Black Library Tell New Tales Of Witch Hunters And Mephiston
July 9, 2018 by dracs
Black Library has released two new novels, one set in the Mortal Realms and one in the Grim, Dark, Far Future.
Callis & Toll: The Silver Shard
The Silver Shard ventures into the jungles of the Realm of Beasts as a witch hunter chases his nemesis.
"A malevolent threat looms over the once great city of Excelsis. For as long as the treacherous Ortam Vermyre lives, civilisation is no longer safe within the Realm of Beasts. Witch Hunter Hanniver Toll must brave the deadly seas and jungles of the Taloncoast to stop Vermyre before he can reach the legendary lost city of Xoantica."
I'm excited to see this focus on Witch hunters. I loved them in the Old World and, with the move to Age of Sigmar, I wondered how they fitted into the lore now.
This story, in particular, seems to draw heavily from their Solomon Kane-inspired roots, with the two adventurers heading off to a dark and dangerous land to hunt down an evildoer.
Mephiston: Revenant Crusade
This latest jaunt to the 41st Millennium sees the return of Mephiston, Chief Librarian of the Blood Angels.
"As the Great Rift tears the galaxy apart, portents and darkness beset Mephiston. At the time when he needs his psychic sight the most, the Chief Librarian's powers are rendered blind by some inexplicable force. Haunted by the ghosts of the damned, their purpose unclear, Mephiston takes his ship the Blood Oath and the Blood Angels in his charge to the world of Morsus."
Mephiston is a popular character within 40k, and it is interesting to see him stripped of his defining psychic powers.
Which Black Library book appeals to you more?
"As the Great Rift tears the galaxy apart, portents and darkness beset Mephiston..."
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
Supported by (Turn Off)
I remember painting Mephiston in the 90s. My version didn’t look anything like as unhealthy as he does on that book cover. What happened to you, man?
Well, BA are space vampires, so maybe he hasn’t been getting his daily dose of Vitamin B(lood)?
?
Guy needs some iron. Get this lad some spinach!
Pity he’s a BA and not a Flesh Tearer – could eat Iron Hands as a supplement then. ?
I am BA player and I don’t remember them drinking blood. One of they successor chapters named Blood Drinkers yes but BA are more into fighting against Red Thirst rather than embracing it.
My mistake…although that does actually reenforce the point about *missing* his daily dose of vitamin B(lood). ?
Quite a few rites of the ba’s and successors have a blood drinking rite, such as when a recruit is put to sleep to turn into a beautiful butterfly sorry I mean space vampire super nazi….
The Space Vampires thing goes way back, but they seldom use the term “Vampire” (although they did back in the 2.d ed core books). Like most of 40k, they started out from a super cheesy concept, and have tried to distance the fluff from that point as they’ve gotten more “serious” with their setting. While they no longer use of the word “vampire,” they’ve kept a lot of things from those days (a lot of their iconography involves chalices filled with blood, the term “Red Thirst” implies drinking blood, blood drinking is clearly a part of their chapter rites, and… Read more »
They have always drank blood as part of their initiation.
Mephiston looks really angry in that cover and I like that. Besides it’s nice that he gets more own books even if it would be nice to read more about Dante and maybe something about Astorath.
I think Mephiston would make a more viable protagonist, since he’s relatively autonomous (as Space Marines go) and can realistically need to solve problems himself, while Dante has an entire chapter to manage (which both means that problems need to be on an epic scale to get his attention, and he should be arranging and managing his chapter to solve his problems, rather than hitting them with his axe).
Of course, they can always just Kirk it up, but I prefer it when they keep it credible.
The witch hunter book may be a good way to get into AoS perhaps.
Given his comments on the LARP guns post, think @dracs has found his next cosplay. ?
It’s a shame when you look at the art he’s still stuck with such an old sculpt, can only hope the rumoured Abaddon Vs Dante fight happens, hopefully that will spur some change on…
I Also hope Dante suffers a mortal wound as I have hated his sculpt since I first laid eyes on Mike McVey’s ground breaking shades of dysentry nmm paint job, turn him into a dread with a jump pack ? it’s no dafter than a magnagrapple….
Dante wasn’t the groundbreaking one- it was a generic “Blood Angel’s Captain” that they sold as “Captain Tycho” in the army box (Tycho started out as a generic captain that Andy Chambers played in a battle report, and the character background is based on the events of that battle report). But, yeah- the old groundbreaking NMM used there was not so great. I honestly thought he had flesh colored armor. Of course, if you’d like to make your own Dante that’s more in line with current Dante, you need only incorporate bits from the Sigmarines (we all know that Sigmar… Read more »
Except Tycho’s paint job in the 2nd edition codex was much better (some what biased but codex angels of death is the greatest codex they ever released in my opinion dark angels and blood angels in one book hell yeah!!)
As for alternate sculpts check out the Dante and mephiston on masteroftheforge.com
https://masteroftheforge.com/2016/09/25/commander-dante-2/
https://masteroftheforge.com/2016/09/26/mephiston-the-lord-of-death/
https://masteroftheforge.com/tag/mephiston/
The Angels of Death Tycho isn’t the one I’m talking about. I’m talking about the sculpt from the Rogue Trader days that they eventually based both Dante and Tycho on. I found a pic of the old Rogue Trader Generic BA Captain/Tycho. Lucky for me, it looks like the article here calls him Tycho. By the way, those are really cool conversions. The scale creep has really destroyed Mephiston, but I have disliked a lot of the previous conversions I’ve seen for him. (Angels of Death, but the best ‘dex ever was either the 2nd Chaos Marine codex from late… Read more »