The Hammer and the Eagle: The Icons of the Warhammer Worlds

Another great anthology from Black Library combing both WH and AoS tales, i had read/listened to a couple of the stories previously but I thoroughly enjoyed refreshing my memory of these tales

This is an incredible book. Totally recommend it for any fan of Warhammer universes! Dan Abnett is one of the finest authors today.

A superb, substantial collection of WH40k and Age of Sigmar fiction. If you've ever wanted to try out these settings, then you'll find plenty in this anthology that will introduce you to their worlds and feel. If you're already familiar with the settings, then you'll find a collection of great stories. Definitely recommended.

A great anthology of stories - I'm still slowly dipping my feet into the AoS/fantasy realms from GW, but this book definitely helped push me towards acceptance. You also can't go wrong with anything from Abnett, Thorpe, Haley, Dembski-Bowden or McNeill.

This anthology serves as a perfect introduction to the most popular characters in the Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar universes. By page count, the split is approximately 70% WH40k sci-fi and 30% Sigmar fantasy.

Some familiarity with the Warhammer history and universes is helpful but not necessary for enjoying these grimdark escapist vignettes of violence (you can always check a wiki if you’re completely lost). Characters run the gamut through space marines, commissars, inquisitors, witch hunters, stormcast eternals, and a massively overpowered dwarf.

Before this, I had not read any books in the Age of Sigmar universe. However, I had read a few of the older Warhammer fantasy books (mostly Gotrek & Felix) and found the characters to be seriously overpowered…and the new Sigmar version seems to amp that up even more. I doubt I’ll be picking up any books from that side of things, but I did appreciate the chance to sample the universe.

On the 40,000 side, I recognized a handful of the stories from other anthologies, and several of them are a bit unsatisfactory as stand-alones since they were originally written to bridge a gap between two novels. Other than that, they were decent military sci-fi. I still prefer just about any character to the flat, overpowered loyalist space marines, but it’s all good/grim escapist fun with a nice variety of characters (and some variety in storytelling, though there’s only so much you can do in a universe where “there is only war”).

Overall, a decent collection: story-wise I’d give it 3 stars (my usual rating for most things Warhammer) and tack on an extra half star for the broad sampling of characters.

Loved the stories. They were dark and gritty. Everything you would come to expect from blacklibrary.