The Rumour Thread

[LordAlpharius]

Yeah, while many of the veteran Black library writers seem to focus on 40k (likely due to being more familiar with the setting) many of the newer writers (and some veterans e.g. Guymer, Annandale, Hinks etc) write a lot of stories for AoS which is really encouraging.

Edited December 5, 2020 by LordAlpharius

[JPjr]

14 minutes ago, shinros said:

Plus the overall lack of AOS novels is concerning, It's now obvious to me the big names don't want to touch it for some reason.

obviously very hard to say how much truth there is with that BUT from a purely mercenary point of view it would make sense.

not that AoS novels don't sell. I imagine they do pretty well compared to a lot of genre fiction but it's no slight on AoS to assume that long running fictional series, in a universe that's both much more established and whose toys sell lots more would be a much more attractive draw to writers working for hire rather than on their own passion projects.

a couple of BL authors have said in various places that if you enter the BL submissions you've got a much better chance of getting in with an AoS story just because there's less competition.

 

 

[Clif Blunderbrows]

Don’t be too quick to dismiss the quality of what few AoS novels we do have. I miss the eight lamentations series as much as the next nerd, but I was pleasantly surprised by the high flying adventure of Ghoulslayer, so another Gotrek adventure from Hinks is super welcome. Same for the lumineth novel: Realm-Lords has made the emotion-wrestling lore of that faction much more engaging to me than the battletome did. 
 

The disproportion of 40k to Mortal Realms books is a bummer, but at least what we are getting has been pretty top notch (at least in my opinion). And I wonder if the difference might be simply be that at the end of the day authors make more money from writing 40K novels, either in contracts or from copies sold.

edit: @JPjr says it best on that last point!

Edited December 5, 2020 by Clif Blunderbrows

[KingBrodd]

Hyped as hell for Gitslayer!! Really wish there was more of an AOS offering but I expected as much hence missed the Preview. Hope that AOS starts getting more love, I almost thought AOS wasnt going to be present till I scrolled down most of the article.

[Ogregut]

I also think they didn't reveal many AoS titles because they will tie into releases and basically give the game away for new armies, broken realms and spoil any surprises. 

I'm quite happy to be kept in the dark and have the surprise. 

[KingBrodd]

11 minutes ago, Ogregut said:

I also think they didn't reveal many AoS titles because they will tie into releases and basically give the game away for new armies, broken realms and spoil any surprises. 

I'm quite happy to be kept in the dark and have the surprise. 

Never thought of it that way!!

[SirSalabean]

Today’s rumour engine. Possibly a trident for Idoneth Underworlds? 

[Overread]

4 minutes ago, SirSalabean said:

Today’s rumour engine. Possibly a trident for Idoneth Underworlds? 

It's already been found - its one of the weapons from the new Slaanesh "champions" kits coming out after their last preview. 

[shinros]

41 minutes ago, JPjr said:

obviously very hard to say how much truth there is with that BUT from a purely mercenary point of view it would make sense.

not that AoS novels don't sell. I imagine they do pretty well compared to a lot of genre fiction but it's no slight on AoS to assume that long running fictional series, in a universe that's both much more established and whose toys sell lots more would be a much more attractive draw to writers working for hire rather than on their own passion projects.

a couple of BL authors have said in various places that if you enter the BL submissions you've got a much better chance of getting in with an AoS story just because there's less competition.

 

 

Josh reynolds did reveal that his soul wars book reached horus heresy numbers in terms of sales. Yes, it came with a new edition but it was a quality book that I would recommend. They can sell, yes, not as much as 40k but if the heavy weights put their names behind it and start writing novels I think AOS novels can bring in the cash.

Ironically someone can correct me on this since my memory might fail me but eight lamentations was partly canned due to the poor sales. Josh partly wrote the book because people kept asking for normal humans.

Now I'm going to shift to a different tanget, this is merely my opinion.

What I find interesting for AOS is that the books that do well apparently are the ones that lean into the myth of the setting or its weirdness.

Slowly, after reading Josh's tweets and him talking about the mercenary aspect of the job(since I want to be a writer), most people don't want to read about joe the farmer/soldier. You can use joe to ground your story somewhat but that's all.

This issue goes far back to whfb books. Gav Thorpe and Josh Reynolds reveal save some of the gotrek books and times of legends none of the fantasy books earned back their money, they did worse than AOS books. The books that did well chiefly times of legend are pretty over the top high fantasy with grounded moments. I even recall what Josh said even on TGA "sometimes the numbers don't line up with what's said on the internet."

