Upcoming BL Stuff 2025

[theSpirea]

Some of the older covers were excellent and yes, I agree that they are losing the grimness. 

 

Just a random pic I saw, perfectly illustrates how boring and generic these covers are.

 

 

Edited November 28, 2025 by theSpirea

[kabaakaba]

Let's be honest, it is a rare case when book cover are great.

[Tolmeus]

Maybe to give just one specific example of a good cover work: I liked the cover of the special edition of 'Angron - The Red Angel'

(On the other hand, the cover of the standard edition was miserable)

Edited November 28, 2025 by Tolmeus

[skylerboodie]

I like getting the Black Library special editions, but I couldn't bring myself to fork out any money for this pathetic attempt:

 

I don't know what I dislike more - the eagle wings, the spine's title font, or just the general chunkiness of all of the design elements. Yes.

[kabaakaba]

it's really gross. Aquila's head show us the whole dullness of cover art.

[Roomsky]

Covers have really never been Black Library's strong suit. From the Scarface Marine to Eisenhorn's big floating head to Khârn just kind of standing there, I don't think there's ever been a true golden age. The cover of Daemonhammer is probably the most insulting compared to the original artwork it's aping.

The Reverie, Requiem Infernal, the new Pariah and Penitent covers, and the Warhammer Crime range are the only real standout covers (for standard releases) we've had in like, a decade.

Edited November 28, 2025 by Roomsky

[Gamiel]

7 hours ago, skylerboodie said:

I like getting the Black Library special editions, but I couldn't bring myself to fork out any money for this pathetic attempt:

 

I don't know what I dislike more - the eagle wings, the spine's title font, or just the general chunkiness of all of the design elements. Yes.

I like it.

[kabaakaba]

I like baneblade cover. 

[Fedor]

The pinnacle of recent bad covers was the Helbrecht girthy penis-head one.

 

[Felix Antipodes]

Probably the big Christmas release this year:

 

 

[DarkChaplain]

Going up for preorder next week, yes. Nothing else, though

[Felix Antipodes]

I wasn’t expecting it up for preorder until next week for some reason  <looks at calendar> Actually, seems about right if you want it under the tree on the 25th 

[63-19]

On 11/28/2025 at 3:59 AM, Tolmeus said:

Maybe to give just one specific example of a good cover work: I liked the cover of the special edition of 'Angron - The Red Angel'

(On the other hand, the cover of the standard edition was miserable)

I actually liked this cover so much I had it custom printed on an aluminum poster.

[Sothalor]

To be fair to Black Library covers, walk into any retail bookstore these days and take a look at the covers on new and recent releases.

 

It's not like BL in particular is languishing in some special pit of bad cover art and design.

[The Scorpion]

On 11/28/2025 at 2:46 AM, theSpirea said:

Some of the older covers were excellent and yes, I agree that they are losing the grimness. 

 

Just a random pic I saw, perfectly illustrates how boring and generic these covers are.

 

 

IMHO These covers are the equivalent of the 'Heavy Metal style of painting: bright colors with razor sharp edge highlights so the details on the mini are as visible as possible, even if it makes the mini appear toylike.

 

The intent is to drill into the customer what the book is about, the same way when we look for a job we try to desperately drill into a recruiter the gist of our CV using bullet points. We know full well the attention a tired recruiter will give our CV is 3-5 seconds so the CV better say what it has to say in that time.

 

• FACTION

• CHARACTER

• TITLE (author, setting, title font)

 

Same with these covers: bold colors with unmistakeable power armored or similar warhammer silhouettes. GW assumes, perhaps not fully without reason, that whoever is at the library looking for WH books has an aggresively short attention span.

 

This is why Ascension is the only book that escapes the FACTION+CHARACTER+TITLE formula: it is an Anthology and it is written by Fehervari, whose works stubbornly refuse to fit into the labeled keywords of pre-existing marketeable plastics, much to corporate GeeDubs dismay.

Edited December 2, 2025 by The Scorpion

[grailkeeper]

They're reprinting troll slayer?

 

Were the reprinting Eisenhorn machines broken?

 

I really hope Bill King gets a percentage of that book and not a flat fee back in 1999.

[DarkChaplain]

5 hours ago, Sothalor said:

To be fair to Black Library covers, walk into any retail bookstore these days and take a look at the covers on new and recent releases.

 

It's not like BL in particular is languishing in some special pit of bad cover art and design.

 

What gets me the most about the book market is how freakin' often they have good cover artists, just to then either abandon them, do a different, bland cover (like... how many Fantasy novels come along with some sort of weapon front and center?) for the paperback edition, or change general layout of the cover/spine in terms of font and title treatment.

