primaris books/series in order

[greatcrusade08]

So im looking for help, trouble is i cant accurately summarise what im looking for. Im going to try, and hope my fellow autists can understand my mad ramblings.

 

so im looking for the 40k end times lore, as much as i can get hold of and largely in the right order.

This would cover:

The loss of cadia (ive read the minka lesk ones which cover some of this),

The expansion of the eye of terror.

Return of Big G

Devastation of Baal

Return of the lion

etc

 

i have cawls great works, minka lesk/cadian series, indomitus, leviathon and the dawn of fire series, what am i missing? what order should they be read in?

sorry this is probably going to be a large scale works.

 

Edit:

book series identified:

watcher of the throne series

Edited Tuesday at 09:50 AM by greatcrusade08

[Karhedron]

The Watchers of the Throne novels includes Guilliman's arrival on Terra and his early actions prior to launching the Indomitus Crusade.

[greatcrusade08]

1 hour ago, Karhedron said:

The Watchers of the Throne novels includes Guilliman's arrival on Terra and his early actions prior to launching the Indomitus Crusade.

Thank you, ill create a list in the OP, i have a feeling there are a lot of books

[Tolmeus]

If I remember correctly, the events surrounding the 13th Black Crusade, the fall of Cadia and Guilliman's return were covered in the campaign books ‘The Gathering Storm’. This was then subsequently taken up in more detail in many books, so I think the order would be as follows:

 

Events of the Fall of Cadia:

• "The Gathering Storm - Fall of Cadia" [Campaign book]
• The Fall of Cadia (Robert Rath) - Main Event
• Minska Lesk (Justin D. Hill) - One perspective
• The Hellwinter Gate (Chris Wraight) - One perspective

Events of the Return of Guilliman:

• "The Gathering Storm - Rise of the Primarch" [Campaign book] - Covers the events of the ressurection of Guilliman and his Terran Crusade
• The Carrion Throne - Vaults of Terra (Chris Wraight) - Events on Terra shortly before the opening of the Great Rift
• The Hollow Mountain - Vaults of Terra (Chris Wraight)
• The Emperor's Legion: Watchers of the Throne (Chris Wraight) - Events on Terra during Fall of Cadia, Guilliman returns to Terra
• The Dark City - Vaults of Terra (Chris Wraight)

Indomitus Crusade - Imperium Sanctus:

• Dawn of Fire - Avenging Son (Guy Haley) [Indomitus Crusade series] - Events about the start of the Indomitus Crusade
• The Regent's Shadow: Watchers of the Throne (Chris Wraight) - Events of Terra during und shortly after Guilliman started the Indomitus Crusade
• ------- from now on total focus on the Indomitus Crusade ------------
• Psychic Awakening [Various campaign books]
• Dawn of Fire - The Gate of Bones (Andy Clark)
• Dawn of Fire - The Wolftime (Gav Thorpe)
• Indomitus (Gav Thorpe)
• Dawn of Fire - Throne of Light (Guy Haley)
• Dawn of Fire - The Iron Kingdom (Nick Kyme)
• Dawn of Fire - The Matyr's Tomb (Marc Collins)
• Dawn of Fire - Sea of Souls (Chris Wraight)
• Dawn of Fire - Hand of Abaddon (Nick Kyme)
• Dawn of Fire - The Silent King (Guy Haley)
• Dark Imperium (Guy Haley) - After the events of the "Dawn of Fire" series, Guilliman returns to Ultramar to fight Mortarion
• Dark Imperium - Plague War (Guy Haley)
• Dark Imperium - Godblight (Guy Haley)
• The Great Work (Guy Haley) - After the events of the "Dark Imperium" triology, focus on Belisarius Cawl
• Genefather (Guy Haley) - Events shortly before Guilliman/the Indomitus Crusade travels to Imperium Nihilus, focus on Belisarius Cawl and Fabius Bile

Indomitus Crusade - Imperium Nihilus:

• Dante - Blood Angels (Guy Haley) - shortly before the opening of the Great Rift
• The Devestation of Baal - Blood Angels (Guy Haley) - during the opening of the Great Rift, the Indomitus Crusade arrives
• Darkness in the Blood - Blood Angels (Guy Haley) - Dante as Lord Commander of Imperium Nihilus
• Angron - The Red Angel (David Guymer) - focus on the return of Angron and the World Eaters
• The Lion - Son of the Forest (Mike Brooks) - Return of Lion El'Johnson
• Arcs of Omen [Various campaign books]
• Leviathan (Darius Hinks) (focus on the 4th Tyranic war)
• Leviathan [campaign books]
• Fulgrim - The Perfect Son (Jude Reid)

That's roughly my chronological order of the events till now. There are surely some gaps (I did not read all of the available books), so all Fraters are invited to complete this list or alter it

Edit: I have included the additions of the other Fraters (date: 09.04.2025)

 

Edited Wednesday at 12:28 PM by Tolmeus

[greatcrusade08]

Wow thank you, thats incredible.

bit of a dense question, but whats a campaign book?

[Tolmeus]

14 minutes ago, greatcrusade08 said:

but whats a campaign book?

 

There are svereal sources regarding stories or lore when it comes to Warhammer40k:

• The classic approach would be the books released by Black Library, a branch company of Games Workshop that covers the releases of alle the books, for example "Horus Rising" (by Dan Abbnet), "Eisenhorn: Xenos" (by Dan Abnett), "Dante" (by Guy Haley) and so on.
• Games Workshop also publishes campaign books (concentrate on current main events, for example the "Arcs of Omen" campaign that focussed on Abaddon's plans after he achieved the opening of the Great Rift) or codices (concentrate on specific factions of the Table Top game, for example the newly released "Emperor's Children" get a new codex this weekend). Books, campaign books and codices can of course influence each other, which is why we get for each new edition of the Table Top Game also a equivalent book (for example 9th edition release with the "Leviathan" box, "Leviathan" campaign book, "Leviathan" book by Gav Thrope)
• White Dwarf magazines are released on a released on monthly (?) base and also include some stories or information on units

[Tolmeus]

Campaign books are deeply connected to the table top game and continue the current narrative of Warhammer40k, giving new formations, rules, and objectives for missions in the game. Its a collection of all of these things, some lore, some rules, pictures of the new units and so on. But it's not a classic book that covers a story in 300 pages written by an author.

[greatcrusade08]

Ah i see, thank you

[lansalt]

8 hours ago, Tolmeus said:

Events of the Return of Guilliman:

• "The Gathering Storm - Rise of the Primarch" (Campaign book) (Covers the events of the ressurection of Guilliman and his Terran Crusade)
• The Emperor's Legion: Watchers of the Throne (Chris Wraight) - (Events on Terra during Fall of Cadia, Gulliman returns to Terra)

The Vaults of Terra trilogy by Chris Wraight algo goes here. It's set before and during Watchers of the Throne, and features several key events (like what happened to the Astronomican)

[LemartesTheLost]

Obviously not released yet, but you'll be wanting Fulgrim: The Perfect Son once it goes on preorder this weekend.