Upcoming BL Stuff 2024

[Casual Heresy]

 

 

This image alone makes me wish that the forum had a sad face/depressed reaction. 

 

Agreed. I work in book production and my first reaction was 'oh, honey no...'

 

I can only hope that the printer's proofs that were sent and any office copies were fine so this one is a one off. But if every set is like that its a pretty bad mistake which should have been caught at multiple stages before the finished copies got shipped from the printer.

[grailkeeper]

 

 

Agreed. I work in book production and my first reaction was 'oh, honey no...'

 

Can you gice us any insights from your work that might further our understanding of BL?

[theSpirea]

Seeing other people posting photos of their copies, this one isn't one off, some are better, some are worse.

 

The forges of Mars Box set was also messed up, Gotrek Rfalmslayer as well, one of the DoF LEs is missing a logo, Krieg's LEs don't line up nicely in all cases, etc. For the price BL is asking for these books, they surely don't give a flying f* about quality.

[Ubiquitous1984]

 

Seeing other people posting photos of their copies, this one isn't one off, some are better, some are worse.

 

The forges of Mars Box set was also messed up, Gotrek Rfalmslayer as well, one of the DoF LEs is missing a logo, Krieg's LEs don't line up nicely in all cases, etc. For the price BL is asking for these books, they surely don't give a flying f* about quality.

I'm still pissed off that my HH black book IX does not have 'Games Workshop' on the spine, like the previous eight did!

 

Also how the two black book Macragges Honour LE's have completely misaligned spines.

 

 

Edited October 3 by Ubiquitous1984

[theSpirea]

Did BL increase the prices of hardbacks again? I haven't bought any directly from them, but it seems fairly recent. These are the increases by region.

10%    GBP
16%    EUR
17%    USD
14%    CAD

 

So, non-UK regions are getting hit again, already facing higher prices in general.

 

Edited October 5 by Firedrake Cordova
=][= Don't dodge the swear filter =][=

[darkhorse0607]

My goodness, I am not sure if they did or not but every time I look at those prices I am reminded why I get mine on audible

[Taliesin]

 

Did BL increase the prices of hardbacks again? I haven't bought any directly from them, but it seems fairly recent. These are the increases by region.

10%    GBP
16%    EUR
17%    USD
14%    CAD

 

So, non-UK regions are getting hit again, already facing higher prices in general.

 

 

It does have the effect on me that I become more choosy about what I buy from them. If I feel a bit ambivalent, its a pass.

[Scribe]

 

Did BL increase the prices of hardbacks again? I haven't bought any directly from them, but it seems fairly recent. These are the increases by region.

10%    GBP
16%    EUR
17%    USD
14%    CAD

 

So, non-UK regions are getting hit again, already facing higher prices in general.

 

 

Yeah, as a CAD Spender...it's not like I was running out for BL books as is.

 

"Help us ADB. You're our only hope!"

[DarkChaplain]

Leave it to Warcom to mess up even more today. That First Founding re-release? They put up the same image as for the next book on the list, an AoS anthology.

 

...and yeah, they're actually re-releasing that thing as a deluxe edition, rather than making a new book for, say, the Traitor Legions.

[System Sound]

Incredible proof reading...

 

 

P.S. I hope this is a joke...

Edited October 6 by System Sound

[theSpirea]

More milking, just like they did with Sabbat Crusade. And the WH Community article failing again is basically a trademark at this point.

I’m also going to add that the whole redesign of the WH Community again shows how little they care about BL. They have a 'Black Library' tag, but why bother putting it on all relevant articles, such as the 'Sunday Preview'? Sometimes they add it, sometimes they don’t.

 

At least they fixed the picture

 

Edited October 6 by theSpirea

[DarkChaplain]

At least they had the late realization that the picture was wrong and they sent the wrong wallpaper... they deleted the tweet a while later.

 

I love how I was checking for AoS news yesterday and it didn't even have the past week's articles show up. Or how the Warhammer Day previews (which were so extremely lackluster, I almost thought it was a Black Library reveal stream instead!) didn't show up on the frontpage at all for half the day.

[Felix Antipodes]

I’m still astounded that they are putting out a LE of First Founding before dropping an equivalent book for the traitor legions.  I fully expected GW to come up with a LE (gotta milk them SM lovers) but not until after a heretic volume, so they could do a slipcased two volume LE. That would tempt the fans (imho) than an early money grab on a single volume.

 

Will be interesting to see what the new talent comes up with in the Astra Militarum shorts next week.

[darkhorse0607]

I'd buy a traitor volume in a heartbeat.

 

That being said, I wonder how much of it is because things are unwritten for the traitors.