Anyway enough of that, overall my opinion is this was a poor event. It wasn't a Black Library book celebration it was a 40k one.

Edited December 5, 2020 by shinros

[Still-young]

1 hour ago, SirSalabean said:

Today’s rumour engine. Possibly a trident for Idoneth Underworlds? 

 

[xking]

2 hours ago, shinros said:

Eh, kinda boring my opinion. I think we are finally seeing the knock on effect of losing Josh reynolds.

You are speaking the true. If Josh reynolds was still here  we would have gotten plenty new novels by now.    I miss gardus already.

Edited December 5, 2020 by xking

[Clan's Cynic]

2 hours ago, shinros said:

Eh, kinda boring my opinion. I think we are finally seeing the knock on effect of losing Josh reynolds.

19 minutes ago, xking said:

You are speaking the true. If Josh reynolds was still here  we would have gotten plenty new novels by now.    I miss gardus already.

GW might not have even commissioned him to write more AoS even if he wanted to. 

Quote

Slowly, after reading Josh's tweets and him talking about the mercenary aspect of the job(since I want to be a writer), most people don't want to read about joe the farmer/soldier. You can use joe to ground your story somewhat but that's all.

I feel like it's got more to do with Space Marines/Stormcast being more popular when it comes to direct fandom tie-in. For your Average Joe, there's no lack of, frankly, often better written sci-fi/fantasy content out there and you can just pretend you're reading about Free Guild/Guardsmen without much change in headspace. I've found people who consume a lot of Black Library rarely read much outside of it, and Space Marines/Stormcast aren't something you can get from other publishers for obvious reasons.

I imagine the next big batch of Stormcast  or even AoS books might be being saved for the inevitable 3.0 release, which is only six-seven months away.

The Horror and Crime labels are obviously an attempt to draw in people who aren't into 'typical' Black Library content, from the almost exclusive focus on normal humans to the much more generic covers, so clearly they believe they they can sell them, just in a different capacity. 

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[Aleser]

In new Warcry Chaos book there are rules for new Slaanesh mortals called Hedonites of Slaanesh: Sybarites. Reviewers are not allowed to show those pages so we might see more models during next week because that book will be available next saturday for everyone.

First fighter looks like some new cavalry option

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by Aleser

[SirSalabean]

59 minutes ago, Still-young said:

 

That’s dumb why are we getting rumour engines for stuff we’ve seen?

[Sleboda]

3 hours ago, Overread said:

First AoS story - GITZSLAYER! Gotrek against the Gitz! 

I can't tell you how much I wish Gotrek would achieve his glorious end.

It's starting to be like Mountain Dew. The original was nice. Diet was predictable and has a place. Code Red was a fun variation.

Do we really need chocolate jalapeno mountain dew? Is that even really still mountain dew? Can't there be a *new* soda that isn't tossed out there in a lazy fashion by slapping the MD brand name on it to avoid the effort of having to make it succeed on its own merits?

How many versions of the original do we need? When does it cease being the same thing at all? 

 

Get off my lawn.

[Grim Beasties]

9 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

I can't tell you how much I wish Gotrek would achieve his glorious end.

It's starting to be like Mountain Dew. The original was nice. Diet was predictable and has a place. Code Red was a fun variation.

Do we really need chocolate jalapeno mountain dew? Is that even really still mountain dew? Can't there be a *new* soda that isn't tossed out there in a lazy fashion by slapping the MD brand name on it to avoid the effort of having to make it succeed on its own merits?

How many versions of the original do we need? When does it cease being the same thing at all? 

 

Get off my lawn.

I get what you're saying, but there are like 60 AoS original Novels compared to the 5 new Gotrek stories. It's not like it's your only option

[Carnith]

New horsemen would be pretty awesome. Hoping we know more this week before our glance of everything comes from the chaos book releasing. 

[shinros]

8 minutes ago, Clan's Cynic said:

GW might not have even commissioned him to write more AoS if he wanted to. 

 

 

I feel like it's got more to do with Space Marines/Stormcast being more popular overall. For your Average Joe, there's no lack of, frankly, often better written sci-fi/fantasy content out there. I've found people who consume a lot of Black Library rarely read much outside of it, and Space Marines/Stormcast aren't something you can get from other publishers for obvious reasons.

