What “Cash Grabs” would you like to see?

[Roomsky]

Here’s a fun wish listing thread.

 

Our more cynical Fraters have spoken at length about repackaging previously released material or publishing yet more detail about events already covered being less than ideal. Be it Betrayal at Calth dropping years after Know no Fear, anthology compilations of stories once released at a premium, and blatant tie-ins to new model or codex releases, I’m sure we’ve all been at least a little peeved with some of the Black Library release schedule in the past.

 

So my question is, which of these more transparently business-oriented trends would you like to be put to a constructive use? What content rehashes and subject backtracking can be used as a force for good?

 

I’ve got a few to get the discussion going:

 

A Thramas Crusade Anthology:

I’m down for the bulk of a storyline being released as shorts and novellas, but in this case I don’t really want to read it in bits across multiple collections. I wouldn’t complain about a Shattered Legions/Meduson-esque anthology repacking the Thramas Crusade material in a more coherent fashion. Eg: Savage Weapons, The Lion, Prince of Crows, etc all in one binding. If there's enough disparate material about the Sons of Horus, I'd hope for that as well.

 

Betrayal at Calth style novellas for Isstvan III, Isstvan V, and Beta Garmon

For all the apparent scope of Beta Garmon and the Dropsite Massacre, both engagements are barely covered coherently throughout the series, rather they’re backdrops for other stories. Give me some high-level stuff so I can actually understand the gravity of these events / what is even happening. Isstvan III I’d like more of just because I hate Galaxy in Flames.

 

A very belated tie-in for Wrath of Magnus

Because if you’re going to do a tie-in release at least explain what is happening and how it ends.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Roomsky

[WrathOfTheLion]

Make new Luther novel a blatant tie in to a new model 

 

I'd really like to see them make that book at least fit in with the Lion novel as far as how it looks

Edited September 29, 2020 by WrathOfTheLion

[Roomsky]

If it's a good book, then it's not a cash grab.

 

Value for your money vs Pushing to sell you something worthless.

 

By this logic, I would not like to see cash grabs, at all.

 

I'd like to see good books. Good games, Good animations. (By the Emperor, that upcoming Blood Angels thing..... tell me it doesn't look like they've given the project to the same talentless barbarians who made "Ultramarines - A Warhammer Movie" )

 

 

Being of low quality isn't really the conceit of the thread, friend.

 

The animation is being done or assisted by the guy who did the Helsreach animation on Youtube, which many people seem excited about. I found it rather lackluster and the previews look like they have the same absence of weight that animation did.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Roomsky

[byrd9999]

Back on a more positive note, I've said it before and I'll say it again, I'd like to see Black Library compile all of Peter Fehervari's non-novel work into a Dark Coil omnibus, with an author intro and afterword.

[Scribe]

Not sure I understand the concept here, but I would be more than down with getting Wraight or ADB to cover the Son's of Horus in the series to the degree we saw 'Shattered Legions' and Salamanders.

 

The pivotal force of the Heresy, feels like they have the least written.

[Sandlemad]

On the subject of blatant tie-ins, I'm a bit disappointed that we haven't seen anything significant about the Pariah Nexus besides Gav's Indomitus tie-in novel. Something about the return of Szarekh, his grand plans, whatever feuding he's done with that upstart Imotekh, that sort of thing. You got it a bit with the last Psychic Awakening short about Iluminor Szeras but something more than that would be good to see. Theoretically would have a lot to offer folks new to 40k and eyeing up the necrons.

 

 

Betrayal at Calth style novellas for Isstvan III, Isstvan V, and Beta Garmon

For all the apparent scope of Beta Garmon and the Dropsite Massacre, both engagements are barely covered coherently throughout the series, rather they’re backdrops for other stories. Give me some high-level stuff so I can actually understand the gravity of these events / what is even happening. Isstvan III I’d like more of just because I hate Galaxy in Flames.

 

 

I like this idea. Something like Mark of Calth could work as well, unlinked short stories set during the same battle or event. That seems to be a form fans kept speculating would be used again but it never really cropped up. Maybe you can view French's various Tallarn works as a version of the same idea, sort of. 

