Upcoming BL Stuff 2026

[Bestkeptsecret]

When will the False Gods limited edition release?

[DarkChaplain]

.....well, screw Germany, I guess, huh, GW? Like, their biggest market in continental Europe.

 

They're OBVIOUSLY skipping Germany, France and Spain because of the slated localized releases, but that's just bogus.

 

This also means there's been f all in terms of releases going up this month. Good job, BL.

[darkhorse0607]

On one hand, completely understand the frustration. Its an absolutely trash move by GW.

 

On the other hand, I have been putting off getting some new running stuff for a while, if GW doesnt want my money thats fine

 

On a third hand. I cant be too mad because I returned the audio version of Hiiiive already 

[skylerboodie]

Only three stores in England will have it, yet every single store in North America gets copies? That sounds fair...

[Taliesin]

I suspect there has to be some reason for why they are doing the release like that, because this seems unprecedented to me.

Maybe the number of copies is very limited. Of course they could have explained why they suddenly change their release strategy for a book, but then that would be out of character. I think it might also be because they already released the regular edition.

 

Remember, when the article for the Special Edition first went up, there was no mention of this store only purchase plan, that is something that they decided on later.

Edited May 24 by Taliesin

[skylerboodie]

I guess the UK/Europe shipment all got damaged/delayed and so they just redirected a few that arrived safely in NA or Aus/NZ as a token effort

[DarkChaplain]

Looking at the Special Edition again, I find it oddly hilarious that HIVE got marketed as if it was a Crime-novel without the imprint, and now the Special Edition looks like it was part of the Horror imprint.

[Felix Antipodes]

Not sure who came up with this idea, but let’s hope it is a one off.  If this becomes the norm I will be saying goodbye to BL.  Not hyperbole, just not willing to traipse halfway across town to attempt to purchase a book.  Would be different if every store got copies but I would have to drive past two (closer) stores to reach the nearest on that list.

[Sothalor]

11 hours ago, DarkChaplain said:

Looking at the Special Edition again, I find it oddly hilarious that HIVE got marketed as if it was a Crime-novel without the imprint, and now the Special Edition looks like it was part of the Horror imprint.

 

Spoiler

That's actually extremely fitting.

 

[Ubiquitous1984]

It’s unfair to collectors to sell the books only in-store.  
 

Let’s hope there is a later POD so people who can’t pick up a copy don’t lose out.  But this needs to be clearly communicated asap!

[theSpirea]

I bet someone at GW messed up some other order and accidently sent these copies with plastic crack to various stores. I just refuse to believe the selection of the stores was deliberate and thought out. But this is GW we're talking about, everything is possible and customers will just eat it up.

[The Scorpion]

The future looks grim if GeeDubs plans to move to this dogwater Black Library app completely. I might deadass stop reading new releases when that happens. It is just unfettered arse.

[theSpirea]

Damage control is in https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/r8x8lgfa/hive-premium-edition-and-hardback-update/

 

It's good news but this is still messed up at so many levels... This is damage control rather than proactive treatment. They knew they f*ed up but they hoped the backlash wouldn't be so bad. They could have done this last week already and completely switched the narrative if at least one person at that damn company knew how to communicate. Simply state there was a mess up and they are proactively doing PoDs to ensure everyone gets a fair shot at a copy, rather than doing in-store only, as they understand that not everyone has one close by.

I'm really happy I decided to move away from buying physical books. Second hand market prices are nuts, so as someone who has been buying WH books for decades... well, at least I'm making quite a bit of money on it, and still selling under the nuts scalpers' prices. Oh, and BL app is one of the worst apps I've seen so I'm moving away from those ebooks as well.

[Dosjetka]

On 5/25/2026 at 9:07 PM, theSpirea said:

I bet someone at GW messed up some other order and accidently sent these copies with plastic crack to various stores. I just refuse to believe the selection of the stores was deliberate and thought out. But this is GW we're talking about, everything is possible and customers will just eat it up.

Looking at the three selected stores for Continental Europe, they are all recent stores (oldest is Zürich, opened in November 2024) and are all considered flagship stores. So at least the selection of those stores makes some sense, to me at least. Can't comment on the rest.

[darkhorse0607]

I mean. I can't say I am surprised.

 

I don't know why they keep stepping on rakes. The Siege LE fiasco. Then they clearly didn't plan anything for Black Library Celebration until the same backlash happened (or at a minimum they were getting beat up with "where is BL celebration" comments). Now they didn't even bother to think that only sending an Abnett book to a limited number of stores would go over poorly.

