sci-Fi B-Movies is always going to catch my eye, but it becomes a must-read when it’s from the desk of Kim Newman (Drachenfels, Beasts in Velvet). He’s picked some great cuts in this piece he wrote for the British Film Institute.

• The short fiction anthology Thunderbirds: Hidden Dangers, International Rescues is now up for preorder, edited by none other than James Swallow (The Flight of the Eisenstein, Nemesis).

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

• Cold Covenant, by Peter Fehervari

• Crucible of Fire, by Tom R. Pike

• Raptors: War and Shadow, by William Crowe

• Blood of the Bastion, by Evan Dicken

• Shadow of the Silver Wolf, by Gary Kloster

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition, estimated deliver-by date of 11/26)

Upcoming in 2026

• Dawn of Fire: Crusade of Vengeance (paperback, 10/3)

• Helbrecht: Sin of Hope, by Mike Vincent (hardcover, Special Edition, 10/3)

• Master of Rites, by Rob Young (paperback, 10/3)

• The Sundering, by Gav Thorpe (paperback, 10/3)

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

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

• Auxilia, by Russell Zimmerman (paperback, 10/20)

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

• Apostle, by David Annandale (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!

Sometimes you just hate to be right.

When this week’s Sunday Preview announced the release of Mike Vincent’s Helbrecht: Sin of Hope, I wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that- once again- the Special Edition will be available through a Wednesday preorder window.

Two weeks ago, after seeing both Steve Parker’s Deathwatch and Guy Haley’s Raldoron: Revenant get a new preorder window for their deluxe editions, I turned to Sir Ian Fleming for a very applicable bit of sage wisdom: “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

We’re now at that third time, so I think we can assume- at least for the foreseeable future- that deluxe Black Library offerings will be held during a Wednesday window. And that does appear to be exclusive to the Black Library, too; a Limited Edition of the Space Marines Codex also going up for preorder is still going to be offered at the usual Saturday time.

Why the Change?

For some gaming companies like Wizards of the Coast, transparency is something of a corporate value. While not every decision is explained to the buying public, they do a fairly consistent job of explaining why it is they do what they do when it comes to consequential or controversial issues faced by the fanbase.

For example, here’s a recent piece from designer Gavin Verhey explaining the company’s logic in reversing course on a decision involving a recent, online-only booster set. You may not agree with the decision (many didn’t), but at least you could appreciate that they took the time to lay it all out.

Alas, it’s our burden to have fallen in love with the property of a company for whom transparency is a bit further on down the list of virtues. On very rare occasion we’ll get a bit of damage control, such as when the plug was pulled om the Era of Ruin Limited Edition in June of last year:

But in general, for consumer-facing decisions like the preorder window we can only read the tea leaves and make educated guesses. Companies as a general rule don’t run on whim; if they take an action- especially one that will directly impact consumers- there’s usually a reason behind it. You may not like the reason, it may not be a particularly good reason, but there’s assuredly a motive of some kind.

For this new- and apparently permanent- Wednesday preorder change, the most likely candidates appear to be:

It’s a website performance issue. With demand for Black Library deluxe editions appearing to be on the wax, perhaps there was some core performance impacts that were adversely affecting other preorder customers. With Games Workshop, tabletop miniatures and models are the core business and it’s not hard to imagine that the surge of activity from the book segment could be problematic for site performance. Punt that window over a few days, and voila! A more balanced traffic load.

It’s an anti-scalper measure. This one’s a little tougher to get to, but it makes a certain amount of sense, right? After all, if they’re looking to tamp down speculative buying on Black Library deluxe offerings, it may be easier to do that when you’ve isolated their window of activity from the other lines of business. In other words, they’re easier to flag when you’re not awash in all the other traffic that the tabletop game generates.

Consider what we’ve seen in the last two preorder windows. The initial allotment goes up for offer, and quickly sells out. So far, so normal. But then in both cases (Raldoron and Deathwatch), folks have reported seeing ‘bubbles’ of restock popping up throughout the same day. These bubbles sell out pretty quick as word spreads around the community, but they tend to be more frequent than what we’ve seen in the past.

Could this be GW taking an active hand in canceling abusive orders and returning their purchases to inventory? It’s certainly possible. And while I’m hardly an expert on GW’s corporate practices, this seems like something that’s more likely to occur during normal business hours (Wednesdays at 3pm BST) as opposed to all day Saturday.

In policing, kettling refers to the (somewhat controversial) crowd control tactic whereby the police establish a cordon of officers around a protest or demonstration, thereby containing the civilian participants within a tight perimeter. By moving from an all-day, staggered regional-release model on Saturdays to one global window on Wednesdays, has GW adopted a kind of kettling tactic to counter scalpers? It seems quite possible.

That’s because…

Games Workshop hates us and drinks in our suffering isn’t really an option here. Successful companies don’t wantonly screw with their consumers. They make bad decisions, yes. They suffer the law of unintended consequences, yes. But they typically try to avoid just screwing people around if they can help it, because as any fisherman can tell you, it’s important to keep the fish on the hook if you want to reel in your dinner.

So maybe here’s a question we should be asking ourselves:

There’s no right answer here, nor is there a wrong one. One person’s upgrade is another’s downgrade. But I think it’s worth at least considering this in the frame of what GW has been doing to fight scalpers. Recall that in July’s Black Library Reader Satisfaction Survey (full results here), there was plenty of room for improvement in this area:

Canceled In Error

That brings me to this story that came out this week from u/PronouncedLikeJIF1 on the Black Library Subreddit.

Getting successful orders through is stressful enough as it is; it definitely feels bad when an order gets canceled. But here’s the really interesting part:

Review process, you say?

This is where GW’s corporate communications department could use a little nudge, because the goodwill that could come from a public acknowledgement of this would certainly help mitigate some of the frustrations felt by the community.

Imagine seeing something like this:

You might still be frustrated about the change to Wednesdays, but at least you’d understand why- and perhaps even appreciate that they’re trying something to help counter the scalpers.

This is also nicely anodyne; it doesn’t tip the hand of how GW is investigating orders for potential disqualification, so there’s no obvious ‘workaround’ for scalpers to counter-program into their bots.

Hello from the Trenches

Before we dive too much further into all things Black Library, I want to take a quick second to talk about the email that went out to Subscribers on Saturday. As you know I try to be sensitive to how much goes into your inbox from the Wordforge, because not every one is into every thing. Imbox clutter sucks, and I don’t want to contribute to it.

I debuted a new feature this past Saturday, Trench Crusade Weekly, and just as with my other content I made a new Category for it. On Substack, having different Categories lets readers subscribe to them individually. That means the RPG readers can just get the RPG content if they want, the Black Library folks can limit themselves to just the Black Library, and folks who want both can opt in to get them if they wish to.

When creating a new Category, Substack gives us authors the chance to import our existing subscribers into the feed for the new content. I intentionally did not select that, figuring that I’d be happy to start the Trench Crusade subscriber list at zero and let folks opt in as they wished to. After all, while there are a lot of thematic similarities (and a number of Black Library authors) involved in TC, it is an entirely separate property.

Imagine my dismay, then, when Substack shotgunned it out to everyone anyway.

I’m not sure why it did that, but I want to acknowledge that here so folks don’t think I’m cavalier with their subscription preferences.

For more information on how to customize the emails you get from the Wordforge, you can find that in the site’s intro/FAQ piece here (under “Managing your Notifications”). It’s super easy and takes just a second, and I appreciate your patience.

Now, back to the books!

September’s Giveaway Winner!

Last week was a tough one personally, dealing with the suddenness of my wife’s passing. I can earnestly say that reading everyone’s expressions of gratitude was a real comfort, as well as the personal outreach from Black Library writers and readers alike. When asked as I am on occasion, wait, you don’t charge for your Substack? What do you get out of it? my answer is always, ‘oh buddy, if you only knew.'

Our stories may be filled with the grimdark, but there is kindness and generosity everywhere you look. For that- and so many other things- I remain tremendously grateful.

But of course there can only be one winner, and I fired up the ol’ Tzeentch-o-mizer2 to determine one. Big congratulations to reader Willis, for winning this month’s book giveaway of a Special Edition copy of Bjorn, the Fell-Handed by Justin D. Hill.

Hachette Job

Hachette Book Group has had a long relationship with Games Workshop, offering a number of different subscription-based product offerings. Their Warhammer 40,000 Legends Collection is one of their best-known releases, reprinting a hundred different Black Library novels with terrific spine art that forms a diorama on your shelf3.

With their current Combat Patrol magazine run approaching its conclusion, they’re rolled out their next series to those of us here in the US. Spearhead will follow the same approach: a magazine full of guides and lore, accompanied by a number of miniatures to build and paint.

The obsessive completionist in me is drawn to these like I am any Warhammer printed matter, given that there’s no shortage of lore and even short stories inside. However, for those considering a subscription let me offer a word to the wise: do not let your credit card lapse if you’re a subscriber.

And by ‘lapse,’ I mean any and all interruptions, from simply being overdrawn to the more exotic situations like having your card expire or being canceled and reissued due to fraud. Most other subscription services will give you ample opportunity to remedy a failed billing attempt by updating your billing info, carrying on like it was nothing at all.

Not Hachette.

I can tell you from firsthand experience that by the time you receive an email advising of a billing issue, it’s already too late to restore your subscription (I had to cancel a card due to suspected fraud). Nor do they allow you to ‘restart’ your subscription where you left off, either. You’re just… out of luck, pal. Have fun buying single issues off the website if you want to try and see the collection through.

It is startlingly consumer-unfriendly, and gave me advantage on my saving throw against succumbing to temptation and going in on Spearhead. It looks like a terrific offering and I love to see the Age of Sigmar support, but as always… caveat emptor.

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

Holy mackerel, what a week for us readers! First up was another Wednesday reveal, offering a look at two more upcoming Black Library novels.