The Horror and Crime labels are obviously an attempt to draw in people who aren't into 'typical' Black Library content, from the almost exclusive focus on normal humans to the much more generic covers, so clearly they believe they still sell, just in a different capacity. 

 

And that's where I would say AOS now has the advantage to make those sort of stories  without using stormcast because it's a mythological setting. Just look a times of legend sigmar? A by the book myth story about a man rising to a hero and then a god.

Look at real life examples, greek, norse myth etc . In the RPG for AOS you can get blessings from the gods and so on.

You can do the reverse with a plain mook rising into an evil overlord within this weird setting.

Chaos was just that back during the fantasy days, a warrior building his saga and so on, soon if his god likes him/her enough they become divinity or demi-god.

Here's another example, I have no idea how well this book did but I haven't heard a bad word about it. (I think its great also.) People on even bolter and chainsword who prefer 40k also like the book and it was Gloomspite by Andy Clark.

All of the main characters were pretty normal, but what the book does is show the fairy tale horror/myth around the goblins and their lore. It does it really well and it's only a tie in book for the model release.

Plus we have the comments from Phil kelly who said that the reason AOS has no clear defined timeline ia because it's a setting based on mythology.

Finally broken realms morathi, we've all seen people gush on the supplement but the narrative itself is not ground breaking. You have a demi-god rising to full godhood, heroes searching for a relic, cities falling and finally an evil god giving birth to a child/avatar.

The reason why I think the supplement was so good because it uses its mythological themes to shake the setting, heroes and the small guy(anvilgard.)

I could go on, but it's a rumour thread and this topic is veering off that.

[elfhead]

1 hour ago, Aleser said:

In new Warcry Chaos book there are rules for new Slaanesh mortals called Hedonites of Slaanesh: Sybarites. Reviewers are not allowed to show those pages so we might see more models during next week because that book will be available next saturday for everyone.

First fighter looks like some new cavalry option

 

I’m hopefull there will be some basic troops looking like the new underworlds warband. I love the Persian vibe and really enjoy painting a lot of cloth areas. A mounted option would be nice, I wonder if they’ll be on regular horses. Probably not. 
 

I also hope the full Slaanesh mortals range gets a release soon. That they are in the new warcry books bodes well I guess? 

[silverstu]

3 hours ago, Ogregut said:

I also think they didn't reveal many AoS titles because they will tie into releases and basically give the game away for new armies, broken realms and spoil any surprises. 

I'm quite happy to be kept in the dark and have the surprise. 

Yeah I was thinking that- at this point we only have an idea that Slaanesh mortals are next but nothing beyond that- they'd probably want to preview any more developments with miniature or broken realms previews rather than novels.

[Nezzhil]

1 hour ago, Aleser said:

In new Warcry Chaos book there are rules for new Slaanesh mortals called Hedonites of Slaanesh: Sybarites. Reviewers are not allowed to show those pages so we might see more models during next week because that book will be available next saturday for everyone.

First fighter looks like some new cavalry option

 

Two weapon profiles in the cavalry means that it is a cavalry archer model.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Nezzhil

[Sleboda]

1 hour ago, Grim Beasties said:

I get what you're saying, but there are like 60 AoS original Novels compared to the 5 new Gotrek stories. It's not like it's your only option

I get ya, but man, it just seems like it's lazy and it takes advantage of "rubes."

 

Imagine:

A "I've got this story I'm writing. It's about a brooding warrior named Turk who has made mistakes and now travels the world seeking atonement. What do you think?"

B "I think that's been done a thousand times. Sorry, nobody wants to read that again."

A "Yeah, I guess. Darn."

B "Hey! Wait just one minute. Would you be agreeable to changing the warrior's name?"

A "Sure, I guess, but what would that matter? The story is still the same."

B "Don't worry. We'll call him Gotrek and the fans will eat it up, buy it, and cheer just like when bands call out the name of whatever city the are in when the have a concert. It doesn't matter that the show is the same every time or that the band doesn't really care about Livonia NY more than they do about Oslo Norway. All the fans care about is familiarity ... rubes."

I'm not saying that GW is intentionally being lazy or trying to fleece suckers. I'm just saying that there is so much more original, creative, and ultimately rewarding storytelling out there that dipping into the Gotrek well ... one ... more ... time feels cheap, unoriginal, and disappointing. An author *could* be expanding the AoS universe, but instead he/she is spending their finite time on a retread.