 

It's not even intern thinking, it's like they asked ChatGPT for the idea

[Ubiquitous1984]

It feels like GW is making the decisions, who are completely disconnected from the book side of things.  GW only then become aware of an issue through social media responses.  Do we have a management at BL anymore?  I wonder if it’s been quietly killed off/rationalised to working on other more profitable projects.  

[Felix Antipodes]

I was unsurprised with this backflip as what they initially announced was always going to generate major nerd rage.  If they have finally seen the light, they should make all future SE/LE print on demand.  All guaranteed sales.  More profit for the profit-god (James Workshop, his infernal majesty).

This would mean (probably) losing the signed/numbered incentive, which I’m fine with personally, but will no doubt lead to the next nerd rage event.

[Nagashsnee]

4 hours ago, Felix Antipodes said:

I was unsurprised with this backflip as what they initially announced was always going to generate major nerd rage.  If they have finally seen the light, they should make all future SE/LE print on demand.  All guaranteed sales.  More profit for the profit-god (James Workshop, his infernal majesty).

This would mean (probably) losing the signed/numbered incentive, which I’m fine with personally, but will no doubt lead to the next nerd rage event.

 

Here is the thing, for me and i think many others the numbers/signging was secondary to the book itself looking in universe or nicer. 

 

There is nothing wrong with having say a made to order premium edition AND  a LE which is limited to X copies that is numbered and signed.

 

The siege of terra is a perfect example, i WANTED the fancy books, not 1 hoot given for the number or signing.  It doesnt have to be one or the other, they can do both, nothing is stoping BL expect BL (and maybe GW) from exploring their fanbase wants and meeting them. 

[System Sound]

Or the authors signature could be... Now hold on a second for this wild idea... A part of meet and greet with the author... maybe there could be other authors there too... Maybe they could host a seminar or two... Could call it a Weekender or something... 

[skylerboodie]

just makes me curious what they're now going to do with all the signed and numbered copies that were clearly ready to be sold in stores in the next couple of weeks; they just going to destroy the lot? will they get the book binders to take out those pages and reuse them for the 180-day Print on Demand run? Whoever is running Black Library as a department over the past few years is quite frankly doing an absolutely terrible job.

[Casual Heresy]

14 minutes ago, skylerboodie said:

just makes me curious what they're now going to do with all the signed and numbered copies that were clearly ready to be sold in stores in the next couple of weeks; they just going to destroy the lot? will they get the book binders to take out those pages and reuse them for the 180-day Print on Demand run? Whoever is running Black Library as a department over the past few years is quite frankly doing an absolutely terrible job.

 

Can confirm they won't be removing pages from already bound stock. I explored doing something similar for a book where I work, and it is just significantly cheaper to print new ones.

 

I suspect that once they're all back in the warehouse GW will just put these on the shelves at Warhammer World and the Warhammer Cafes. May be a few of the flagship shops will receive a couple each as well. 

 

I am hoping BL's current ineptitude is due to a management changeover coming into effect or a change of approach that we haven't seen filter through yet. But you know what hope is the first step to in this genre.

[DarkChaplain]

They're definitely going to keep them around for later. First priority is damage control by removing the FOMO object from view.

 

Once they can say that everybody who wanted a copy got one already, within 180 days of PoD (which is incredibly stupid because they're limiting it to such a short order window, and on very short notice!), they'll dig it back out, maybe for next year's BL Celebration, if they remember to organize one.

 

 

[The Scorpion]

I'm concerned about future releases being restricted to the BL app.

 

It is absolute cheeks. The settings are dog awful, and sometimes the app will throw me dozens of pages backwards.

 

What is the purpose of this? Combatting piracy?

[Felix Antipodes]

17 hours ago, skylerboodie said:

just makes me curious what they're now going to do with all the signed and numbered copies that were clearly ready to be sold in stores in the next couple of weeks; they just going to destroy the lot? will they get the book binders to take out those pages and reuse them for the 180-day Print on Demand run? Whoever is running Black Library as a department over the past few years is quite frankly doing an absolutely terrible job.

They could use them as “blind bag” items, scattering the signed copies amongst the POD edition.  For the record, I don’t care about the signed/numbered incentive pages either, but there are some who do.

[theSpirea]

Often publishers request these copies to be destroyed