Raptors: War and Shadow is the second offering from William Crowe, whose debut novel4 Veterans of the Fall (review) was released just this past May. This time instead of the Astra Militarum it’s the Raptors Space Marines he’s writing about, but this isn’t the first we’ve seen of him there either. Crowe’s first Black Library story, The Shot That Kills You, was part of 2024’s Space Marine Successors Week and featured a lone Raptor fending off a Drukhari raid. It was also a standout selection in the No Peace Among Stars anthology (review) earlier this year, so I’m delighted to see him returning to the Chapter.

Next we’ve got the debut of Tom R. Pike, Crucible of Fire. This one, too, features a return as it brings back a character we last saw in his short story Worm of Valhalla. Featured in the Death and Duty anthology (review), I also considered this one to be a standout story in its collection, and was excited to note when Analog Magazine foretold Pike’s upcoming Black Library novel back in July.

Happily, both books appear to be hardcovers, but no hint yet of whether or not deluxe editions will be offered.

Now on to the week’s preorders, we’ve got Mike Vincent’s second Black Library novel Helbrecht: Sin of Hope. Note that this is preordering Saturday for standard hardcover only, with the Special Edition being offered in the “Wednesday Window” on 9/23.

While we recently saw Rob Young making the rounds with Ghost of Cadia, the sequel to 2023’s Longshot, his previous novel is arriving in paperback. Master of Rites features Ferren Areios of the Ultramarines, and I’d previously reviewed it here.

Now this was unexpected- it’s a Dawn of Fire omnibus! Containing Avenging Son by Guy Haley, Andy Clark’s The Gate of Bones, and Gav Thorpe’s The Wolftime, this is a great way to dive into the nine-novel saga that tied into the game’s 9th Edition.

The series has remained something of an enigma in terms of availability. The hardest book to source has long been the fourth, Haley’s Throne of Light, but The Wolftime and Nick Kyme’s The Iron Kingdom have also proved elusive for some. As you’d expect in the secondary market, that scarcity has translated into a premium price- if you can even find one.

With this omnibus, The Wolftime will be seeing a print reissue, and one wonders if there will a second volume down the road which will finally get Throne of Light in front of more readers.

Another Warhammer Fantasy omnibus gets a snazzy new reissue under The Old World branding as Gav Thorpe’s Sundering series goes up for preorder. This contains Malerion (formerly Malekith), Shadow King, and Caledor, plus an extra novella and short story!

Departures

Just one hitting store shelves this week, with Guy Haley’s Raldoron: Revenant. It looks like both the Special Edition and standard hardcover landed at the same time, which answers a question I’d had about the new preorder window and books released in more than one edition at a time.

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• This week’s Black Library feature was a review of the audiobook for Sandy Mitchell’s Death or Glory. Could a bit of Cain fatigue be setting in?

• In addition to the new Trench Crusade Weekly, the standard Warhammer RPG Weekly covered the bases for the role-playing folks. With Cubicle 7’s Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay’s 5th Edition now released5, community reactions are starting to trickle in.

Tabletop Battles

• Kevin Stillman offered up this week’s Lore Friday review, diving into the Illustrated and Annotated Edition of Nate Crowley’s Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh!.

Warhammer Community

• A new Age of Sigmar line release means a new mini-short for the Chronicles of Ruin series. For the Sons of Behemat, that means we get to hear about the King of the Bigs!

• The upcoming Space Marines Codex will be arriving in a stunning Limited Edition. These sorts of release make exquisite accents to any Black Library collection, and this one is clearly no exception.

• Finally, this week’s Pages from the Black Books download is all about the wars in the margins that happened during the Heresy. The big battles like Calth and Isstvan get a lot of attention, but in a galaxy at war the conflict played itself out in miniature in nearly every corner!

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• Nothing for the Black Library this week.

Around the Webway

• Concilium Historica Imperialis posted a Book Club review this week of Dark Imperium, by Guy Haley. “Iomhar and Chamlan focus on the book’s mix of large-scale war, political cleanup, and character work, while also debating its title, cover, and place in the broader timeline.” Sounds like a deep dive indeed!

• Jen and Keri of the WH40K Book Club are back with their latest review, this time taking a look at Jude Reid’s Armageddon: Season of Fire. They found this one highly enjoyable, and you can check it out here.

• This one’s a little tangential, but I’ve written before about Andrew James Spooner and how he absolutely nails Malus Darkblade in the audiobook narrations. I came across this video clip from the new Blood of the Dawnwalker game, and stopped cold when I heard Brencis speak. Love to see my favorite narrators pop up in new things!

Cold Open Stories

• No featured story this week.

Quick Hits

• Wargamer had the opportunity to chat with Graham McNeill (False Gods, The Ambassador) about the lore design experience for Trench Crusade.

• Cavan Scott (Secrets of the Tau, Attack of the Necron) has a new comic coming up for preorder. “The Sopranos meets Lucifer in the supernatural horror crime drama, Godfather of Hell, where friends are close, enemies are closer, and revenge is a dish best served cold - or hot as Hell.” There are some neat preorder perks including acces to an exclusive livestream, so check it out if that sounds like it’s your jam!

• If you’re around London on Halloween night, Kim Newman’s (Drachenfels, Beasts in Velvet6) Sarah Minds the Dog and Mildew Manor (or The Italian Smile) are being performed at the Old Red Dog Theatre. Tickets are available 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

• Cold Covenant, by Peter Fehervari

• Crucible of Fire, by Tom R. Pike

• Raptors: War and Shadow, by William Crowe

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom, by Marc Collins (hardcover, Special Edition, 9/19)

• Voice of Command, by Richard Swan (hardcover, 9/19)

• Dawn of Fire: Crusade of Vengeance (paperback, 10/3)

• Helbrecht: Sin of Hope, by Mike Vincent (hardcover, Special Edition, 10/3)

• Master of Rites, by Rob Young (paperback, 10/3)

• The Sundering, by Gav Thorpe (paperback, 10/3)

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

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

• Auxilia, by Russell Zimmerman (paperback, 10/20)

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

• Apostle, by David Annandale (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!

1

That reminds me of a certain comic I’ve enjoyed from time to time…

We’ve got a lot to talk about today, from the Raldoron preorder to a new Old World book, the month’s new promotions on the Black Library App to a very special September book giveaway… but first, I have a little bit of personal news to share.

Longtime readers will know that everything I’ve done that’s Warhammer related, from my first articles on Tabletop Battles (then Goonhammer) to this Substack and everything on it, all came as a result of my wife Jimi’s breast cancer diagnosis in 2024. Needing a little distraction brought me back to the books; the magic of the books soon rekindled my love of writing1.

Last week, Jimi lost her battle.

All cancers are bastards, but hers was particularly ruthless. Triple-negative inflammatory breast cancer (IBC), because of course my wife never did anything by halves. Notoriously aggressive, maddeningly hard to treat. It endured waves of chemotherapy and radiation, eluded a double mastectomy and lymph node removal, and outwitted the extraordinarily talented medical staff first at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, then MD Anderson in Houston- to say nothing of the very caring and dedicated team here in Louisville.

My wife was no stranger to pain. Our first child was born at home, the twins were an emergency caesarian and two that followed were delivered naturally. As a birth doula, she helped bring over two hundred souls into this world, an observer to the pain of birth when not herself a participant. But by the end, the debilitating agony of her disease spreading first into her lungs and then her bones proved too great to bear.

Getting Through It

If this all sounds like a tragedy, that’s because it is. She never saw her fiftieth birthday, and our children range in age from fifteen to eight2. The hole she leaves behind is massive. But what’s gotten us through every step of this journey has been a spirit of gratitude, and it’s that which I’d most like to share today.

Because while I am certainly sad, I am so incredibly grateful.

If you went back to right after I moved to Kentucky and offered me a deal: that I would meet the love of my life, get twenty amazing years and build an incredible family together, but that they would leave this earth far too soon… would I still take it? I think anyone would.

We’ve been beset by misfortune for the past two years. On the day we closed on our house, my wife lost her job. Three months later came her diagnosis. This past May I learned I was being laid off myself. Any one of these alone is a major blow to any family; all three in short order feels like cruelty.

And yet… losing her job allowed her to grieve its loss and be emotionally ready for the fight to come. Losing mine allowed me to focus entirely on being a caretaker at a time when she most needed it, traveling back and forth from Houston during her clinical trial every week or so.

And while it might sound absurd to see cancer as a blessing, the long battle gave all of us a long time to come to terms with it and what it meant for our family. I can only imagine the shock and devastation of a sudden loss such as a car accident, where so much of your life is ripped away in an instant. Our journey has been full of things that looked bad when they were in front of us, but then quite different in the rearview.

A week on and there are plenty of tears here. But there are far more smiles and laughter. When one of us threatens to be overtaken by sorrow, the comfort of a hug and sharing a fond memory are but an armlength away.

Sometimes that one of us is me.

I am grateful too for what Warhammer has given us throughout all this. It wasn’t just my place of refuge, but something we enjoyed together. She’d read and loved the Eisenhorn trilogy, and enjoyed listening to the audiobooks on our many road trips to Houston. It’s crazy to think that a little over a week ago, we visited the Warhammer Store & Cafe. And if not for all this we’ve had to endure, you wouldn’t be reading this today and I certainly wouldn’t be writing it.

I’ve also been blown away by the outpouring of love and support from the announcement on Facebook. Jimi touched so many lives in her time here, and seeing the deluge of tributes was a welcome reminder of what a hero she was to me, not just to me and our children but to so many more I (and probably she!) didn’t even know about. Were there in fact a Bell of Lost Souls, it surely would be tolling.

So there’s my takeaway for today: count your blessings, folks. All of them. Even the ones that don’t necessarily look like blessings.

Especially those.

September’s Giveaway

One thing that’s really nice about the Grapevine store is that they carry deluxe edition Black Library books as part of their active stock. When we visited they had three Special Editions of Justin D. Hill’s Bjorn, the Fell-Handed in stock, and when we left they had one less. Since I already had an ordered copy waiting for me at home this was a curious impulse buy, but one that makes perfect sense now.