Edit:

I was just sharing my thoughts with @TwiceIfILikeIt. She had an excellent insight.

Gotrek stories are the Mad Libs of the Warhammer world. Pick an enemy, a region, and two references to old stories. Ta da! New Gotrek story!

 

Note: This is not to say the authors are hacks. No. They are just not being used well. It would be like getting the head coach of a professional football team to train peewee league players. Sure, they can do it with their eyes closed, but what a colossal waste of talent.

 

Edit edit:

It's not like GW themselves don't know this. Check out this tweet from Community. The comments in parentheses are mine.

"Gotrek vs grots – it's a classic (repeated) match-up, and let's be honest, it's not gonna go well for the greenskins (predictable outcome). Not that he needs a reason (the plot details are irrelevant), but find out why Gotrek's slaying Gloomspite Gitz in our look at all of the Black Library preview reveals."

 

One more edit:

Don't get me wrong. Writing GW fiction is fun and can be creative. I've done it for several FFG GW RPG books, and some of it has been rehashing existing stuff (such as the descriptions of the realm of the chaos gods and their demons in the Tome Of X series).  It's highly enjoyable. It's just not usually groundbreaking, original, universe-expanding sort of work in many cases.

 

Edited December 5, 2020 by Sleboda

[Clan's Cynic]

39 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

I get ya, but man, it just seems like it's lazy and it takes advantage of "rubes."

I don't disagree with you, but Black Library fiction is largely pulp tripe that's shovelled out on the basis of tie-ins to shift with impulse buys (the Underworlds novels, Indomitus, Soul Wars, Dark Imperium), or otherwise consistent big names to get the safe sales in with the occasional passion project and diamond in the rough (Gloomspite/Soul Wars being decent tie-ins but a minority for it). There's a reason Bolter Pornography is a term coined disparagingly, but is constantly churned out seemingly endlessly and places like B&C will act like ADB is the greatest author ever because he puts out slightly above average stories about Space Marines even whilst authors like Peter Fehervari don't get nearly the credit/publicity they deserve. 

Ultimately, 'the rubes' are buying things with Gotrek slapped on there, things they probably wouldn't go anywhere near otherwise and Black Library is more than happy to afford them their fill if it keeps the money rolling in.

Edited December 5, 2020 by Clan's Cynic

[Grim Beasties]

24 minutes ago, Sleboda said:

I get ya, but man, it just seems like it's lazy and it takes advantage of "rubes."

 

Imagine:

A "I've got this story I'm writing. It's about a brooding warrior named Turk who has made mistakes and now travels the world seeking atonement. What do you think?"

B "I think that's been done a thousand times. Sorry, nobody wants to read that again."

A "Yeah, I guess. Darn."

B "Hey! Wait just one minute. Would you be agreeable to changing the warrior's name?"

A "Sure, I guess, but what would that matter? The story is still the same."

B "Don't worry. We'll call him Gotrek and the fans will eat it up, buy it, and cheer just like when bands call out the name of whatever city the are in when the have a concert. It doesn't matter that the show is the same every time or that the band doesn't really care about Livonia NY more than they do about Oslo Norway. All the fans care about is familiarity ... rubes."

I'm not saying that GW is intentionally being lazy or trying to fleece suckers. I'm just saying that there is so much more original, creative, and ultimately rewarding storytelling out there that dipping into the Gotrek well ... one ... more ... time feels cheap, unoriginal, and disappointing. An author *could* be expanding the AoS universe, but instead he/she is spending their finite time on a retread.

Edit:

I was just sharing my thoughts with @TwiceIfILikeIt. She had an excellent insight.

Gotrek stories are the Mad Libs of the Warhammer world. Pick an enemy, a region, and two references to old stories. Ta da! New Gotrek story!

 

Note: This is not to say the authors are hacks. No. They are just not being used well. It would be like getting the head coach of a professional football team to train peewee league players. Sure, they can do it with their eyes closed, but what a colossal waste of talent.

Well I'm sorry but it's here I have a bit of a problem, what about the authors who want to write about Gotrek in the Mortal Realms? Or those that want to read about how Gotrek interacts with the new setting and characters? We still have the majority of books focused on AoS unique characters, so how does Gotrek's adventure stop you from enjoying those books? 

[Benkei]

Is this the rumour thread still or is it the literary thread?