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BL needs to get back on the right track with HH. Discuss?


Týr

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I think A D-B will actually agree with me for saying this but you are missing out on quite a bit Emperor's Scourge/b]. Path of the Renegade by Andy Chambers was amazing for example. And Know No Fear[, one of three books that makes it very hard for to not be a Word Bearers fan. But alas, to each his own.

I don't know that the series needs to get "back on track" with regards to all the additional formats the stories are being released in. As far as i am aware, the novellas and audio dramas are just nice tidbits running alongside the main series as opposed to being core stories shunted out of the novel form. For example, i read and loved Betrayer without having yet listened to Butchers nails.

 

In financial terms, it is a bit of a sod to keep track of all the extra stories coming out i agree. However, i think its safe to assume that eventually these pieces will be collected together in an alternate, more convenient form. Look at Shadows of Treachery, that has a few of the more older HH audio dramas collected in prose form that i hadn't enjoyed before. I know a couple of people who were annoyed that Black Library published them in mass market form, simply because they owned them from a limited edition Games Day chap book.

 

BL have a good track record at making sure these limited edition stories don't simply disappear after the first run. I would put money on the audio dramas and limited novellas being released in a collected form a couple of years time.

 

As ADB pointed out, physical sales of books haven't been in the best place the past couple of years, we can allow BL to focus a bit more on the carrot not the stick.

Yeah, my main schpiel is that they are constantly recycling the old with the new. Not necessarily a bad thing. I just have a quirk about buying the same story three times in a row just to get two different stories, you know?

The issue with that is there are those people who didn't get the original stories the first time around and concessions have to be made so these stories are available in a mass market manner.

 

I understand it can seem like your limited edition purchases are being invalidated by repeated releases but i suppose in a way, when paying for these limited editions, you're paying more for the rare format.

My main gripe is that the HH is in danger of doing a "Lost", i.e  great basic story that loses sight of the main plot and instead concentrates on new shocking events all over the place that eventually confuse the reader and lessens the actual story itself. Also I would like to see the HH go more towards a bigger split between the actual story and pure legion specific fluff/fact resource books because at the moment there are too many characters and locations to remember who is doing what. My version of Lord of the Rings has an excellent appendicies section so that I can either motor through the story or take a literary backroad to explore Middle Earth in more depth. Personally the first time I read a book I like to just follow the story as quickly as I can, and then on later re-readings really delve into the details of the book which I may have not thought about too much first time round, especially descriptions of things.

The issue with that is there are those people who didn't get the original stories the first time around and concessions have to be made so these stories are available in a mass market manner.

 

I understand it can seem like your limited edition purchases are being invalidated by repeated releases but i suppose in a way, when paying for these limited editions, you're paying more for the rare format.

i don't min the reformatting of the limited edition stories. Only way I can get my hands on them. :D

 

But for example, I got Raven's Flight, the Lightning Tower and Dark King when I bought Shadows of Treachery. Right after that anthology was published, BL release The Scripts, Volume One, which has those three stories, Butcher's Nails and I want to say two Garro audiodramas. The week before I bought the Shadows anthology, I had bought the Butchers Nails audiodrama. So now Id be rebuying four short stories for $20 just to get two new stories. But if say, they had not used the three stories in Shadows, Id feel halfway decent about buying Scripts. But because I already own most of the book...

Aside from complaining about the formats, does anyone else feel like the series has stalled?

 

How many HH stories are coming out this year? Mark of Calth and... what? 

 

Im just ready to move beyond Calth/Isstvan V.

Aside from complaining about the formats, does anyone else feel like the series has stalled?

 

How many HH stories are coming out this year? Mark of Calth and... what?

 

Im just ready to move beyond Calth/Isstvan V.

Yeah, a little bit.

 

Understandably BL are going to milk such a successful story for as much as they can, but it is starting to drag. It's clearly going to be a lot of books until we get to the "end" (if we ever do...! :P), I already have one entire shelf of one of my bookcases just with the HH books. Not to mention that we keep getting... inconsistancies... between different HH novels which is annoying for what is supposed to be the definitive telling of the Heresy (here I mean things like TOD affectively retconning the end of False Gods, etc).

 

The way there are going with it has meant that I've stopped thinking of it as a "series" and as more of a "setting".

 

And for me that means getting *all* of the HH books no longer seems necessary - I'll pick up the ones I'm interested in and not bother with the rest.