So that’s this month’s giveaway, a Special Edition of ol’ Bjorn.

To enter, you just need to be a Wordforge subscriber (it’s free!) and leave a comment on this post answering the following question:

It can be anything from the superficial to the serious, this isn’t a test and there aren’t any grades being handed out. Instead, I’ll pick one random entrant next week!

Raldawrong or Raldaright?

Raldoron’s preorder got weird.

We knew it was going to be bad, right? I mean, there’s certainly plenty of cause to expect the worst going into an odd preorder window that opens at the same moment for the entire world. But weird? That I didn’t expect.

My first clue of how things were going to go came at about three hours before the window’s opening, when I went to buy myself a voucher. As I detail in my guide to collecting the Black Library, I always like to use vouchers to pay for my preorders in an effort to minimize the number of click-throughs. Typically the voucher arrives in my inbox in about fifteen minutes, but this one appeared to get lost in the warp (it would eventually arrive on its own the next day3).

Then there was the drop time. Games Workshop always gives its preorder window times at the hour, but veterans know that you should start expecting to see it up to five minutes early- a perfect example of the axiom, “early is on time, and on time is late.”

Eleven minutes before the hour as I was doing a bit of Wordforge writing, I clicked over to the preorder tab and hit refresh. This was part out of making sure I stayed logged in for the upcoming window, and partly just mindless habit. Imagine my surprise when the Raldoron Special Edition appeared.

After adding it to my basket and making a beeline for checkout, I ran into the usual pink-box errors that seem to be common these days. I usually get through it with a quick refresh; this time it took two, but soon the Omnissiah blessed me with the Order Complete window.

My next stop was to zip over to the Black Library subreddit and Black Library Nutters Facebook Group (my usual haunts), giving them all a snap head’s up that the window had opened up far earlier than anyone not employed by Games Workshop’s IT department was expecting.

I seemed to be one of the lucky ones, as reports started rolling in of website issues for many trying to check out. When a friend of mine reported experiencing an internet outage, I figured I’d wade back in to try and secure her a copy. This time I had to refresh the pink box of doom around three dozen times4, but eventually I managed to successfully check out at a quarter past the hour.

But that wasn’t the end of it. After reportedly selling out soon after, I kept seeing reports of purchases made throughout the day. It was almost as if smaller windows of availability kept opening up for those lucky few still rolling the dice. Was this reflective of website problems clearing up? GW IT working overtime to catch and cancel scalper-bot orders? Something else? It’s impossible to discern from the outside looking in, but all in all it made for a very unusual day at the office.

So who won here?

Well, I certainly did through the dumbest of luck, securing mine unusually early. But for each one snapped up before the starter pistol, that’s one person less who was able to get theirs when they showed up at the “correct” preorder time.

Those who managed to slip past the snafus did, though in many cases it necessitated no small amount of stubborn perseverance (as with my second purchase). And of course, those who managed to stumble upon one of the inventory refreshes throughout the day, well, they’re winners too.

But if your idea of winners are the lucky and the stubborn rather than the mass and press of your ordinary punters at the door, well, I’m not sure that’s a desirable end state. And with the Special Edition of Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom by Marc Collins seeing a possible repeat of the special preorder window process this Wednesday, buckle in, folks.

Things might get weird.

A Wiki Situation

Jacques Corby-Tuech in the Black Library Nutters group has gotten the ball rolling on creating a Black Library wiki site, and things are already moving! While there are other Warhammer-based wikis out there (such as the excellent Lexicanum, which I’ve frequently appreciated!), this one will take a notably book-centric approach.

For instance, its page on Dan Abnett’s Horus Rising has a full publication history, including release dates and ISBN’s. While some of this information is admittedly somewhat niche, it can be incredibly useful for some. It’s still in its infancy, with most pages being skeletal placeholders, but like all wikis the aim is to eventually get out even more than what you put in. And best of all, says Jacques,, there will be “absolutely no tracking or advertising ever, and all the data is collected in handy tables that can then easily be extracted out of the site again for your own purposes.”

I’ll be very keen to see how this grows and develops!

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 this week was the announcement of the next Warhammer: The Old World novel, Blood of the Bastion by Evan Dicken (Shade of Khaine, First Marshal). For those less familiar with the fantasy side of things, the Old World setting reflects the original Warhammer Fantasy world before it was blown up in 2014-15 and replaced with Age of Sigmar.

In the hearts of fans, though, it never really went away. The End Times transition was far from universally beloved, and a confluence of factors managed to bring The Old World setting back to life, including:

• Persistent, unmet fan demand, which saw a noticeable exodus for other game systems like Kings of War rather than just ‘funneling in’ to Age of Sigmar

• Video games like Total War and Vermintide kept the setting feeling active and contemporary

• The success of 2012’s Horus Heresy tabletop game showed that parallel properties and systems were viable

• New executive leadership in 2015 took a broader approach to the hobby and was open to a return in some form

These ingredients simmered and cooked, leading to this in 2024:

The same year saw Graham McNeill’s Lords of the Lance, which even received a Special Edition release. “Middle-Earth got to me first,” noted McNeill in the Special Edition’s introduction, “but it was the black humour and grim fatalism of Warhammer that really tickled the inside of my brain. The Old World has always felt dangerous to me in a way most fantasy universes seldom did (at least until Game of Thrones).

“When news reached me on America’s far shores that the return of Warhammer had been heralded by a twin-tailed comet in the skies over Nottingham, it wasn’t even a question if I’d want to write a novel set in the reborn Old World.”

In an interview at the time on the mothership, McNeill was effusive in his desire to keep writing for the setting, but alas nothing more seemed to materialize.

Until now, that is.

The announcement of Dicken’s upcoming tale was exciting not only for Old World fans, but also for those of the Cathay setting.

As per usual with the teaser pieces there’s no hint of a timeline, but I’m delighted to see that this, too, will be offered in a deluxe edition.

Aside from the reveal, all was quiet in the Sunday Preview yesterday. Enjoy the Wallet Appreciation Week (unless you’re a fan of Ogors).

Departures

Another week with a nice stream of releases into the physical world as the Deathwatch Special Editions have dropped. Steve Parker’s novel got a wonderful deluxe treatment here, and reports have even come in that a few have found their way back to the website for ordering by a lucky few.

Nate Crowley’s Illustrated and Annotated Edition of Prophet of the Waaagh! also arrived, as well as the standard hardcover edition of Bjorn, the Fell-Handed by Justin D. Hill and Andy Clark’s Demolisher in paperback.

Black Library App Sales for September

You know what else turning of the month means? A new slate of sales on the Black Library app! As a reminder, this is a new (and 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 (typically 50% off the eBook, 66% off the audio).

For September, the following are on sale:

• Anvils of the Heldenhammer, by Dale Lucas (audio, ebook)

• Blood of Asaheim, by Chris Wraight (audio, ebook)

• Brutal Kunnin, by Mike Brooks (audio, ebook)

• Callis and Toll, by David Annandale (audio, ebook)

• Dante, by Guy Haley (audio, ebook)

• Dead Men Walking, by Steve Lyons (audio, ebook)

• Soul Hunter, by Aaron Dembski-Bowden (audio, ebook)

• Yndrasta: The Celestial Spear, by Noah Van Nguyen (audio, ebook)

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• As a Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame weekend, in addition to the main feature on Tabletop Battles there was also the regular companion piece, The Hall Monitor. This week I talked about the glut of books we’re seeing in the Black Library istarting in 2016, and how that reflected a change in Games Workshop’s corporate priorities.

• For Wednesday’s article, we rolled out a new companion feature to the Scribes & Scriveners show on WarhammerTV. The Writer Files will not only recap their interview on that show, but look at their body of work overall. We kicked things off with Marc Collins (Krakenblood, Grim Repast).

• Finally, Friday’s Warhammer RPG Weekly looked at the exciting debut of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay’s 5th Edition from Cubicle 7 Games!

Tabletop Battles

• Four books were inducted into the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame this week from the Class of 2016! The Heresy came up big, but Age of Sigmar got some love as well!

Warhammer Community

• The Pages from the Black Books series dove into the Sisters of Silence this week with the free download from 2014’s The Horus Heresy Book Three: Extermination.

• For those who (like me) enjoy decorating their libraries with coins and miniatures, you won’t want to miss seeing what September’s monthly offerings are.

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• No Black Library content this week, but it’s likely no coincidence with this week’s book reveal that Loremasters will be dropping an episode on Grand Cathay this week!

Around the Webway

• The Oldhammer Fiction Podcast was looking at Games Workshop’s tie-in novels for their Dark Future property, which has at least a kind of tangential overlap to the worlds of 40K in spirit if not in actual lore.

• Mira Manga sat down for a terrific hour with Dan Abnett, chatting about all things Hive5! Not only that, but the book was also the subject this week of her Warhammer Book Club review with Arbitor Ian!

• Wargaming site Miniature Realms covers a lot of The Old World tabletop content, but was very pleased to see the announcement of the upcoming Cathay novel this week!

• I often spotlight It Always Rains in Nuln for my Warhammer RPG Weekly column (like this one, but on Fridays), but this week they posted a take on The End Times that talks about the whole narrative event, including touching on the Black Library books of the time. It’s highly editorial, but I certainly enjoyed the read (and understand the frustration!).

• Finally, while it’s not directly Black Library related, there was a terrific piece on Substack this week by Mark Newheiser about whether it’s better to read books in publication order or in-story “chronological” order. The writer makes a strong case for the former for reasons I’ve myself long held, and with Horus Heresy reading order discussions being a frequent topic it’s well worth considering.

Cold Open Stories

• This week’s featured story is New Moon, by Daniel Summerbell. “With the New Moon comes the sound of sirens, the harbinger of dread. The radio may have gone silent, but Joshua stands ready, together with the people of his village, his battered old rifle, and his faith in the Emperor, to face whatever it is that is coming their way.”