[DarkChaplain]

Judging by WarCom, the upcoming The Infinite and the Divine will be about the two titular characters from their first awakening during the Heresy-ish era up til now, so chances are we might get a good look at the Necrons right there.

 

Other than that, we definitely need Szarekh to have a heart to heart with Sanguinius. It's already been referenced years ago via The Word of the Silent King, and it is already a missed opportunity that they didn't tie this into the Pharos arc / Imperium Secundus somehow, as the Pharos is Necron tech to begin with.

 

On another note, can we just have more Anthony Reynolds Khârn, please?

[MarineRaider]

I would like to see a Order of battle from the start of the great crusade through the end of the siege.

 

I still cannot wrap my head around 200 years leading to grabbing 1 million planets...with 100 years basically just being E and Horus. The math makes no sense even if you grabbed a planet a day.

Edited September 30, 2020 by MarineRaider

[Son of Carnelian]

Sequel to the Night Lords trilogy. The timeline has moved forward, so there's no reason not to give us a look at Decimus and the current state of the VIII Legion. 

[ShadowSwordmaster]

I would like to see a Order of battle from the start of the great crusade through the end of the siege.

 

I still cannot wrap my head around 200 years leading to grabbing 1 million planets...with 100 years basically just being E and Horus. The math makes no sense even if you grabbed a planet a day.

Expect is was not just the Emperor and Horus, but the other Imperial commanders too. 

[Sandlemad]

On another note, can we just have more Anthony Reynolds Khârn, please?

 

That would be brilliant. Do a new novella covering the actual battle of Skalathrax, publish it as part of a volume with the existing Eater of Worlds (a la Helsreach and Blood and Fire), tie it in with the inevitable new WE release with an overpriced limited edition and boom.

[theSpirea]

I've been asking for years for older titles to be published again (or for the first ime) and as hardcovers: Lord of the Night, Ahriman (if they do the box set, please include the anthology as well), Word Bearers trilogy, Ciaphas Cain (the whole series, no point just doing the oh-so-fancy trilogy set), Grey Knights trilogy, Path of the Dark Eldar.

 

There are so many books I'd love to have as hardcovers or at least paperbacks but majority are out of print and going for ridiculous prices for used ones.

 

If BL wishes to totally ruin my bank account, they can do the same with WH Fantasy books.

[JH79]

 

Betrayal at Calth style novellas for Isstvan III, Isstvan V, and Beta Garmon

For all the apparent scope of Beta Garmon and the Dropsite Massacre, both engagements are barely covered coherently throughout the series, rather they’re backdrops for other stories. Give me some high-level stuff so I can actually understand the gravity of these events / what is even happening. Isstvan III I’d like more of just because I hate Galaxy in Flames.

 

Oh my, those novellas sound like just what the doctor ordered!

[Kelborn]

A continuation of Clarks Knights and this an omnibus.

 

Same with Wraights unfinished Wolves.

 

Some faction related anthologies, for example for Custodes in 30k.

[Marshal Loss]

Does a Badab War series qualify, given we already have the FW books on it? I want it. I neeeeeeed it. Cash-grab away.

 

Other than that, more John French Sons of Horus would be great. And/or, when EC get a full 40k release, a Chris Wraight tie-in novel about the Emperor's Children of the quality that he did for the Death Guard with Lords of Silence.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Marshal Loss

[byrd9999]

 

I would like to see a Order of battle from the start of the great crusade through the end of the siege.

 

I still cannot wrap my head around 200 years leading to grabbing 1 million planets...with 100 years basically just being E and Horus. The math makes no sense even if you grabbed a planet a day.

Expect is was not just the Emperor and Horus, but the other Imperial commanders too. 

 

 

Maybe 1 million is a deliberate exaggeration?

 

And when they got Ultramar, they also got 499 planets for free :) There could be other planets that controlled systems.

[Shandathe]

Never going to get it as it's probably too late now, but I STILL want a proper novel exploring the last battle of Cadia and/or Celestinian Crusade, more specifically the character interactions. We get vague hints of a massive character pile up on Cadia in the splatbooks that just never gets properly explored. Creed, Greyfax and Celestine in one room, gimme that.

