More curiosity on my part. I was looking back over the releases for Black Crusade and Only War, but couldn't help noticing the releases, or lack thereof.

Hand of Corruption.
Tome of Fate
Tome of Blood
Tome of Excess (Upcoming)

Compared to Only War which only released late last year which already has…

Final Testament
Hammer of the Emperor
Enemies of the Imperium (Upcoming)

Only War is only one book away from meeting Black Crusade's schedule and its had over a year to produce more. Whilst I understand BC's book style is different to the Imperial lines (focus on the Gods rather than Adventure -> Handbook -> Monsters -> Adventure) I can't help but get the feeling that support for the other lines is… more prevelent. It just makes me wonder how well Black Crusade has sold compared to the Imperial lines? I know when I've approached people about setting up games with the 40k line the vote has always been towards the Imperial games rather than Black Crusade, despite BC's (until OW anyway) higher freedom and pdated ruleset. Browsing most game ads on external sites, there's plenty of Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader to be had but rarely Black Crusade.

So what happened? Didn't the sales meet the rest? Does the design process of the Tomes make it slower? Is it just pure coincidence?

Good question I wonder the same thing

I dont think so. Its slow yes but if I recall everything has to go through GW for approval. From what I hear from my game stores and friends in the industry the rumor is that A LOT of people were pulled from various projects including the Black Library division. This movement was to launch the new edition of Warhammer 40K. Its very rare that FFG gets involved on the forums. Its one of very very few things that I wish they would change. The other would be getting out PDFs either before or at the dead tree format launch.

Then perhaps FFG ought to rethink it's attitude toward the forums because the people posting thereon are the ones buying their books.

It may have been held back due to the new Codex Chaos Space Marines, didn't want a conflict between the RPG and tabletop fluff.

I'm gonna go with the idea that the lack of release schedule information has more to do with GW and their inability to manage their own product lines than it does with FFG and their work. GW isn't exactly doing a great job when it comes to management. they're staying afloat at the moment by shafting their online dealers and smaller distributors, while cosolidating staff and cutting budgets. FFG relations and product lines, despite their popularity, are most likely NOT on the radar at GW corporate headquarters.

At least BC has a steady slate of product coming out; I'm a Dark Heresy fan, and there's been nothing but crickets chirping on that front…

I will say that it did seem to take a very long time for Hand of Corruption to come out. I mean look at the last couple of dev diaries - they were basically treading water there. Not sure what caused that. There was also a delay on Tome of Fate that affected a number of books (not just ToF).

BYE

Not to mention that there should traditionally have been a first preview of the new book by now.

There trying to prevent leaks due to problems in past they had with it

They've had leaks?

BYE

I don't think anything is coming out for Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader, and I think we may be looking at the last Deathwatch book. Either there's quite a few books we don't know about in the works or we're seeing the end of a few lines. I'd love to see more, but I doubt it.

Black Crusade has at least two books scheduled for it (Excess and the Nurgle book), and potentially a third (an Unaligned/End Game book) so I wouldn't count it out yet. But I do think that Only War has more mass appeal and certainly seems to be selling very well. I think it's all just a mix of GW's management and the lesser popularity of BC compared to OW.

While I obviously have no particular insight into the production or design process of BC, I assume it was always planned as a smaller game compared to the rest of the line. Mainstream RPG is about playing heroes (or something that can pass for heroes if the light's not too good), so this was a niche product from day one. Considering that with the four/five tomes out, we'll have pretty much everything we need to play, I'm fine with that.

Cifer said:

Seriously, what happened to my 40k?

Terraneaux said:

it's a matter of prespective. defending humanity from aliens and, literal demons, is more noble then seling humanity out and leading armies dedicated to those demons to conquer humanity.

sure the Imperium's a nasty place too but… yeah generally speaking chaos are "bad guys"

BrianDavion said:

Um…

Chaos worshippers still have to defend themselves and their loved ones from aliens and daemons. Most of them won't be leading armies anywhere, they'll just be trying to survive the predations of the Imperium and every other hostile power in the galaxy - most of the time Chaos worshippers are just hurt victims lashing back at their tormentors. Sadly this causes some of them to sell out to daemons - including the big names of Khorne, Tzeentch, Nurgle, and Slaanesh - and then these noble renegades become victims again.

i isold out to noone tzeentch showed up and and saved my chars butt so of course he owes him a favor. 9got marked by tzeentch for some "potential" he has. or had.) gm is making him the true champion or something odd.