Darkoath

Warhammer Age of Sigmar

By: Chris Thursten

Narrated by: Jon Rand

A Gunnar Brand Audiobook

Gunnar Brand and his people are survivors. Enduring the predations of madmen, monsters, and the gods themselves, the Brands have earned survival through grit and fortitude, each fell deed they perform brings the blessings of the Dark Gods.

LISTEN TO IT BECAUSE

Explore the struggles of a Darkoath Chieftain desperately trying to balance the survival of his tribe, his own ambitions, and the will of the Dark Gods.

THE STORY

When calamity befalls their home, Gunnar Brand must step up to lead his tribe, embarking on a grim and perilous exodus through a Realm of Fire ravaged by war.

Haunted by an unfulfilled oath, his duties as chieftain soon conflict with his deep-rooted sense of destiny, and he discovers that the attentions of the Dark Gods are not so easily ignored.

Even now they whisper to him, for they know the road Gunnar Brand travels, and call his exodus by another name: the Path to Glory.

Written by Chris Thursten. