Being a bit of a fan of the Iron Warriors I was super excited when I heard about the new novella from Black Library titled “Iron Warrior“. This is another Graham McNeill store featuring Honsou and the Ultramarines continuing after the end of “Dead Sky, Black Sun.”

Iron Warriors Book Review: Short Story and Disappointing Pictures

The biggest selling point that got me to shell out the extra for this little book was the description that the book is “filled with many pieces of artwork, both illustrations and full-color portraits” which made me visualize an Index Astartes type of production.

This ended up being my biggest disappointment of the book, the quality of the illustrations were more of the ’80 GW style of cartoony creations, but with hazard stripes to make them authentic Iron Warriors.

Also, half the illustrations were of Ultramarines or imperial warriors, which is great to fill in the story and space but was disappointing when I was looking forward to a book featuring, I don’t know, maybe the Iron Warriors?

The colored artwork is great looking and features an image of Honsou and most of his current lackeys. The daemon prince picture has inspired me to create something similar.

The story itself is good overall, though a bit rushed to get everything to fit into the small size. If Graham had been able to extend it, it would have been one of his better books. A good mix between the siege battles of “Storm of Iron” and the super characters of “Dead Sky, Black Sun.”

Overall review

Don’t buy the collector’s edition unless you are a big fan of signed books. Black Library has re-released this as an eBook, but still over priced. I give the story 3/5 stars, the b/w illustrations 2/5 and the color pictures in the middle 4/5, cost 1/5.