 

I don't know into how much detail the loyalist volume goes into so someone correct me if I'm way off here but

 

For the loyalists we largely know what happens post Siege. Maybe not in small details like what battles were when and where, but we know who the chapter master was, largely where they went, etc. We know what most of them are doing in the "current" time frame, or they have novels that cover them at least semi recently (some excluded). Or GW has given the majority of them something in recent times, if not in novels then in campaign books or codices

 

The traitors aren't really that fleshed out. Iron Warriors had the Honsou tie-in with the Ventris series but that's been done (at least his side of it) for years. Night Lords haven't had anything since theor trilogy. World Eaters have gotten the most recent stuff, but even then I wouldn't say it's anything compared to say the Blood Angels in thoroughness of recent books, or the sheer quantity that the Space Wolves have had.

 

The big poster child that they could focus on would be the Black Legion, but because ADB has gone wherever he went to, their origin story has sat unfinished for 7, going on 8 years. And yes, I got depressed when I read it

 

Since GW lore people don't really seem to have much of a plan, it kind of makes it hard to write a great overarching book about them, when half of it hasn't been written. Especially so it's not contradicted with the next book that comes out

[DarkChaplain]

Reminder that Fire Caste's audiobook is NOT on a 2-week preorder cycle but 1-week - it's out today, right now!

 

The audiobook actually has a unique intro music bit, haven't heard that one elsewhere yet. It feels very Dark Coil, though! And yes, they even call it "The Dark Coil: Fire Caste" in the intro

Edited October 12 by DarkChaplain

[Jareddm]

Track of Words put out an interview with Denny Flowers about Above and Beyond, the sequel to Outgunned: https://www.trackofwords.com/2024/10/11/rapid-fire-denny-flowers-talks-above-and-beyond/

Edited October 12 by Jareddm

[Taliesin]

On 10/1/2024 at 4:54 PM, Lord Marshal said:

Twitter has what is presumably the standard cover, so may not be far behind.

 

 

Interesting that it releases this year still, this edition interests me.

[skylerboodie]

First Founding Special Edition is £120?! ahahahahaha

[theSpirea]

amazing interview, especially the parts about how BL "operates".

Dark Harvest was supposed to be a series as well!!!

[DarkChaplain]

I'm utterly gutted that Dark Harvest never got a follow-up. It was so utterly thick of atmosphere.

 

But that's the Josh Reynolds story in a nutshell: Getting series axed. Blood of Nagash? Canned. Bunch of really cool Warhammer Heroes projects? Never got okay'd, because GW was gonna blow up the Old World anyway, so he wove some of his ideas and conclusions into his books for The End Times. And then got slapped for giving his own speculative answers to fans who wanted closure, too.

Fabius Bile? Almost didn't get finished as a trilogy. Eight Lamentations? Axed after one novel and one audio drama, with book two already listed on retailers. Zavant? Never happened in novel form, and some of his short stories were kept back for years. Horus Heresy? Nah, mate, let's not have you write a numbered book. Okay, Primarchs for Fulgrim, I guess that's doable, but that's it. I'm still surprised he got three Endryd Haar audio dramas - just for the character to be completely screwed over by Dan Abnett in Saturnine, and setup never being paid off.

 

His Gotrek & Felix novels? Outside the normal numbered continuity. And even though he absolutely nailed the characters, they picked David Guymer to write the final duology (at least while Josh was writing Return of Nagash & Lord of the End Times, small mercies). Gardus Steelsoul book 3 never happened, either - and then they had the bloody gall to make a model based on the second book's cover artwork, after Josh was already gone.

Lukas the Trickster? Best we can do is short stories. Necromunda's Kal Jericho getting revived in modernity? Eh, let's drop that project after the first book. His Mannfred von Carstein arc in Age of Sigmar, after building him up from The Return of Nagash on? Cut short.

 

I'm pretty sure that to this day, BL still has unpublished but apporved stories sitting in a digital drawer somewhere, which they never found the time nor motivation to actually release. Warhammer Fantasy stuff, mostly, of course. And here I was, believing that with the short-lived return of Inferno!, we'd get those stories after all. But nah.

[theSpirea]

I think Josh is right why that might be happening: BL and GW being completely disjointed at operating. And never-ending chase to re-create Gaunt's or Gotrek series success. If the first book doesn't reach amazing sales, why bother with the sequel.

 

That story about marketing and why Soul Wars was successful is pure gold when it comes to corporate incompetence.

[grailkeeper]

Gaunts Ghosts and Gotrek will never be equalled. Not because they're particularly good, just because of where BL was in its development when they came out and how long they've been around.

[Felix Antipodes]

16 hours ago, skylerboodie said:

First Founding Special Edition is £120?! ahahahahaha

Try 250 in Oz 

[DukeLeto69]

3 hours ago, grailkeeper said:

Gaunts Ghosts and Gotrek will never be equalled. Not because they're particularly good, just because of where BL was in its development when they came out and how long they've been around.

I’ll politely take issue with a statement like “GG being not particularly good” 

 

It is subjective of course but apart from a few missteps, I’d say the GG series (and Sabbat Worlds books as a whole) have been superb!

[DarkChaplain]

Likewise, I'll take issue with G&F not being good.