Quick Hits

• Speaking of Justin D. Hill (Hell’s Last, Bjorn the Fell-Handed), he’ll also be contributing to an anthology marking the Battle of Stamford Bridge in 1066 coming out later this month. It also will feature work by Matthew Harffy (The Whispering Blade).

• Tim Waggoner (Skin Man) appeared on the Methods of Fiction podcast this week, discussing how to write effective horror fiction. As a Bram Stoker Award winner, Wagoner certainly has a few things to share on that front.

• Gav Thorpe (The Wolftime, 13th Legion) shared that he’d found a box of Warhammer audio drama CD’s in his storage and has put them up on eBay to find them new homes. If you’re missing a few from your collection, make sure ot check it out!

• James Swallow (The Flight of the Eisenstein, Deus Encarmine) appeared on The Randomizer podcast this week, discussing the upcoming Thunderbirds anthology International Rescues that he’s a contributor on.

• Finally, it was the most recent Black Library royalties day this past week. Josh Reynolds (Shadespire: The Mirrored City, Lukas the Trickster) once again posted a small summary of how he did. Since this isn’t the kind of thing you can ever expect to get transparency on, it’s great that he’s continued to do this.

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

• Helbrecht: Sin of Hope, by Mike Vincent

• Cold Covenant, by Peter Fehervari

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• Raldoron: Revenant, by Guy Haley (hardcover, Special Edition, 9/12)

• Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom, by Marc Collins (hardcover, Special Edition, 9/19)

• Voice of Command, by Richard Swan (hardcover, 9/19)

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

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

• Auxilia, by Russell Zimmerman (paperback, 10/206)

• 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!

Hey folks! You might have noticed this week’s column has dropped significantly later in the day than usual. Between the drive back and an all-day hockey tournament for three of my kids yesterday, writing time was unusually scarce. Normal broadcast service is expected to resume next week, thanks for your patience!

This past Thursday, my wife and I bid a farewell to Texas. We’d been in Houston the better part of two weeks this time around, just the two of us. With our five kids back home in school, my mother kindly came down from Connecticut to quarterback things there. We hadn’t intended to be there so long; initially it was just for the third round of chemotherapy in her clinical trial, but when they noticed the cancer was spreading to her bones they recommended we start another round of radiation therapy immediately1.

The final rug-pull came at the tail end of our stay, when we were advised that she was being removed from MD Anderson’s clinical trial. The results weren’t what we were all hoping for, and their recommendation was that she seek hospice care and prepare for end of life surrounded by family and loved ones.

Knowing it was the last time we’d be in Texas, we took a small detour on the way home and checked out the Warhammer Store & Cafe in Grapevine.

Heard it Through the Grapevine

The store is Games Workshop’s flagship location in North America, closer in many ways to Warhammer World in Nottingham than the small Warhammer stores most of us are more familiar with2.

Here are a few of the things I noticed from my long-awaited visit.

It’s Smaller on the Inside

The first thing that really surprised me is how much smaller it was than I expected. I’m not sure what I’d built up in my head, but in terms of square footage its only about the equivalent of four or five of the standard retail stores. That sounds like a lot- and it is- but about half of it is taken up by playing space.

They Have (Almost) Everything

That said, they have a ton of product. It felt like they had at least one of everything currently available for retail, as well as lots of things that are typically website-only such as the resin Primarch kits, Forge World goodies, and Limited/Special Editions of Black Library books.

One of the things I was delighted to pick up was the 30th anniversary reprinting of the original Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader rulebook. I’d understood that these were exclusive to Warhammer World (and a wide-release print on demand in 2023), so finding them here in the wild was an unexpected treat.

It’s a Museum!

Under ordinary circumstances I could have spent the day there taking it all in. Multiple glass cases containing so much of the history and lore of the game. Dioramas, replica displays, statuary… and on the walls throughout the store were mounted some of the different model boxes throughout the years, labeled to indicate when it was released.

Here, too, the feeling lingered that this should be bigger. More shelves! More displays! More history! I know that retail realities mean that square footage needs to be earning its own keep, but a fella can dream, right?

Note in that first picture the Limited Edition of Robert Rath’s Fall of Cadia, too. You love to see it!

Books Need More Love

In the above photos is the entirely of the Black Library stock. Considering that about half of each bookshelf is taken up with non-Black Library product, this is about the same amount of available product as my local Warhammer store. That seems a touch light, but again retail realities rule the roost. There are only so many books that are in print at a given time, and if they have most or all of them available what more could I ask?

Don’t be fooled by the seemingly impressive stock of deluxe editions- almost all of these were copies of just one book, Danie Ware’s Aestred Thurga: Pyre of Faith.

The third picture is a display that showcased the Black Library books. Thus far when I’ve noted how the store fell short of my hopes, they’ve been relatively fanciful things (more square footage, more museum displays, more books). This, however, is the one thing in an otherwise wonderful experience that I took issue with. These books deserve more love than they’re being shown here. For starters:

• Center the books attractively. This looks disordered.

• Print out the back-of-book summary for each book in the display. Use a simple laminate or thicker stock for rigidity, then cut cleanly and display next to each book like they do in museums.

• Stick a couple miniatures in there next to the relevant books. Put an Orikan, the Diviner box next to The Wicked and the Warped, for example (a box of five Praetorians might be a little too large for Tomb World here). Tie the paper to the plastic for the consumer.

There’s a Cafe

It’s a long drive back to Kentucky, so while we were tempted to enjoy some delights from the Cafe in the interests of expediency we took a raincheck. Still, I love the theming here and it’s too awesome not to share. Huge kudos to the chalk artist(s) who made this signage look amazing. Pity the pastries got lost in the Warp.

And finally, in answer to the question everyone wants to know but is afraid to ask…

Yes, Even the Bathroom is Themed

Stand at the men’s urinal and look slightly up, and this life-sized happy chappy is greeting you with an exhortation from the Litany of… ahem… Accuracy3.

Thanks to the staff at the store for making us feel welcome and right at home. It was a wonderful detour to break up the long trek, and a much-needed bit of joy to carry with us.

Commemorative Modeling

I’ve often talked about how I like to visit Warhammer or gaming stores in my travels and pick up a miniature as a little souvenir of my trip. Throughout my home office and Museum are a number of such displays, small figures of plastic that carry an extra bit of sentimental resonance. Most of them sweet, such as the Clan Rats my youngest daughter has loved building with me… others significant in a different way, like the Catachan Colonel I picked up on the day I found out I’d been laid off of my 20-year career last May.

I recall too the first time I was inspired to make a model diorama, after I’d read Jude Reid’s Morvenn Vahl: Spear of Faith. Vahl on the one side, the kickass two-headed Heldrake on the other. Of course, it’s a reach that well exceeds my kitbashing grasp, but my wife quietly held onto that (for almost a year!) and last Christmas I found two Heldrake kits under the tree.

Warhammer has been in so many ways my own place of refuge during my wife’s cancer battle over the last couple of years. I can get lost in a book or building a mini at my desk for a few minutes here and there when I need a little distraction or time to re-center, and she’s always been very supportive.

As I walked the Grapevine store’s huge inventory on Friday, I didn’t know what I wanted to get to commemorate my visit. I just knew that I felt moved to pick up one model, one I wouldn’t build right away. Perhaps, God willing, one I’d never have to build at all. But one that- if that awful day arrived as it may well do soon- I’d allow myself to get lost in some evening after the kids were all in bed and my heart was especially heavy.

With the little energy she had expended and her resting in the car, I soon found it.

For now, may the dust it gathers be abundant.

The Raldoron Reschedule

Some interesting news this week on the books front, with Games Workshop springing a surprise change on us for the Special Edition release of Guy Haley’s Raldoron: Revenant.

Rather than being offered as originally scheduled this past Saturday with the other preorders, the preorder window for the Special Edition only was moved to this coming Wednesday at 3pm BST (that’s 10am EST for me). This is a global window, so wherever you are in the world that’s when you’ll hear the crack of the starter’s pistol.

While this isn’t entirely unprecedented- you may recall that Era of Ruin had a similar, special preorder window in June of 2025, it’s certainly curious for a couple of reasons.

First, with no slight intended to Mr. Haley, Raldoron: Revenant is merely part of the Horus Heresy’s Character series rather than the mainline Siege of Terra book that Era of Ruin is. Special Editions of Character series books have generally seen demand somewhat lower than the absolute frenzy mainline Horus Heresy/Siege of Terra books have commanded.

Second, the Black Library turned right around and announced it would be doing the same for Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom. Same day of the week, same start time, just one week later. Whether this is a temporary measure or the sign of things to come, I can only turn to the late, great Sir Ian Fleming:

As you’d expect, the change hasn’t been universally embraced by the Black Library community, with concerns raised including:

• Dismay around the inconvenient timing of the window.

• The need for some purchasers to have to go through two preorders in a week to get everything they want, rather than just the one.

• The standard edition being offered before the Special Edition. For those who have been in the habit of buying a standard hardcover only if they weren’t able to secure a deluxe edition, now they may have to spend more to ensure they at least get one copy of the novel.

These are valid concerns, though there were some opinions in the other direction as well including:

• The new preorder window actually being more convenient for some than before.

• The hope that this will help ensure greater platform stability for the many Warhammer fans not always interested in the deluxe edition Black Library offerings.

• The appreciation that Games Workshop is at least taking some action to help the public’s buying experience, rather than just adopting that ‘classic definition of insanity’ of doing the same thing every week and hoping for different results.

While I’m not personally adversely affected by the change4, I do have two concerns about this apparent new policy.

First, it’s only treating the symptom. This isn’t a product scheduling issue, it’s an ecommerce architectural one. Despite having a revenue and customer base other companies would kill for, Games Workshop has a longstanding habit of adopting fairly miserly technological solutions. One need only look at the transition to the Black Library app for evidence that robust, full-featured enterprise solutions aren’t the ones that appear to be getting greenlit by the C-suite in Nottingham.

