Upcoming BL Stuff 2025

[skylerboodie]

Jude Reid's first three novels were all blessed with special edition upon release (Creed: Ashes of Cadia, Morvenn Vahl: Spear of Faith (deluxe!), Daemonbreaker), so it would be a surprise if there wasn't a special edition for a big release like Fulgrim too; Angron and The Lion's novels also each got one.

[theSpirea]

I completely forgot about the event, and I'm glad I didn't waste time on it. That's all that was revealed for BL? Basically one book and that's it

[DarkChaplain]

Wait, is Minka Lesk the first model since... the larger scale Gotrek & Felix characters set that a BL creation has gotten a second miniature (AoS-Gotrek not counting, as he's a hard reboot)? I could swear there has been another Minka already.

[Tolmeus]

27 minutes ago, DarkChaplain said:

I could swear there has been another Minka already.

 

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/fYkfHhw0/minka-lesk-celebrate-cadias-finest-with-a-new-miniature-new-books-and-a-free-mission/
 

 

Yep...

[cheywood]

Wish I could get more excited about Fulgrim, but Reid’s Sisters novels really soured me on her writing. Strange, because Ashes of Cadia was rather brilliant.

[darkhorse0607]

5 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

There was also the Fulgrim book by Jude Reid announced/confirmed

 

 

 

Which they didn't mention at all during the stream I don't think.  Nice

[Bestkeptsecret]

https://www.fnac.com/a21172286/Jude-Reid-Embargo-1#omnsearchpos=8

Could this be the new Fulgrim book by Jude Reid? Release date is April 30.

[Felix Antipodes]

To be fair, they did mention the BL Celebration event in passing, which is where I believe the big reveals will occur.  The BL stuff that got a mention (either via the Preview or WarCom articles) were linked to new model releases associated with those books (Minsk, Fulgrim & the AOS tie-in)

[Bestkeptsecret]

I did not know under which forum to post this, so I thought the Black Library upcoming 2025 would be best. (The Moderati can change it if they think it would be a better fit somewhere else, perhaps in the CSM general section?)

 

But, have any of you lore enthusiasts ever thought that from the perspective of realism in Science Fiction/Fantasy: of the 4 major Chaos gods, both Nurgle's forces The Death Guard and Tzeentch's forces The Thousand Sons are in the realm of the supernatural and not possible? Both Nurgle and Tzeentch are totally occult and based on magick. Nurgle is based on supernatural diseases and Tzeentch is based on physical mutation due to the influence of Chaotic corruption. Both of them are heavily drawn from occult influences as it is not scientifically fathomable to have a "God" of decay who leads physically corrupted plague marines who are somehow super strong yet fully diseased. From a scientific realistic viewpoint, it just does not sound rational to conceive of people who are "strong" or even able to carry themselves and fight if they are overcome with disease. From a realistic perspective and what makes scientific sense, diseases make you weak and die off. That is why you need the supernatural being of Nurgle to make diseased Space Marines be capable of fighting and living on forever. It is the same with Tzeentch. Having Tzeentch Sorcerers is just not scientifically possible from the point of realism as we do not have the phenomenon of psychic powers in real life and the concept of a God/entity causing physical mutations is in the realm of fantasy. The idea of a supernatural entity turning the bodies of soldiers into dust and them still living inside their armor as is the case of Rubric Marines again falls in the realm of fantasy and imagination. No God from real life religions ever gifts physical changes as powers. Therefore both Nurgle's and Tzeentch's forces are totally in the realm of the supernatural and fantasy.

 

However, when it comes to Khorne's World Eaters and Slaanesh's Emperor's Children, even without a "God" leading and influencing these CSM, both these factions exist because of one thing which is indeed scientifically possible and falls under realism, that thing being "surgical enhancements". Both the Emperor's Children and the World Eaters were initially "corrupted" by surgical modifications. So, if you completely remove Khorne and Slaanesh, it is quite possible and not outside the realm of scientific realism, to conceive of a military force whose brains are surgically modified to make them more aggressive, resistant to injury, and more tenacious in combat like the WE. Similarly for the Emperor's Children, it is indeed possible to have sonic weaponry and adjustments done to the genetically enhanced super soldier that increases their sensory pleasure receptors during combat. Because both the EC and the WE became who they are not by mutation at first (that happened with the DG and the TS), but by human intervention via medical experimentation and surgical enhancements. It is only when Khorne's warriors develop superhuman strength or Slaanesh warriors get some kind of "blessing" or gift from their patron deity to make them feel more variety of sensations that is when the WE and the EC enter the realm of the supernatural and go outside the boundary of realism in Science fiction.

 

What do you guys think? Request to Moderati: if you feel that this post should be in a different forum you can do it, but I put a lot of effort in it, so please don't delete the post if you don't like it. You can of course move it elsewhere, if you feel that would be necessary.

