Upcoming BL Stuff 2026

[theSpirea]

Or simply they know this is pretty much the last big thing when it comes to events for them to cover so they don't want to be done with it within a year or two. And I highly doubt they plan to do 20+ book series.

 

But they definitely missed the boat, I don't see/hear anyone even talking about that book. Newcomers have no clue where it sits. It's already bad enough some of them start with HH as their first venture in WH, so they are far from getting to Scouring. And the rest? hype is dead.

[darkhorse0607]

2 hours ago, theSpirea said:

 And the rest? hype is dead.

 

I do think they've missed the boat there, now there's going to be a "ok but when is the next one?" or "is there another one?" the next time there's a release in the series. If you want something to be the next big thing, you can't let it sit for 9+ months with almost no news (and I don't count the "roadmap" there)

 

3 hours ago, theSpirea said:

Or simply they know this is pretty much the last big thing when it comes to events for them to cover so they don't want to be done with it within a year or two. And I highly doubt they plan to do 20+ book series.

 

It's just such a weird way to handle things. Heresy (game) isn't spinning up for the Scouring which could help, unless that's the plan for Heresy 4.0, to include Scouring stuff but that isn't for two years. They could capitalize on Badab, especially since SM2 is getting Exorcist and Minotaurs content within the next year (with Raptors and Carcharadons already done) which would be a shorter series and probably be pretty popular. 

 

But alas, there's not a ton of movement on the 40k side either, with waiting on multiple sequels or different directions they could go.

 

It's a bit meh

[Felix Antipodes]

I don’t think it’s dead as such (though they have missed the boat hype wise IMHO).  I just think GW believes they can dump anything out of BL and make a profit because of the FOMO effect and the low print runs.  They know they don’t need to constantly bombard us with PR releases.

[wecanhaveallthree]

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They know they don’t need to constantly bombard us with PR releases.

 

You mean, 'you'll get your slop when we're good and ready, piggies'? Corrr, I'd feel a bit annoyed if I were a fan being treated like that, I wot. 

[The Scorpion]

Still no news of Cold Covenant?

[Lord Marshal]

11 hours ago, The Scorpion said:

Still no news of Cold Covenant?

 

Nope, but shouldn't be more than a few weeks out (touch wood). Sin of Hope was announced before it (Mid-August) and that only went for pre-order last week. 

 

Edited Saturday at 12:47 PM by Lord Marshal

[The Scorpion]

I am so hyped for it that I might give the BL app a second chance.

 

Glad that the special edition will include Blindsight. Such a great short story for the Coil.

[hd3]

5 hours ago, The Scorpion said:

I am so hyped for it that I might give the BL app a second chance.

 

Glad that the special edition will include Blindsight. Such a great short story for the Coil.

 

It will? I've been trying to find somewhere to read blindsight for ages

[Lord Marshal]

Cold Covenant pre-order next week for the Fehervari Army. Also Russel Zimmerman's Auxilia (straight to PB), plus paperbacks of Apostle and Dropsite Massacre.

 

 

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The Special Edition goes on pre-order from 3pm UK time on 7 October 2026, and will only be available while stocks last.

 

Edited Sunday at 04:58 PM by Lord Marshal

[theSpirea]

Regular hardback it is because that LE is ugly :cuss:. I can smell that factory glue from it already. Lately their LEs are pi** poor quality and smell like plastic factory. LEs are looking lazier and lazier.

[DarkChaplain]

There it is. I'm excited.

[System Sound]

8 minutes ago, theSpirea said:

Regular hardback it is because that LE is ugly :cuss:. I can smell that factory glue from it already. Lately their LEs are pi** poor quality and smell like plastic factory. LEs are looking lazier and lazier.

Unfortunately I have to agree, the box set was pretty nice but this is tacky

[grailkeeper]

Scouring seems a bad choice. It's not rhe main setting of the lore. It's not the secondary setting of the lore. It's after the big stuff has happened, and will need to explain that big stuff. It seems too niche for a show aimed at capturing a new audience. 