 

.....and then you have a whole different hell in covers being replaced with cheap-ass promotion posters for movies or netflix adaptations. Like, my Kindle copies of the Witcher series have gone through at least 3 cover stages at this point, and nowadays they're not even matching the same pattern anymore. And that's not even counting the Orbit editions which started out with promo artworks from the The Witcher 2 video game... I'm so glad I bought the entire trade paperback series when it still matched and didn't have bland weapons or Henry Cavill up front.

 

Still kind of shocked that Michael J. Sullivan's recent Riyria reprints, now that he has the rights back, didn't get the full Marc Simonetti treatment; he's amazingly suited to the various series. If I remember correctly, he couldn't make it for Drumindor, but it's still a shame. I want to own a full Simonetti set of the Riyria Revelations and Riyria Chronicles someday...

 

And then you have Black Library which had Raymond Swanland and others winning awards for them.... and ditched them right afterwards. Same issue with Space Marine Battles, where the switch in main artist was clearly visible... but then again, they were still decent compared to Space Marine Conquests.

 

Also, in regards to the photo up there, the cover for the Space Wolves Omnibus is recycled art. They've used it for other books/eshorts before, and I believe even then it was Codex art. Incredibly lazy that Wraight's Jarnhamar didn't even get unique art, but a recycled Arjac Rockfist.

[Krelious]

I feel like im getting trolled as I got an email notice that Ashes of the Imperium would be delivered today but it hasnt even been shipped yet and it seems every delivery is on a monday. 

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

I quite liked the cover for Remnant Blade.

[Lord Marshal]

Two new novels incoming. Annadale's usually solid when he's allowed to dip into weird, creepy Chaos stuff so I'll be keeping an eye on Apostle.

 

 

Quote

Cerastes of the Word Bearers is hard pressed. His band of pious warriors has been wiped out by the Order of the Thorn – a battle-hardened sisterhood of the Adepta Sororitas – and any hope he has of turning the scribe world of Legitur to Chaos worship must see him start from the very beginning.

 

The world itself may be his greatest asset, as Legitur is a planet entirely dedicated to the production of holy scripture, and endless swarms of the close-minded faithful flock between towering paper-hives. Such pawns are simple to influence, and soon Cerastes will have revenge on the world he once called home – just so long as the Ecclesiarchy don’t root out his congregation and throw the Word Bearers back into the Warp in defeat.

 

 

 

Quote

Commissars attached to the Death Korps of Krieg often have to rein in their regiment’s zeal as often as they inspire their troops, and that’s exactly the situation in which Valian Hesh finds himself. Separated from his own regiment and stranded on the dying world of Rezlan VI, Hesh is ordered to find the 472nd Siege Regiment of the Death Korps of Krieg and make them withdraw from the doomed planet – not an easy task as they ready themselves for a final suicidal assault on T’au Empire lines.

 

If the lives of the Kriegsmen are to be spent, he would see them spent effectively, and so the 472nd must escape the doomed world. Alas, it’s hard enough to stop a single guardsman of Krieg from charging fearlessly into enemy guns, let alone an entire regiment. Will Hesh be able to bring the Death Korps to heel, or will he and his men be consumed in the fires of Rezlan VI like so many others?

 

 

Edited December 17, 2025 by Lord Marshal

[lansalt]

These new covers are great. More evocative than the usual "movie poster with character collage" like in the Dawn of Fire series and others

[grailkeeper]

Rhu James is an autobuy for me. 

 

We used to be mutuals on twitter. He was so interesting and engaging on there, I really miss that he's gone. Never got to meet the guy but I'd love to go for a pint with him based off what I've seen. 

 

Sum of its Parts was an incredible short story.  Enough to make me buy this book sight unseen. 

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

Apostle sounds intriguing and I like D Annadales previous work. That's a good cover too. 

 

Is Cerastes a new character for this book? I'm not well versed in WB lore. 

[grailkeeper]

21 minutes ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

Apostle sounds intriguing and I like D Annadales previous work. That's a good cover too. 

 

Is Cerastes a new character for this book? I'm not well versed in WB lore. 

 

Google tells me the author had a short story about cerastes 3 years ago.  https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Sacred_Hate_(Short_Story)

[sitnam]

I'm excited to see Annandale back at it. Whilst I hated some of his Heresy work, his 40k stuff has generally been pretty fun. Death of Antagonis was one of my forays back into BL after a long hiatus, and he had some strong Horror outings.