[wecanhaveallthree]

Quote

from the perspective of realism

 

We make concessions whenever we read anything but the hardest of hard sci-fi, and even then, we still excuse a lot for the sake of a story. There is a definite part where Warhammer 'realism' ends and magic takes over, and one must accept the existence of such things in a setting where the gods not only exist but come to your house and break your Webway Project if you annoy them enough. 

[byrd9999]

As a friendly question: have you read much Black Library fiction? These things are dealt with to greater or lesser extents.

 

Tzeentch: knowledge (too much knowledge?, Garden of Eden-type knowledge). And the fickleness of Fate/Destiny. These are all very "real" and need no magic to explain them.

 

Nurgle: death and disease, but also life. Fungi and bacteria are alive, feeding off of death and decay. The cycle of life. Very scientific.

 

It depends on your viewpoint and your story, but all 4 gods are based in realism.

 

As for how Death Guard can be effective fighters while contaminated/blessed by Nurgle, read anything by Chris Wraight.

Edited Saturday at 03:19 PM by byrd9999

[byrd9999]

Dark Coil Damnation

 

CONTENTS

The Greater Evil (short story)
Fire Caste (novel)
Out Caste (short story)
A Sanctuary of Wyrms (short story)
Altar of Maws (short story)
Vanguard (short story)
Fire and Ice (short story)
Cast a Hungry Shadow (short story)
Cult of the Spiral Dawn (novel)

[LemartesTheLost]

On 12/26/2024 at 10:48 AM, LemartesTheLost said:

I would venture that we have good odds to receive a tie in novel for the new Fulgrim model sometime in 2025.

 

I should buy a lottery ticket, shouldn't I? XD 

 

All jokes aside though, I'm a bit nervous for this one, as I don't feel that Reid has a great sense of the scale of 40k. It has been an issue in each of her novels that I've read, although I'm a stickler to be sure. Hoping to be proved wrong though. 

[cheywood]

38 minutes ago, LemartesTheLost said:

 

I should buy a lottery ticket, shouldn't I? XD 

 

All jokes aside though, I'm a bit nervous for this one, as I don't feel that Reid has a great sense of the scale of 40k. It has been an issue in each of her novels that I've read, although I'm a stickler to be sure. Hoping to be proved wrong though. 

Lack of scale is arguably her biggest weakness. I appreciate that BL is becoming more character-centric in terms of its authors’ focuses, but a lot of the newer writers have the same issues with scale. Lots of ‘small group of people has to do x plot’ whereas before we had ‘grand army has to do x’. It’s probably just reflective of an increasing emphasis on character in speculative fiction in general.

 

[Petitioner's City]

6 hours ago, byrd9999 said:

Dark Coil Damnation

 

CONTENTS

The Greater Evil (short story)
Fire Caste (novel)
Out Caste (short story)
A Sanctuary of Wyrms (short story)
Altar of Maws (short story)
Vanguard (short story)
Fire and Ice (short story)
Cast a Hungry Shadow (short story)
Cult of the Spiral Dawn (novel)

 

Can I ask what is missing from the coil stories here? Beyond Requiem Infernal?

Edited Saturday at 09:09 PM by Petitioner's City

[byrd9999]

Novels:

The Reverie

Requiem Infernal

 

Shorts:

Nightfall

The Crown of Thorns

The Walker in Fire

the Thirteenth Psalm

Aria Arcana

Nightbleed

The Sins of My Brothers

Nightshift Nineteen

Blindsight

 

Edited Saturday at 10:20 PM by byrd9999

[System Sound]

No new preorders next Saturday. But we are getting something on Wednesday.

[Krelious]

On 1/17/2025 at 10:34 PM, Bestkeptsecret said:

I did not know under which forum to post this, so I thought the Black Library upcoming 2025 would be best. (The Moderati can change it if they think it would be a better fit somewhere else, perhaps in the CSM general section?)

 

But, have any of you lore enthusiasts ever thought that from the perspective of realism in Science Fiction/Fantasy: of the 4 major Chaos gods, both Nurgle's forces The Death Guard and Tzeentch's forces The Thousand Sons are in the realm of the supernatural and not possible? Both Nurgle and Tzeentch are totally occult and based on magick. Nurgle is based on supernatural diseases and Tzeentch is based on physical mutation due to the influence of Chaotic corruption. Both of them are heavily drawn from occult influences as it is not scientifically fathomable to have a "God" of decay who leads physically corrupted plague marines who are somehow super strong yet fully diseased. From a scientific realistic viewpoint, it just does not sound rational to conceive of people who are "strong" or even able to carry themselves and fight if they are overcome with disease. From a realistic perspective and what makes scientific sense, diseases make you weak and die off. That is why you need the supernatural being of Nurgle to make diseased Space Marines be capable of fighting and living on forever. It is the same with Tzeentch. Having Tzeentch Sorcerers is just not scientifically possible from the point of realism as we do not have the phenomenon of psychic powers in real life and the concept of a God/entity causing physical mutations is in the realm of fantasy. The idea of a supernatural entity turning the bodies of soldiers into dust and them still living inside their armor as is the case of Rubric Marines again falls in the realm of fantasy and imagination. No God from real life religions ever gifts physical changes as powers. Therefore both Nurgle's and Tzeentch's forces are totally in the realm of the supernatural and fantasy.