[wecanhaveallthree]

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A new Astra Militarum novel by Russell Zimmerman launches in paperback. Auxilia finds the young and brash Castellan-Colonel Roane forced to take charge of a ragtag auxilia built around a clan of despised abhumans, overseen and openly loathed by a murderous commissar and consistently ignored by the Departmento Munitorum. Roane struggles with the impossible task of hammering his unit into Cadian shape, while those around him would rather see it destroyed.

 

What an odd premise. Like, what more authority does a Commissar or the Munitorum (or 'those around him') need to destroy a 'ragtag auxilia'? Especially one of abhumans? I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures: there's certainly an interesting hook there, but I chuckled a little at the idea of a 'murderous commissar', the people who are empowered to enact and regularly perform summary executions. There are good murders and bad murders, I suppose.

 

Zimmerman's got a good pedigree, and while his shorts haven't impressed me so far, I'm certainly interested what he'll do in a longer format. There are a lot of books coming out BL lately that are very safe, very paint-by-numbers, so seeing one with a genuinely odd premise (and one that isn't trying to move models, because I guarantee this isn't a homogeneous clan of ogryn) - one with the possibility to fail, in short - is worth picking up, if just for novelty's sake. I'm sure it'll be interesting, but just like murder, you can have good interesting or bad interesting. Reasonably keen.

 

Of course, it might just be a completely rote 'found family overcomes adversity and proves themselves' - but I choose to believe that it's gonna either be a solid, novel take or a big, wet fart. I'm only into EXTREMES, thank you. 

[Nagashsnee]

On 9/25/2026 at 4:53 AM, darkhorse0607 said:

It's just such a weird way to handle things. Heresy (game) isn't spinning up for the Scouring which could help, unless that's the plan for Heresy 4.0, to include Scouring stuff but that isn't for two years. They could capitalize on Badab, especially since SM2 is getting Exorcist and Minotaurs content within the next year (with Raptors and Carcharadons already done) which would be a shorter series and probably be pretty popular. 

 

 

30k is currently busy going over the same 5 battles over and over....only this time its the super secret custodes side of things.  They havent even gotten to the Siege or anywhere near it and you want the scouring? 30k design and vision wise is in a very very bad spot, and with the switch to 40k style short edition cycles meaning they have to re print everything slightly differently so you have to re buy it every 4 years and the total lack of creativity and vision i cant see them doing the scouring any time soon. 

[Lord Marshal]

I actually kinda dig the Cold Covenant LE, especially after noticing the two guardsmen climbing into the skull. That being said, I'm not looking forward to seeing what state it arrives in. 

[darkhorse0607]

6 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

 

They havent even gotten to the Siege or anywhere near it and you want the scouring? 

 

I'll complain about GW and how they've handled the Heresy as much as the next person (or more than the next person), but that just isn't true. 1st ed went through Thramas, 2nd ed basically started with Beta Garmon and the Cthonia shindig, then Tallarn, back to Istvaan, etc

 

They've gotten close to the Siege before, but it's pretty clear that there isn't a clear order they're doing things anymore

 

If you want to argue that the whole current trend of the same battles but Custodes is dumb, then yeah I agree with you

[Nagashsnee]

28 minutes ago, darkhorse0607 said:

 

I'll complain about GW and how they've handled the Heresy as much as the next person (or more than the next person), but that just isn't true. 1st ed went through Thramas, 2nd ed basically started with Beta Garmon and the Cthonia shindig, then Tallarn, back to Istvaan, etc

If you want to argue that the whole current trend of the same battles but Custodes is dumb, then yeah I agree with you

3 ed they have done Istavaan part one, Talarn part 1 (for real the covers say part one). So neither of those are finished and prospero burns being the only completed battle book. Then you have forges of saturn focussing on armor, skitarii which covers 1 unit and 1 hq, the tank book, and 3rd eds version of zone mortalis. 

 

So the ONLY  currently completed book in 3 edition focussing on a battle is prospero. With Istvaan and Talarn awaiting at least a part 2. 

 

First edition had a general outline and was progresing along a semi linear line, that all died with Alan. 2 edition was basically a stillborn focusses on re printed things that had already come out online, and 3rd boldy went straight back to ISTVAAN. Any vision, plan or direction in 30k died a long time ago.

 

I dont want to argue at all, but anyone wondering where the scouring game is should worry about when they are going to be done witht he dropsite massacre first and anything else latter. 