Second, it’s another messaging fail. This one really boggles the mind sometimes, because corporate messaging is not only vital but generally easier to get right than to screw up. Repeated, last-moment changes in product release strategies suggest a lack of competence and/or coordination on the part of the planning team, and while the community would never be fully happy with their cheese being moved when it comes to preordering, a longer lead time to adjust and shape the messaging was likely there.

People wouldn’t automatically celebrate a message that noted, “starting in 2027 we will be having special preorder windows for deluxe Warhammer goods in order to balance demand,” but they’d certainly appreciate having time to adjust. And c’mon, being realistic you could squeeze some additional goodwill even out of that by adding, “…as well as address community concerns around multi-ordering and ‘scalper bot’ behaviors, ensuring everyone has a better chance of getting the products they want on the day of offer.”

There you go, James Workshop, the fruit of my MBA degree offered to you, free of change. Messaging is an opportunity to shape consumer expectation, and a failure to do so suggests- whether with a basis in truth or otherwise- that consumer expectation is not a priority.

I know the more cynical and jaded amongst us will disagree, but I genuinely believe that it is. Game companies have traditionally been a bit more susceptible to being steered by product experts rather than businesspeople. This is occasionally useful, such as in the case (I would argue) of pre-HASBRO Wizards of the Coast. More often, though, it’s closer to the late, great (pre-Wizards of the Coast) Tactical Studies Rules (TSR).

So it’s not that I think that Games Workshop holds its customers in contempt. Rather, I think it’s more the case that they just don’t always know how to effectively show us the opposite.

Good messaging, James, is a fantastic place to start5.

Turning Over a New Leak (Redux)

Last week you might recall we highlighted a listing on Vinted for an apparent leaked copy of James Swallow’s Flight of the Eisenstein, as part of the Horus Heresy Saga reissues. We’ve had a second such sighting in the wild, this time a completed eBay auction. Full credit to eagle-eyed Calum Mills in the Black Library Nutters Facebook Group for the catch, it’s uncertain if this represents a second, unrelated listing or simply the Vinted purchaser (who paid just £3 for it) flipping it for immediate profit.

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

There’s plenty to talk about here this week, with another trio of new novels teased on Warhammer Community! I’d just gotten used to these dropping on Wednesdays when last week the piece came on a Thursday. Guess it’s not as predictable as I’d thought, but new book teasers are always welcome! First, let’s see what’s going up for preorder this Saturday.

We’d had a little warning in the community about this one coming, but thrilled to see it drop so soon. Richard Swan has penned a number of short stories for the Black Library, including Ash and Steel and Tears of Raphaela, and now makes his novel debut. Interestingly, this one appears to be in hardcover despite the Astra Militarum Novel series being first-release in softcover, and goes up for preorder this Saturday.

Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom by Marc Collins has arrived, hot on the heels of his recent appearance on Scribes & Scriveners on WarhammerTV. This arrives in standard hardcover, and will preorder as normal this coming Saturday.

On the other hand, as noted earlier the Special Edition of the book- and my word they’ve outdone themselves on the design of this one- will be offered in a special preorder window the following Wednesday, 09 September at 3pm BST.

Next, here are the two from Warhammer Community’s article on Thursday (the third one was Voice of Command, but that went straight from teaser to preorder in nearly the same breath.)

First up is the newest from Dark Coil author and Black Library Readers’ Hall-of-Famer Peter Fehervari (Fire Caste, Genestealer Cults), Cold Covenant!

Finally, we see another novel debut coming this time from Russell Zimmerman, with Auxilia. Zimmerman was a two-time winner in 2025’s Goonhammer Book Awards, for Best Black Library Debutant6 (for his Death Guard story Seven Ships) as well as Best IP Tie-In Novel (non-GW)7 for BattleTech’s Violent Inception.

Finally for those abroad (or who just like to practice their language skills), The Relentless Dead by Steve Lyons will be available in both German and French, and Apostle by David Annandale will be released in French as well.

Departures

Plenty of stuff now available to buy in the bookstores this week! The latest in the Horus Heresy Saga, Ben Counter’s Galaxy In Flames, released in both Special Edition and regular hardcover, while False Gods by Graham McNeill came out in Saga paperback.

For the fantasy side of things, Blood of the Godeater by Noah Van Nguyen dropped in standard hardcover, while the newest collection, Witch Hunters: The Omnibus, by Nick Horth and Richard Strachan will keep readers busy for some time to come!

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• So this isn’t the first time I’ve written about last week’s visit to the Grapevine store. I had a few more observations from a role-playing game perspective in last week’s Warhammer RPG Weekly.

• For the Wednesday feature, Audio Impressions was revisiting the world that was, taking on the second book in the Malus Darkblade series, Dan Abnett and Mike Lee’s Bloodstorm.

Tabletop Battles

• No Lore Friday this week- I’m still playing catch-up on my reading- but Lynn had a fantastic BattleTech introductory lore primer I’d definitely recommend to anyone curious about the setting or (like me) looking to catch up after years away.

Warhammer Community

• The Pages from the Black Books series was a big one last week, with a “bumper-size” treatise on the ‘Hidden War’ between the Imperium and daemonic manifestations of the Warp. Fascinating!

• In case you missed it when it was announced, there was also a reminder piece this week about the changes to the Warhammer+ subscription, including getting two miniatures as well as a yearbook.

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• Scribes & Scriveners is back! Following the recent interview with Marc Collins (Krakenblood, Eidolon: The Auric Hammer), they’re sitting down with Mike Vincent (The Remnant Blade, Helbrecht: Sin of Hope) in tomorrow’s episode.

Around the Webway

• Arbitor Ian and Mira Manga are back with the latest episode of their Book Club! This time around, they’re taking a look at Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Day of Ascension.

• Meanwhile, Jen and Keri of the WH40K Book Club checked out Justin Woolley’s Da Freebooterz Code, with a special nod of appreciation to Harry Myers for his audiobook narration. “No one brings voice to the orks like this guy.”

• The Fluffenhammer gang tried something a little different this week. They regularly do deep dives into Warhammer Monthly, but this time it’s a look at Marvel’s Marneus Calgar comic!

• Hachette has launched its newest subscription Warhammer magazine, this one for the Age of Sigmar. Spearhead follows in the footsteps of Warhammer 40K’s Combat Patrol, offering four issues a month with loads of miniatures, lore, and even stories at a not inconsiderable discount from the usual retail price for the models.

• Finally, over at my local watering hole r/BlackLibrary, u/Own_SD conducted a reader poll pulse-check to see what the top frustration was for the subreddit’s many residents regarding the Black Library. Would you be surprised to learn it was scalpers? Anyone?

Cold Open Stories

• This week’s featured story is The Last of Vireshan, by Alexander Hamilton. “Ashur is the last of his line, clinging on by a thread to the life he once has, and the Imperium he once served. But the Heresy has blurred the boundaries between alliances and factions, and in its ragged aftermath, dogma burns away whatever mercy might have existed before. Clarity is now found in the barrel of a gun.”

Quick Hits

• Here’s this week’s feelgood story from around the Black Library world. David Annandale (The Pyres of Armageddon, Apostle) attended the store anniversary celebration at the Warhammer store in Winnipeg, and in appreciation for all his support over the years the store made a special Commissar Yarrick desk display for him. This checks all my boxes, from the blending of plastic miniatures with the metal coins for display, right down to celebrating a Black Library author. Bravo, Winnipeg!

• Pour one out for BlackLibrary.com; the often frustrating but always indispensable website goes forever dark tomorrow, having been replaced by the Black Library App. Farewell, sweet prince, so long and thanks for all the fish!

• The subject of whether or not a writer is well-served by reading the reviews of their books is one that comes up regularly. Here’s a wonderfully candid take from Justin D. Hill (Hell’s Last, Storm of Damocles) on what he’s seeing come back for his latest, Bjorn, the Fell-Handed.

• Anna Stephens (Gothgull Hollow, Trisethni the Unseen) has a new fantasy romance novel releasing this October, The Sport of Wings. “Ogawa Ryota, disgraced son of the famous Scarlet Triple dragon-racing stable, has one year to prove he can make it on his own. Keaton Merriwether, petty criminal and illegal night-race jockey, has only ever wanted to race dragons, any way she can. Together, they make up the sport’s newest, smallest stable, determined to take on the competition’s greatest dragons and wealthiest owners.” Check out her latest piece for the cover reveal as well as the book’s opening chapter!

• Andi Ewington (Da Red Gobbo’s Last Stand, Fire and Fungi) was delighted to share that his story, Amok, will be the cover story for the next issue of 2000AD magazine. Congrats, Andi!

• Carrie Harris (A Forbidden Meal, The Strength of Symbols) has written a short story for the Zeo Genesis game, Hound of Fortune. A futuristic, sci-fi skirmish game, Zeo Genesis counts Warhammer notables such as Andy Law (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 4th Edition Rulebook, Ubersreik Adventures) and Black Library Readers’ Hall-of-Famer Gav Thorpe (Kill Team, Luther: First of the Fallen) amongst its editorial team.

• Humble Bundle has a massive drop of Warmachine fiction on offer, called “Tales from the Iron Kingdoms.” There are some familiar names amongst the long list of authors, including Richard Lee Byers (The Enemy Within), Matt Forbeck (Sudden Death, Blood Bowl), Hall-of-Famer C. L. Werner (Grey Seer, Blood Money), and Dave Gross (Mourning in Rainhollow). Benefiting the charity Child’s Play, it’s available for one more week!

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

• Helbrecht: Sin of Hope, by Mike Vincent

• Cold Covenant, by Peter Fehervari

• Auxilia, by Russell Zimmerman

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• Deathwatch, by Steve Parker (Special Edition, 9/5)

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Nate Crowley (9/5)

• Bjorn, the Fell-handed, by Justin D. Hill (hardcover, 9/5)

• Demolisher, by Andy Clark (paperback, 9/5)

• Raldoron: Revenant, by Guy Haley (hardcover, Special Edition, 9/12)

• Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom, by Marc Collins (hardcover, Special Edition, 9/198)

• Voice of Command, by Richard Swan (hardcover, 9/19)

• 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!