 

Mostly though, I want to see the last part of it, where a newly awoken Guilliman has to square his knowledge of his not-a-god father with the literal returned-from-the-dead angel sent by what she KNOWS is the divine Emperor... and she effectively ends up crowning him. Just some long conversation(s) between those two, that's all I ask.

 

---

 

For a proper cash grab though, I'd say pull the Battlefleet Gothic molds out of storage (or make new ones). Seriously, the computer games do well, there are a dozen similarly set games including Star Wars equivalents doing well... Why isn't GW tapping that?

[byrd9999]

Not sure I understand the concept here, but I would be more than down with getting Wraight or ADB to cover the Son's of Horus in the series to the degree we saw 'Shattered Legions' and Salamanders.

 

The pivotal force of the Heresy, feels like they have the least written.

 

I would like a top-tier writer (Wraight? ADB?) to do an Abaddon Primarchs novel that focuses on his role in the Luna Wolves, pre-Heresy.

[Sandlemad]

For a proper cash grab though, I'd say pull the Battlefleet Gothic molds out of storage (or make new ones). Seriously, the computer games do well, there are a dozen similarly set games including Star Wars equivalents doing well... Why isn't GW tapping that?

 

On that point, reprinting Gordon Rennie's very decent old BFG novels would surely be an easy cash grab for BL.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Sandlemad

[DukeLeto69]

Release all of Abnett’s Inquisitor books (Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Bequin) in nice shiny matching cover style volumes in hardback.

[MarineRaider]

 

I would like to see a Order of battle from the start of the great crusade through the end of the siege.

 

I still cannot wrap my head around 200 years leading to grabbing 1 million planets...with 100 years basically just being E and Horus. The math makes no sense even if you grabbed a planet a day.

Expect is was not just the Emperor and Horus, but the other Imperial commanders too. 

 

Agreed. But how many ships/flotilla's/fleets were built and staffed? How many humans were alive at Unity to compose enough fleets to conquer 1 million world in 200 years. Even Horus Rising talked about taking months to get to certain worlds. It always has been the weakest part of this story to me...well that and the fall of the Interex and why Horus was talking about unseating the E from the " Golden Throne" before the Great Works was revealed. 

[Bobss]

Personally, I would love to own a complete set of the Space Marine Battles books. Like, the main booky-book ones. Rynn's World through Death of Integrity. I know the series isn't the strongest thing Black Library has ever released, with its fair share of stinkers, but I really loved the look and feel of the books at the time

 

I thought it was a really fun series, and I was even happy to drop my high standards for guys like Nick Kyme and Guy Haley on this one occasion

[Red_Shift]

It sounds ridiculous, but I'm a big fan of Valrak' s primarchs conspiracy videos and I would love a book/series where Guilliman tasks a new organisation to find out where the other primarchs are and what happened to them. In a similar way to how the various explanations of Garro' s eventual fate each had a ring of truth to them, some theories could be debunked and others hint to more. All culminating in finding another primarch.

 

I'd also like some great crusade mini series about various alien wars as there have been a few passing mentions of truly apocalyptic conflicts and hints about the fates of the lost legions.

[DukeLeto69]

As this thread is about cash grabs that ppl like me will find hard not to shell out for again even though we have the books already...

 

An Imperial Navy omnibus. Three novels (I have them all) 2 x Gordon Rennie and 1 x Richard Williams (even BL couldn’t justify dropping Thorpe’s Emperor Expects in there too) plus countless shorts.

 

All of the Abnett graphic novels with new matching covers, same size/format in a nice slip case.

[Xisor]

Follow up the "forgotten threads" of the Heresy without jamming them into the Siege.

 

E.g. What happened to the remembrancers from A Thousand Sons? Let's see what the agents of Malcador actually got up to. What happened to Ultramar after the Legions abandoned ship for Terra? Who actually reacted to the "theft" of the Abyss?

 

Let's see Isstvan in many-viewed and/or in-depth prose, as Roomsky mentioned.

 

The fallout of Nikaea, as viewed by all Legions. If everyone thought someone else made a good Warmaster? Let's see some of that fleshed out, at length and in deeper depth?

 

I could take a lot of that sort of cash grabbiness.