 

There is like one GIANT ass thread in the 30k area of the forum that has been going on ages and its only topic is if 30k can be saved or are we calling TOD. There is a reason it exists. 

Edited Monday at 01:04 PM by Nagashsnee

[darkhorse0607]

1 hour ago, Nagashsnee said:

I dont want to argue at all, 

 

Agreed

 

But just to clarify my position

 

I do believe that Valrak is right, and that we will see the Scouring expansion for the Heresy sooner rather than later (again, I could see the next ed launching with it but who knows). Mostly because GW can't help themselves 

 

But

 

I don't think they should/I don't want them to for a number of reasons:

-Their support for the Heresy has been lackluster to say the least the last few years. The journals are no replacement for the Black Books, and like you mentioned, they're retreading a lot of the same battles (Signus for example) with just different armies to say "look how much bigger than you thought it was, THEY were here." Like I said, it's dumb

-Without talking about the plastic range of it all, they still haven't dug themselves out of all the stuff we lost in the 2018-2020 last chance to buy episodes, and they haven't done anything legion specific in plastic, so it feels like it's in limbo

-Then if you talk about the ranges in general, a bunch of legions are still missing things, and the range in general still hasn't gotten a ton like Destroyers, Recon Squads, etc. 

-I don't play so can't talk about the rules, but from what folks have said on here and the 30k Reddit, it's a mixed bag 

-I don't think the current lore team is strong enough to start telling the Scouring on their own. It's come a long way since Bligh (mostly)/French/etc. I don't trust them to start doing the Scouring without some novels to get them started. Once the novels are there, they can branch out with the game books

 

So yeah, I don't want them to expand without fixing a bunch of stuff first, but I do think they will

[wecanhaveallthree]

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I don't think the current lore team is strong enough to start telling the Scouring on their own. 

 

If Ashes is anything to go by, this is a company-wide issue. 

[Griefbringer]

On 9/27/2026 at 8:50 PM, wecanhaveallthree said:

What an odd premise. Like, what more authority does a Commissar or the Munitorum (or 'those around him') need to destroy a 'ragtag auxilia'? Especially one of abhumans? I suppose desperate times call for desperate measures: there's certainly an interesting hook there, but I chuckled a little at the idea of a 'murderous commissar', the people who are empowered to enact and regularly perform summary executions. There are good murders and bad murders, I suppose.

 

It certainly sounds interesting. though the prospect of inter-regimental rivalries hampering things in novels is no longer as novel concept as it was when Dan Abnett started writing Gaunt's Ghosts series. That said, putting the focus on an abhuman unit is much more original, and has quite some potential for success or fail. Abhumans run the risk of being simply treated as comical caricatures, which may be less of an issue in shorter stories, but for a full-length novel they should be depicted in some depth.

 

As for commissars, they may all have authority to perform summary executions, but some of them tend to be rather too trigger-happy. Other commissars are keener on other means of inspiring their troops, such as by heroic example, and only resort to the executions when they really have to.

 

Finally, short promotional blurbs for books tend to give rather simplistic descriptions of characters, so I would not try to take them too literally.

[The Praetorian of Inwit]

Can the Cold Covenant be read as a stand alone story, or do you need to have read other  Dark Coil words first?

[DarkChaplain]

3 hours ago, The Praetorian of Inwit said:

Can the Cold Covenant be read as a stand alone story, or do you need to have read other  Dark Coil words first?

 

Generally, Fehervari can be read standalone across the board. It is, however, a puzzle that you won't have all the pieces to. Neither will those who have read everything else prior, however. Your perspective and focus will also differ a bit depending on which work you read when, and what you take into it. It's why re-reading Fehervari is so rewarding - you always come away with new connections and hooks.

 

So... you will be fine. You'll likely have an excellent piece of fiction in your hands or ears. I'd still suggest grabbing the two omnibus volumes sooner rather than later to dig into more, because it's going to be extra rewarding. Fehervari's works elevate one another.

 

That being said: If you want to push yourself, you might want to consider reading the Fire & Ice novella as well as The Thirteenth Psalm, since they're set on the same planet, it looks like, and reasonable to finish in the meantime.