If your mind went right to picnic baskets with that title, I won’t blame you, but today’s theme has more to do with baseball than Jellystone Park1. For the many of us who braved the topsy-turvy weekend in the Wild West that is the Games Workshop preordering bonanza, the wit of famed New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra that best summed it up.

“It’s like déjà vu, all over again.”

Once more, website issues reportedly made chasing this week’s most sought-after prize, the Special Edition of Steve Parker’s Deathwatch, an experience as soothing and tranquil as a caress from the butcher’s nails. Here’s a sampling from the Preorder Megathread over on the Black Library subreddit:

And finally, in the “laugh to keep from crying” department:

Déjà Vu about Déjà Vu?

Given the reported errors, it was clear that this went beyond just the usual frustration of demand well outstripping supply. It reminded me of what happened last June, when it seemed a website functionality upgrade (the addition of a ‘carousel’ to suggest additional products at check-out) ended up breaking the site altogether.

I can’t say for certain, but I also believe that the checkout screens looked different this week. Instead of one checkout screen for all the information (payment, shipping), I was first taken to a shipping screen and then to another to tender payment. The move between the two was instantaneous- clicking through to pay instantly loaded my pay details, it wasn’t having to pause for another data load- but it’s hard to attribute to coincidence when website functionality is changed and a large segment of users report issues.

Once again, by the time the preorder window arrived at our charmed shores here in the US, the issues appeared to have been worked out. I had no problems ordering Deathwatch at 11:57pm2, then once that order completed I went back and ordered a copy of the Illustrated and Annotated Edition of Prophet of the Waaagh!, by Nate Crowley3.

And then, once that one was all done on a lark I went back and put in an order for a second copy of Deathwatch. I’ve wondered for a long time whether or not Games Workshop polices quantity ordering. It doesn’t seem they do, since we often see scalpers with seemingly absurd quantities of chase items on eBay, but then I’ve also heard stories of people’s orders being canceled. I’m not sure what possessed me to roll the dice on Deathwatch, but roll them I did4.

KLight, who for the past couple weeks has been my “eyes on the ground” for ordering over in Europe, reported some improvement this week from the one before. “So today is 22nd of August and I’m here to inform you that on the preorder day for Deathwatch Special Edition, the site stopped working again. It’s two weeks back-to-back. After 23 minutes, things seem to be working again. At least I got my order and I'm seeing people saying they are getting theirs.”

Here’s how he described last week’s struggle5, when the Premium Edition of Galaxy in Flames was on offer:

As I noted last week, the best we can do in the now is hope for a fix. There’s still plenty of the Horus Heresy Saga to go, and if you think that’s crazy wait ‘til Abnett gets to release the third novel in the Bequin trilogy.

Now that will be pandaemonium!

Quick on the Trigger

Ever wish you had a personal bounty hunter working to help you build your Black Library collection?

When I was in heavy active acquisition mode, I quickly learned that eBay’s alerts were fairly useless for things you were aggressively chasing. By the time it got around to letting you know that a copy of the Night Lords Boxed Set had gone up for sale, chances are (if the price was good) that it was already long gone. You snooze, you lose pal!

There are other services and apps that can give you more timely alerts, and for awhile I used one called eFerret. It was definitely better for notifications than eBay, but as I recall it maxxed you out at five active searches (you could set more, but you’d get notified at the end of the day for those).

This week on Reddit a user named u/Jamiemufu shared a project he’d been working on called Shelfkeepr. “This is not AI slop,” he made sure to note, “I am software engineer with 12 years experience, got made redundant6 - so I’m working on this while looking for my next job.”

Shelfkeepr acts as that personal bounty hunter on eBay. You tell it what you’re after and what the most you’re willing to pay for it, and it will alert you as soon as it detects a copy. It’s still in beta, so don’t expect everything to be completely polished yet, but it seems quite promising!

Turning Over a New Leak?

Meanwhile on Vinted, a sharp-eyed u/korvenus spotted something rather unusual that had sold for the princely sum of… three pounds?

If appearances are to be believed, it seems an unreleased paperback copy of James Swallow’s Flight of the Eisenstein (Horus Heresy Saga edition) has somehow made its way into the world. As we all know, the warp plays havoc with time, and this one hasn’t even been announced yet, let alone released.

The art is certainly interesting, because it’s not anything that appears to have been used before. That means we should know soon whether this was a cunning forgery7 or the real deal once Flight’s upcoming release is announced. Given that the paperback of Ben Counter’s Galaxy in Flames hasn’t even been offered yet puts this potential early copy out with quite the head start.

Let’s Make a Deal

So from bargain hunting on eBay to a bargain from the future on Vinted, we’ve got one more from Reddit to spotlight. A redditor named u/mr_mango has created a subreddit dedicated to finding bargains on Warhammer. Called r/DealHammer, he simply posts regular links to on-sale minis he’s found online. That’s it, the whole thing. Reddit threads with links to sales.

Hey, it’s an expensive hobby, and I’m a huge proponent of ‘decorating paper with plastic’ in the home library or museum. If you can save a few bucks here and there, why not, right?

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

Another Wednesday, (yet) another new Black Library teaser8. The mothership posted a short interview with Mike Vincent (The Remnant Blade, Blades of Atrocity) this week, teasing his upcoming novel Helbrecht: Sin of Hope. I thought it was interesting how much the Black Library was spotlighting Helbrecht when talking to Marc Collins on WarhammerTV’s Scribes and Scriveners last week, and while it might just be coincidence ‘top of mind awareness’ is a thing.

Meanwhile, Raldoron: Revenant finally will be up for preorder this Saturday, in both a lovely Special Edition as well as standard hardcover. The latest from Guy Haley, this sees Raldoron of the Blood Angels playing drill sergeant for a group of untested inductees!

Departures

Leaving to land on our bookshelves this week was the Special Edition of Bjorn the Fell-Handed, the latest from Justin D. Hill. The standard hardcover isn’t far behind, but this week it was just the one.

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• As a Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame weekend, in addition to the announcement of the latest class of inductees there was also a new installment of The Hall Monitor. The “behind-the-scenes director’s commentary” of the whole project, this time I talked about the possible role of novellas, anthologies, and short stories in the Hall.

• For the Wednesday feature, Audio Impressions was back with a review of the audiobook for Graham McNeill’s The Outcast Dead, narrated by Jonathan Keeble.

• Finally, for Warhammer RPG Weekly (basically the same as this article each week, but for role-playing games), I looked at concerns around the health of the hobby segment, and Warhammer’s RPG presence.

Tabletop Battles

• Four novels were inducted this week into the Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame, and it’s always a little extra exciting when authors get in for the first time. This week we had two new faces- and both named David!

• If you’ve ever wondered what Black Library writers get up to when they aren’t playing in the Warhammer sandbox, then my occasional series Beyond the Black Library is for you! This week I reviewed the new, original fantasy novel from John Sollitto (Rok Crackers, The Redoubt).

• Not Warhammer related, but robosquidd wrote a love letter to Netrunner, one of my favorite TCG’s of all time. Well worth a read!

Warhammer Community

• The mothership did a useful piece on what’s inside the new, 11th Edition Codexes, starting with the Orks. For me, the lower price point (thanks to the softcover printing) and expanded lore content makes these day-one buys for the first time since… ever?

• The Pages from the Black Books series seems to be flying under the radar for many, and it shouldn’t. It’s terrific content that’s long been difficult to get, and now we’re getting chunks for free each week. This time around it’s the Warp Cults during the Age of Darkness, make sure to check it out!

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• The Black Library Book Club returns this week, with a discussion on Chris Wraight’s Ashes of the Imperium. Hopefully a new Scouring announcement soon…?

Around the Webway

• The Fluffenhammer gang has been reviewing the old Warhammer Monthly comics one issue at a time, and this week they looked at #31 in the episode “Gordon Rennie MVP.”

• Cinderfall Gaming, meanwhile, has been working through the catalogue of Warhammer Adventures, the book series aimed at younger readers (but surprisingly readable for us grown-ups). This week he reviewed Tom Huddleston’s Battle for the Soulspring.

• At Boundary’s Edge reviewed Chem Dogs, by Callum Davis, awarding it four out of five stars!

• Meanwhile here on Substack, Thomas Rawlins of Exploring Warhammer wrote a terrific piece examining the parallels between Dark Future and Rogue Trader. For you Warhammer history nerds like me, this was a real treat!

Cold Open Stories

• This week’s featured story is Home Sickness, by friend of the Wordforge, Joyce Chng. “Lethia has a new pet. It is an odd thing, not like a normal pet. But its hers, and in the hive, where life is harsh and grinding, happiness has to be taken where it is found. But when danger comes to the hive, even that small slice of normality is threatened”

Quick Hits

• The latest novel from Amanda' Bridgeman (Paragon of Faith, Reconsecration) arrived this week. A near-future sci-fi thriller of a tale, The Survivalist is the third installment in her Salvation series!

• James Swallow (Nemesis, Fear to Tread) may be a Black Library Readers’ Hall of Famer, but did you know he’s also done some video game work? He was part of the writing team for the Deus Ex franchise, and in a blog post written this week he looks back at that experience.

• Paul Kane (Triggers) has a new anthology he’s co-edited with Marie O’Regan, Land of Oz, that’s now up for preorder. With two of the contributors being Black Library writers, Adrian Tchaikovsky (Day of Ascension, Starseer’s Ruin) and Stark Holborn (Nightfall on Stygies), you can find it here on Amazon9.

• Speaking of Tchaikovsky, he’s got a new book coming up called The Eighth Face. It’s just had a cover reveal, and he describes it as having “creepy clone monks living in a crashed-spaceship monastery, horrible things from the sea, a past revealed in things cast up by the tide...”

