Warhammer Adventures: Kid-Friendly Grimdark Announced
Games Workshop has announced a new book line for ‘Younger Audiences’ – Warhammer Adventures brings the action and adventure to the next generation of Warhammer Fans.
There are lots of fans of Warhammer out there – from hardcore tournament ringers, to heavy duty hobbyists, to the causal player/collector. Many of those same folks also have kids who want to share in the hobby with their parents. Now, Games Workshop has the perfect way to introduce those younger gamers to the Warhammer Universe(s) – with the new Warhammer Adventures books.
“Warhammer Adventures is a series of action-packed stories about brave heroes battling monstrous enemies and winning great victories against impossible odds in the far future universe of Warhammer 40,000 and the fantasy realms of Warhammer Age of Sigmar.
Warhammer Adventures stories are perfect for bookworms aged 8-12 who want to read about heroes, aliens and monsters. They’ll be in shops and online later in 2019 – so keep your eyes open for them!”
Bringing these worlds to ages 8-12 seems like a pretty tall order. I know that’s about the age I started to explore the lore of the setting “back-in-the-day” and maybe that explains a few things… Anyway, Games Workshop has hired some industry vets to take a stab at these stories.
“The first title for Warhammer Age of Sigmar will be Realm Quest: The City of Lifestone by Tom Huddleston, and the first title for Warhammer 40,000will be Warped Galaxies: Attack of the Necron by Cavan Scott. Both Tom and Cavan have written extensively for younger readers, including collaborating on a popular Star Wars series”
If you’re curious about the characters and the settings of their adventures, pop over to the Warhammer Adventures website and poke around. They have sections for both Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar. Those sections have a bit of the backstory for each character and give you a feel for the setting. Based on the descriptions you get the idea that these stories are going to focus on fairly typical pre-teen story themes: friendship, bravery, honestly, problem/mystery solving. Think Scooby-Doo, but with Space Marines/Stormcast Eternals.
Clearly Games Workshop is leveraging their IP to go after these younger readers. There is a BIG market for this type of thing and if this goes well, they will be creating life-long fans of the Warhammer Universe(s). Once these kids grow-up into teens and adults, there are plenty of stories out there for them to pick-up, too. Black Library has 30 years of lore for them to catch-up on – but these books sound like a great stepping stone for those younger readers.
Scooby-Doo, but with Space Marines? Man, I think I’d probably want to read at least one of those stories…