The other thing is the Heresy doesn't just have to go forward, which everyone pretty much knows the check points for that one, but it also has to left and right and now that we're in the actual Heresy there is quite a bit to go left an right.

 

A guy pointed out that not so long ago a HH release was a special thing that happend a few times a month and in a book format (paperback).

A few times a month? These days HH releases are at best once every 3 or 4 months, and BL hasn't updated its "coming soon" page in months.

 

 

A guy pointed out that not so long ago a HH release was a special thing that happend a few times a month and in a book format (paperback).

A few times a month? These days HH releases are at best once every 3 or 4 months, and BL hasn't updated its "coming soon" page in months.

That was a mistake. It was ment to say year and not month. It has now been corrected

How many HH stories are coming out this year? Mark of Calth and... what?  

 

Censure - audiodrama about Calth

Vulkan Lives - novel

Visions of Heresy - artbook?

Honour to the Death - audiodrama about Calth

And probably Scorched Earth - limited novella, prequel to Vulkan Lives.

I think it's not so much stalled as saving announcements for the HH weekender...

 

Nicely spotted, dude. 

 

That, and Black Library's new policy of keeping announcements much closer to its chest, which people are (understandably) interpreting as nothing going on.

 

But as for moving past Calth/Isstvan... Calth is already a whole year after Isstvan. They can hardly be considered the same thing. And not knowing what's been announced novel-wise, I know at least The Unrembered Empire's been touted so far; that's definitely past Calth.

And Betrayer was two years wasn't it? No, wait. I think I'm thinking of the Thramas Crusade. Either way, technically we've moved to two years past the Heresy. And now BL is just consolidating that forward expansion and giving it foundation.
The only thing I'm not too keen on is the limited edition stories. It would be nice to perhaps have the choice to get a limited e-version or print-on-demand basic chapbook style hard copy (sans illustrations and maybe just b&w cover art) at the same time as the LTD superdeluxe hard copy. I'd happily shell out £10/15€ for an e-version, but the price of the physical LTDs is so far out of my league that I can't even consider getting them.
Ill be specific. Selfishly, I want to know what happens after the Crimson Fist. I am also waiting to begin a VII Legion army until someone writes a full novel about the Fists so I know ranks, organization, etc. for instance why does FW have battalions and centuries but BL just has 500 companies of something.

Ill be specific. Selfishly, I want to know what happens after the Crimson Fist. I am also waiting to begin a VII Legion army until someone writes a full novel about the Fists so I know ranks, organization, etc. for instance why does FW have battalions and centuries but BL just has 500 companies of something.

 

Each legion use a different kind of organization, ranks, etc... In FW's Betrayal there's the standard ranks and organization I guess, each legion could use it or not. Besides the first Heresy novels and stuff until A Thousand Sons and Prospero Burns (both of them too), had a different legionnaries numbers in each legion, it was after a Heresy meeting that the authors decided to establish a standar number, and so. I guess FW's organization is the definitive legion organization, each legion, as you said, should be detailed in a novel about the use of that standar or not, or it could be explained in future Heresy Rulebooks.  

Well Betrayal also states which Legions adhere to it and which don't. Like it says the EC call their Chapters "Millennials" and that the World Eaters most utilize assault companies, but still artillery companies, just not in abundance.

If that's the case though, then Abaddon is outranked by an unknown chapter master, etc and so on and doesn't make sense when you think of the role of 1st Captain. Sigismund is 2nd in command of the Imperial Fists but has a battalion commander and chapter master over him?

 

There is information about the Legions that needs to be explored in depth that BL authors can't do without slowing their stories, this information needs to be covered by FW, and it can't be done vaguely or generally, but precisely explained out in full.

 

For instance in Betrayal it says a Sons of Horus company could be any size, led by a Captain. That is so ambiguous its silly. The only Legion you could use the chart thy provide to organize is the Ultramarines, leaving 17 other Legions flapping in the wind.

The legion structure in Betrayal is a pre-primarch legion structure. Back then every legion was organized the same way. However, almost all of the primarchs made sweeping changes in the organization of their legions. For instance, the Sons of Horus got rid of the chapter master position, but the Ultramarines maintained it. The chart is useful for seeing where the legions are started from, but it's the individual write-ups about a legion's organization that should be referenced.

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