• Coming from Ignition Press this November is a “hallucinogenic and brutal retelling of the oldest Arthurian tale of all,” Rampant Swine. Written by Si Spurrier (Lord of the Night, Fire Warrior), and you can find a preview of it here.

• Finally, congratulations to Gareth Hanrahan (Castle of the Exile, Grit in the Wheels), whose latest project, the cozy fantasy mystery RPG the Merryshire Detective Club, finished its crowdfunding run at double the target goal!

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

• Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom, by Marc Collins

• Voice of Command, by Richard Swan

• Helbrecht: Sin of Hope, by Mike Vincent

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• Galaxy In Flames, by Ben Counter (Premium Edition, hardcover, 8/29)

• False Gods, by Graham McNeill (paperback, 8/29)

• Blood of the Godeater, by Noah Van Nguyen (hardcover, 8/29)

• Witch Hunters: The Omnibus, by Nick Horth and Richard Strachan (paperback, 8/29)

• Deathwatch, by Steve Parker (Special Edition, 9/5)

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Nate Crowley (9/5)

• Bjorn, the Fell-handed, by Justin D. Hill (hardcover, 9/5)

• Demolisher, by Andy Clark (paperback, 9/5)

• Raldoron: Revenant, by Guy Haley (hardcover, Special Edition, 9/12)

• 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!

“No problem,” I’d thought, “there will be plenty of time to get in some writing early Monday and get it out the door.” Ha! I refer the reader to the title of this week’s piece, a Yiddish idiom that means “man plans, and God laughs.”

Being able to write productively here at the hospital means finding the right combination of flat surfaces and electrical outlets, the pairing of which is surprisingly uncommon and often hotly contested. Shortly after her early morning blood draw, I found one and managed to get set up and working. Bingo, here we go! Alas, not half an hour later we were called back down for another round of blood draws due to a clotting issue with the first round.

Once things settled back down, I was eventually able to secure another workspace. Ten minutes later… fire alarm.

It’s been that kind of day.

Of course, the show must go on and eventually I’ll have typed the last word of this week’s column, given it the ol’ once-over1, and sent it out into the world. Ahh, the carefree life of the writer!

In reality, though, life’s a messy thing. We get to read our books when they’re published, but all writers have endured life’s many trials while pushing forward to get their words into being. Dan Abnett had a serious health scare when writing Prospero Burns (discussed here), for instance. And I can think of more than one Black Library author who struggled with grief over the loss of a parent or loved one in the course of writing a book.

Life, the good and the bad, happens at its own pace and on its own timetable. Not ours.

So here’s to all the writers, who find and make the time to commit the fruits of their passions and imaginings to the page. And to all the readers, who might forgive yer man in Houston a small delay on a Monday.

Now, let’s talk some books!

Scalpers Gonna Scalp

It was nice for awhile, not talking about scalpers, wasn’t it? Of course, opportunity never sleeps as they say, and where there’s a chance to make a quick buck off the skin of others any respite will prove very short-lived indeed.

Predictably enough, last Saturday’s offering of Ben Counter’s Galaxy in Flames was chum in the water for the opportunist segment. There were also some reports of critical website ordering issues. While many had little problem securing their copy (myself included), for others it was a decidedly less enjoyable experience.

Interestingly, some regions experienced a second window of opportunity as stock returned several hours later. Sharp-eyed readers discovered Galaxy in Flames was back in and let the community know, proving once again the value of participating in places like the Nutters on Facebook and the Black Library Subreddit.

I’m glad to report that this enabled our friend Max Brown here to get his copy, ensuring that- at least for today- his question would go unanswered.

Remember, folks, only in death does duty end. If Big E can sit on the Golden Commode for millennia without uttering a single word of complaint, surely we too can persevere…right?

In the meantime, though, we can continue to hope for a fix.

Writers are Fans, Too!

Adrian Tchaikovsky (On the Shoulders of Giants, Starseer’s Ruin)

Adrian unveiled a batch of “springy chaos cultists,” a terrifically-painted box of Kill Team Goremongers. That yellow really pops!

Justin D. Hill (Hell’s Last, The Bookkeeper’s Skull)

Justin showed off his work in progress on a Luna Wolves army. With the release of his Bjorn, the Fell-Handed right around the corner all we can say is, wrong wolves, Justin!

That emblem absolutely pops, though…

Danie Ware (Aestred Thurga: Pyre of Faith, The Triumph of Saint Katherine)

Finally, here’s a look at one of Danie Ware’s paperback bookshelves. “Top one is Warhammer,” she notes, “middle one is a full row of Fighting Fantasy green spines, bottom one is a lot of very, very old Forgotten Realms books.” Everything you need for a year’s worth of rainy days.

Love to see author shelfies, Danie, and thanks to all for sharing!

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

Another week, another new Black Library teaser. Fresh on the heels of Krakenblood, Marc Collins is back with Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom. This latest tale sees Huron having to navigate the treacherous web of diplomacy as the shadow of the Great Devourer falls over his domain. No release date yet, though it would have been a synergistic home run if it had been ready this past February. Still, we’ll take it!

We’ve also got a number of things to look forward to coming up for preorder this week.

Deathwatch, by Steve Parker (Special Edition)

The Sunday Preview was unusually light on details for this one this week, but we can assume deluxe cover treatment and ribbon bookmark at the very least. It’s been a good Summer for author Steve Parker, with his Rynn’s World recently being reissued in a Special Edition format as well.

It’s here! We’ve known this one was coming since last March, but the next installment of the Illustrated and Annotated Edition series is here with Nate Crowley’s Prophet of the Waaagh!. Here’s my look at the last two in this series, For the Emperor by Sandy Mitchell and Robert Rath’s The Infinite and the Divine.

Just two short weeks since the Limited Edition was offered, the standard hardcover is coming up for order. Justin D. Hill’s story features the oldest living Space Marine in existence standing vigil on Fenris and taking on all comers.

Finally, Andy Clark’s Demolisher arrives in paperback! The tank crew is assigned to escort duty for a Commissar on a Chaos-infested world in this sequel to 2021’s Steel Tread.

Departures

This week saw Robert Rath’s Necron duology The Wicked and the Warped arrive, as well as the hardcover reissue of The Infinite and the Divine.

Fans of Age of Sigmar weren’t left out either, with Warhammer Age of Sigmar: The Ultimate Guide from DK Books landing in stores this week as well.

Swan Song

Last June in my review of the anthology World Ablaze, I noted that author Richard Swan (Tears of Raphaela, Blood Harvest) had shared in a Reddit AMA that he had a Black Library novel in the pipeline, with an expected released of this Summer. \

It looks like that day is fast approaching! r/BlackLibrary subredditor u/Hasvik212- the Roboute Guilliman of Black Library publishing data- uncovered what appears to be information on that very novel. Titled Voice of Command, the back-cover blurb reads:

Fandoms can be incredibly persistent at ferreting out info that hasn’t quite been made public yet, since publishers have to prime the media ecosystem in advance for any such releases. That’s why we can sometimes find placeholder listings for unannounced books on Amazon, for instance.

Hasvik212 notes, of course, that this is all unconfirmed, so… big if true?

ICYMI

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

Warhammer Wordforge

• I took a bit of a detour this week with Black Library Bibliophiles, giving a look at the JOYTOY line of Astartes helmets as ways to spruce up a library or collection. Don’t worry, there was plenty of books to talk about too!

• In Warhammer RPG Weekly, I took advantage of a slow news week to talk a bit about the Wordforge’s plans for regular RPG content.

• And finally, speaking of RPG content, I debuted a new regular feature, RPG Conversions! This series will adapt Warhammer lore and stories to the tabletop, and I kicked it off with a couple of Warcry warbands for Cubicle 7’s Soulbound.

Tabletop Battles

• Meanwhile at Tabletop Battles, I reviewed the new Illustrated and Annotated Edition of For the Emperor, by Sandy Mitchell. Another win for an amazing series!

• For you Battletech fans, lynnding-library also reviewed Bryan Young’s These Violent Ends!

Warhammer Community

• Butcher’s Nails, the next Warhammer+ animated series, has seen a slight delay. Rather than this month, it will be releasing in October. Worth the wait? Let’s hope so!

• In the ongoing Pages from the Black Books series, this week saw a look at Horus Lupercal’s early campaigns in the planning stages!

• And of course, there was the aforementioned teaser for the upcoming Huron Blackheart book by Marc Collins here!

WarhammerTV (paywalled)

• Marc Collins (Eidolon: The Auric Hammer, Helbrecht: Knight of the Throne) is appearing on Scribes & Scriveners this week, the Black Library author interview series as we start preparing for the upcoming Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom.

Around the Webway

• New YouTube channel Concilium Historica Imperialis did a deep dive video review on Dead Men Walking, by Steve Lyons.

• Into Orks? Mars Garrett of Bell of Lost Souls published a guide to a number of Ork books and Ork-themed merchandise this week. Treat yourself!

• Jordan Sorcery sat down for an interview with Nicola Griffith (Vespertine, The Voyage South). Nicola’s wrote some of Warhammer Fantasy’s earliest fiction, and this is a real treat!

• Cinderfall Gaming has been rocking the Warhammer Adventures series recently, and they’re back this week with a look at Tom Huddleston’s Fortress of Ghosts. These were the Black Library’s short-lived experiment to aim fiction at a younger audience, and make for interesting reading now.

• The TTP Field Manual Book Club tackled The First Heretic, Aaron Dembski-Bowden’s Black Library Readers’ Hall of Fame novel of the Word Bearers. As an added bonus, they’re reviewing the audiobook version, narrated by Gareth Armstrong (my thoughts here).

• Jen and Keri of the WH40K Book Club reviewed William Crowe’s Veterans of the Fall. “The perfect palate cleanser,” they noted. “It’s exactly what we needed and wanted.”

• In the odd chance BL Readers’ Hall of Famer Josh Reynolds (Lukas the Trickster, Nagash: The Undying King) was having a down week, here’s a terrific appreciation thread that popped up this week on Reddit.

