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,
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.
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.
This raucous tale revolves around the ratling fixer Ector Flynn and his squad of snipers, who are sent into a snow-cloaked wasteland by choleric Catachan commanders to hunt Da Red Gobbo down. After months of being bullied and knocked around by the Jungle Fighters, Flynn’s team welcome the chance to finally prove their worth, but nothing goes to plan when Da Gobbo is involved and they may come back learning a little something about vengeance from their red-coated quarry.
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.
Reminder: This book will not preorder this coming Saturday, but rather be part of the now-standard “Wednesday Window” on 28 October at 3pm BST. Set your alarms!
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!
At the risk of sounding ungrateful, I personally always prefer bonus author content like an introduction or afterword, but of course your mileage may vary.
Looking forward to seeing the black library hall of fame here :)
I ordered two Cold Covenant, one for me and one for a mate, but one was cancelled. I reached out and support confirmed it was because I ordered 2 (Australia, if it matters). They said "one per account" then didn't reply when I asked where this was written for the consumers to see.