 

However, when it comes to Khorne's World Eaters and Slaanesh's Emperor's Children, even without a "God" leading and influencing these CSM, both these factions exist because of one thing which is indeed scientifically possible and falls under realism, that thing being "surgical enhancements". Both the Emperor's Children and the World Eaters were initially "corrupted" by surgical modifications. So, if you completely remove Khorne and Slaanesh, it is quite possible and not outside the realm of scientific realism, to conceive of a military force whose brains are surgically modified to make them more aggressive, resistant to injury, and more tenacious in combat like the WE. Similarly for the Emperor's Children, it is indeed possible to have sonic weaponry and adjustments done to the genetically enhanced super soldier that increases their sensory pleasure receptors during combat. Because both the EC and the WE became who they are not by mutation at first (that happened with the DG and the TS), but by human intervention via medical experimentation and surgical enhancements. It is only when Khorne's warriors develop superhuman strength or Slaanesh warriors get some kind of "blessing" or gift from their patron deity to make them feel more variety of sensations that is when the WE and the EC enter the realm of the supernatural and go outside the boundary of realism in Science fiction.

 

What do you guys think? Request to Moderati: if you feel that this post should be in a different forum you can do it, but I put a lot of effort in it, so please don't delete the post if you don't like it. You can of course move it elsewhere, if you feel that would be necessary.

I appreciate your post and If I wasnt so tired right now It would be interesting to actually talk about those influences. In addition the Dark Gods are representative of certain archetypes and I think the Ruinous powers is quite fitting as its kind of a thing where you trade part of your soul for power, but the deal is never worth it as each sort of aspect of Chaos is like something that on paper might make someone stronger but it takes more than anyone sane would be willing to give and the slaves to chaos are to me in many ways like people feeding a drug addiction and as long as they can keep running they are fine but sooner or later they will all crash and burn. The nature of chaos is in itself the delusion of the victims/servants thinking they can hold onto that power forever or whatever they are fighting against is actually worse than the gods. I'm not sure if realism really comes into play here because I dont think blindly attacking your enemy with axes is going to work due to the sheer gestalt psychic will of a bunch of madmen lusting for blood and killing is going to will the universe to manifest their ability to kill people. Theres lots of magic and metaphor even involving Khorne where in the Angron novel and arks of Omen book he is described as being able to fly in space despite having no atmosphere and faster than any vessel because the warp acts in funny ways, blood letters are able to just run down to the planet from orbit just cuz. All of chaos involves magical thinking and metaphor in their own rights where the science is kinda second fiddle and artsy. I mean we are talking about Warhammer 40k where you have english majors making up stories about Cosmic Space Rome+Dune where they have technology beyond modern day but people are using juiced up swords to fight each other because you wouldnt have dramatic tension with people standing in trenches or space ships just shooting things at each other and then surveying the aftermath.  I mean if you wanted Realism the Emperor should have put a kill switch on all the space marines and the moment he ever got a wind of anyone betraying him Horus' fleet just blows up or all the  traitor space marines, including the primarchs go into a remotely induced coma and their fleets are forced to return to Terra or wherever where they are all subjected to hypnotic brainwashing to not remember anything and program them to be fanatically loyal again.  That would be realism given potential technology and the concept that the Emperor is a super Giga Genius.    The thing is that this is more Cosmic Space Rome so the betrayal has to happen and conventional scientific logic is kinda out the window in favour of the fantasy and dramatic tension. 

[Bestkeptsecret]

21 hours ago, Krelious said:

I appreciate your post and If I wasnt so tired right now It would be interesting to actually talk about those influences. In addition the Dark Gods are representative of certain archetypes and I think the Ruinous powers is quite fitting as its kind of a thing where you trade part of your soul for power, but the deal is never worth it as each sort of aspect of Chaos is like something that on paper might make someone stronger but it takes more than anyone sane would be willing to give and the slaves to chaos are to me in many ways like people feeding a drug addiction and as long as they can keep running they are fine but sooner or later they will all crash and burn. The nature of chaos is in itself the delusion of the victims/servants thinking they can hold onto that power forever or whatever they are fighting against is actually worse than the gods. I'm not sure if realism really comes into play here because I dont think blindly attacking your enemy with axes is going to work due to the sheer gestalt psychic will of a bunch of madmen lusting for blood and killing is going to will the universe to manifest their ability to kill people. Theres lots of magic and metaphor even involving Khorne where in the Angron novel and arks of Omen book he is described as being able to fly in space despite having no atmosphere and faster than any vessel because the warp acts in funny ways, blood letters are able to just run down to the planet from orbit just cuz. All of chaos involves magical thinking and metaphor in their own rights where the science is kinda second fiddle and artsy. I mean we are talking about Warhammer 40k where you have english majors making up stories about Cosmic Space Rome+Dune where they have technology beyond modern day but people are using juiced up swords to fight each other because you wouldnt have dramatic tension with people standing in trenches or space ships just shooting things at each other and then surveying the aftermath.  I mean if you wanted Realism the Emperor should have put a kill switch on all the space marines and the moment he ever got a wind of anyone betraying him Horus' fleet just blows up or all the  traitor space marines, including the primarchs go into a remotely induced coma and their fleets are forced to return to Terra or wherever where they are all subjected to hypnotic brainwashing to not remember anything and program them to be fanatically loyal again.  That would be realism given potential technology and the concept that the Emperor is a super Giga Genius.    The thing is that this is more Cosmic Space Rome so the betrayal has to happen and conventional scientific logic is kinda out the window in favour of the fantasy and dramatic tension. 

I LOVE your post. Thank you for your comments. I was exploring science fiction novel series and I found that the HALO game series has novels attached to them and most of them are highly rated on Goodreads. Also, the Gears of War novel series are also positively rated on Goodreads. I have been reading Black Library novels since 2010. I love this website Bolter and Chainsword and I love the Warhammer lore. I know it is "Science Fantasy" and not "Science Fiction". I was born in 1990 and spent my teenage years in the 2000s reading Isaac Asimov Sci-Fi novels, Harry Potter, LOTR, and HG Wells. I posted my comment by thinking what will be possible in the future for mankind. Of course Space Marines can be genetically engineered. From the point of realism, what I intended to express is that even now without Space Marines, it would be possible but not moral and something that would be heavily frowned upon by liberal minded people i.e. the WE plan to make more aggressive fighters. I think it would be scientifically possible to make soldiers hyper aggressive and tolerate more pain. Back in the early 2000s I used to watch The Universal Soldier Sci Fi movie series featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme. I think something like the Universal Soldier type warrior can definitely be possible in the near future. So, I hope nobody took offense at my post about Warhammer lacking realism. I LOVE Warhammer. I really like the lore of Warhammer and I totally feel happy about the fantasy aspects of Warhammer.

 

My point was that: is it possible to start a real life fighting force or army by incorporating any of the 4 Chaos God factions and that is when I thought that only the Khorne and Slaanesh marines make sense in our real world because both of those traitor factions were created by surgical procedures and bodily alterations. Whereas the Death Guard and Thousand Sons came to be corrupted due to supernatural influences. I became very excited after reading the lore of Warhammer for more than a decade and started to contemplate if these Chaos God cults and factions could be made a reality in our world and we could have a Chaos faction in a realistic sense in our own world. To me, only World Eaters brain surgery "butchers nails" and Emperor's Children sonic weaponry surgery seemed to be physically and realistically possible. It would be a realistic idea to have a cult of soldiers who are fanatics, enjoy killing, see themselves as "butchers", and are very aggressive like the World Eaters or for the EC, it would be quite possible to have an infantry or army regiment who are degenerate sadists. In fact I got so excited that I emailed my University History librarian to give me a list of historical examples of sadistic, cruel, degenerate/hedonistic and debauched warriors similar but much less extreme compared to the fictional Emperor's Children. I was wondering if there were some historical examples and if this faction could happen in our real life in our own human world. Imagine an army of sadistic degenerates in real life. How horrible would that be?

 

I was contemplating the possibility of having a Khorne or Slaanesh cult for real i.e. a cult or groups of soldiers who are murderers and butchers and live only to kill and maim or a group of soldiers of degenerate pleasure seekers like the EC. Nurgle and Tzeentch factions seem impossible and cannot be made into a reality in our world. They are fantasy factions (Nurgle Death Guard and Tzeentch Sorcerers) because Sorcery does not exist. The world is materialist. So, it is quite possible to have aggressive soldiers immune to pain like some Universal Soldier movie concept or a group of sadistic and deviant soldiers who live to inflict pain and suffering. These are both war criminal groups and outside the Geneva convention, but compared to Nurgle or Tzeentch, it is actually possible to have some kind of Chaos faction in real life around the "God of murder" or the "God of twisted pleasure" concepts. That was the point I was trying to make.

Edited 8 hours ago by Bestkeptsecret