Cold Open Stories

• This week’s featured story is Home Sickness, by Alex Gentem. “After six long years of war, the Guard is finally called home. The initial emotions are myriad, and mixed – relief, astonishment, disbelief that it has happened at last. But once those settle, other things come in their wake. What has changed in their absence? Are the people they left still the same? Are they?”

Quick Hits

• Black Library Readers’ Hall of Famers Dan Abnett (Hive, Interceptor City) and James Swallow (The Flight of the Eisenstein, Nemesis) will be appearing at Monster Mania 2026, which is taking place in Kent on 30 August. Attendees are encouraged to bring memorabilia for them to sign, and Swallow has more details on his site here. He’ll also be appearing in Bexley for An Afternoon With James Swallow this coming Saturday (8/22), so make sure to check it out!

• Gareth Hanrahan (Grit in the Wheels, Rites of Binding) held an AMA on Reddit last week as he promotes his latest novel, The Dungeon Book. It’s “Kipling’s The Jungle Book meets Dungeons & Dragons,” as he describes it2, and he’ll also be doing a book signing at the Cork Waterstones this Saturday!

• Not enough Black Library author appearances, you say? Fine, fine, howabout Gav Thorpe (Kill Team, Luther: First of the Fallen) and Victoria Hayward (Deathworlder, Blood Sands)! On 24 October they’ll be appearing at three different locations- alas none in Kentucky, it seems. Sheesh, don’t any of these writers like a good bourbon?

• Maria Haskins (The Jagged Edge) has a new story appearing in Translunar Travelers Lounge magazine. Entitled The Fall of the Automatous Abbey, she describes it as a story about “a cleaning bot, a war, and finding something new at the end of all things.”

• It’s always great to see it when my favorite Black Library writers work with other, unrelated properties that I love, almost like chocolate and peanut butter. Andi Ewington (Da Red Gobbo’s Last Stand, Fire and Fungi) has an ongoing Rogue Trooper story playing out in the pages of Judge Dredd Megazine #495, with the latest installment dropping in two days!

• Speaking of chocolate meeting peanut butter, this isn’t directly Black Library related but just too good not to share. Last year Bryan Young won a Goonhammer Book Award for the BattleTech novel Outfoxed, an award he co-shared with Russell Zimmerman (Seven Ships, Resounding) for Violent Inception. This week he posted an interview with James Luceno, one of the two authors who wrote Robotech novels back in the 90’s under the name Jack KcKinney. I’m not sure how big the Venn overlap is between Warhammer, BattleTech, and Robotech, but I’ll be happy to save you a seat in here.

Combat Cards Code

Last week I had a Tacticus code up for grabs, and this week there’s one for any of you Warhammer Combat Cards players for the game’s seventh anniversary. As part of my Warhammer+ subscription I get the occasional code for bonus goodies and like to pass them along to a lucky reader.

The latest code is: reilvfww

Using that will grant you a nice little tranche of bonus summons and resources, including Supreme Commander Belisarius Cawl! As always, I simply ask that the first person to redeem it leave a comment below so that everyone after knows it’s been used.

Enjoy!

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

• Blackheart: Claws of the Maelstrom by Marc Collins

• Voice of Command, by Richard Swan

Current PODs in Production

• Hive, by Dan Abnett (Special Edition)

Upcoming in 2026

• Bjorn, the Fell-handed, by Justin D. Hill (Limited Edition, 8/22)

• Galaxy In Flames, by Ben Counter (Premium Edition, hardcover, 8/29)

• False Gods, by Graham McNeill (paperback, 8/29)

• Blood of the Godeater, by Noah Van Nguyen (hardcover, 8/29)

• Witch Hunters: The Omnibus, by Nick Horth and Richard Strachan (paperback, 8/29)

• Deathwatch, by Steve Parker (Special Edition, 9/5)

• Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh! (Illustrated and Annotated Edition), by Nate Crowley (9/5)

• Bjorn, the Fell-handed, by Justin D. Hill (hardcover, 9/5)

• Demolisher, by Andy Clark (paperback, 9/5)

• Raldoron: Revenant, by Guy Haley (hardcover, Special Edition, 9/24)

• 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!

Alright folks, I hope you’re sitting down and buckled in, because today we’re goin’ for a ride! The Black Library Readers Satisfaction Survey has concluded, and it’s time to share the results. There is a lot of ground to cover today, plus we’ll also still have all of the usual content that you enjoy each week as well. As the comics would call it, an action-packed double-sized issue!

A Quick Recap

Last month we kicked off an initiative designed to get some real, usable data to illustrate how the Black Library reader and collector community are feeling about the hobby. When it comes to surveys leading is misleading, so we made the questions as neutral as I could and set them on a five-point sentiment scale.

This is intended to be an ongoing initiative, not a one-time thing. We’re planning to run it back every six months, so we can look at how opinions may change over time.

We received 315 responses, slightly higher than my target of 300. In polling 384 is considered the “magic number” because it gives you a 95% confidence level with a ±5% margin of error. Mathematically, having n=315 means we have a ±5.5% margin of error. Not bad at all!

If you’re one of the 315 who shared their opinion in the Survey, a huge and heartfelt thank you. If there’s one thing that genuinely amazed me, it was that 169 of you took the time to share your thoughts in the optional, open-ended final question. You know, the “anything else you’d like to share” part of survey, the one that everyone skips. I had zero expectations of getting much content there and you truly delivered. Bravissimo.

Three Key Takeaways

Rather than walk through the results first, I’m going to start with the biggest takeaways from the survey. The full results are definitely interesting and we’ll get to everything, but if you take nothing else from the Survey these are the biggest flags.

1. Preordering is a Concern

When 85% of your most-engaged consumers tell you there’s a problem, there probably is one. One need only spend a Saturday in one of the usual community gathering places to see how frustrating it is for us to try and order the books we want. Instant sellouts, canceled orders, website wonkiness… when the supply of product seems designed to wring every last bit of FOMO out of the customers, all it takes is one tiny bump in the road to derail the whole effort.

It’s important to note that Games Workshop does seem to be making a genuine effort to combat scalping, particularly in the wake of the Era of Ruin debacle last year. But clearly, the community feels that much more needs to be done.

2. Quality is Not Job One

When it comes to collectibles, quality is everything. The feeling of opening up a Limited Edition only to find the medallion has been misglued to the cover (or come off entirely) is deeply frustrating when we’re spending a great deal on these beautiful deluxe editions. The Black Library puts a lot of thought and effort into designing them, but something is getting lost along the way from the factory to the warehouse.

That ‘warehouse’ is an important part of this chain, too, as instances of perfectly good items arriving damaged by careless packing abound1. While many deluxe edition offerings do have an added layer of protection, it’s not always enough.

It’s worth noting that this problem is often exacerbated by Games Workshop’s low-redundancy production runs. It’s not realistic to expect GW to have a zero-defect process (nor- given what that would do to their production costs- would that be something we’d actually want). However, when you don’t have available product on hand to offer consumers as replacements and instead rely on simply refunding them their money, that’s not optimal2.

3. The App Is Not Fully Baked (Yet)

This one’s a bit of a mixed bag. Having a 40% engagement rate for the new digital app only months after launch doesn’t… seem bad? On the other hand, two-thirds of the app’s users register dissatisfaction compared to only 13% that are satisfied, numbers I’m sure GW would prefer to see flipped around.

Personally I started off being very app-skeptical since I don’t love the digital reading experience3, but once I was down in Houston for several days and had forgotten to bring one of the books I was reviewing. Rather than miss my deadline, I re-bought the book on the app and it wasn’t as bad as I’d assumed. Plus, I applaud GW for greatly expanding the range of titles that go on sale each month.

The Survey Responses

Next, let’s jump in to the results for each question in the Survey.

Were I in the prediction business (which I’m thankfully not) I’d have guessed that the red and yellow slices would have been swapped, with most respondents in the Mature category. That’s not a bad place to be, but I’m delighted to see so many people are actively building their libraries!

I probably should have broken this out by one more category. Say, $250-500, and then $500+. Suffice it to say, as noted above we have a lot of active collectors!

Almost 45% of the readers don’t bother with deluxe editions, but over a quarter of readers are heavily into them.

Almost half are dissatisfied with the preordering experience. This comes as no surprise given what we’d seen in the takeaways earlier. It’s a significant pain point for the community.

Only a third of respondents are actively unhappy with GW’s anti-scalping countermeasures.

Here’s where we see that unhappiness with the Black Library app, along with the significant chunk of folks who haven’t (or won’t) cross the digital divide.

This one’s net negative. While it’s true that the monthly sales have definitely improved with the app versus the old Black Library website, one only need look at the insane discounting during Audible’s occasional sales to see where some of the disconnect is here. 66% off an audiobook is great, but it’s not as great as the 80% Audible offers.

Relatively little dissatisfaction here. People are generally pleased with the deluxe editions.

A big win for the Black Library on this score. I would definitely encourage the 40% who don’t buy audiobooks to give them a chance. I’ve gone from extremely skeptical to an absolute evangelist in the last twelve months, and you haven’t lived until you’ve experienced Perring’s Cain or Keeble’s Gotrek.

Another positive here, though not quite as glowing. Most folks seem to think GW is doing a fine job with its communications.

This is a good example of why it’s important to look beyond just the surface of the data. If you just looked at this data point in isolation, you’d almost completely miss the severity of the issue. This question treats all respondents the same, regardless of how many deluxe editions they’ve bought. If you only buy a couple books a year, your exposure to the level of quality is much more limited than someone who is buying every single release.

When we look at the responses of those who are highly engaged in buying the deluxe issues (as we did above), then we get a very different picture. It was Mark Twain4 who noted that there are three kinds of falsehoods: lies, damned lies, and statistics. The above is a good example on how data can sometimes mislead- even when it doesn’t intend to.

This is pretty good, too. Nobody wants to experience a problem, but it’s nice to know that there’s a solution to be found when one does.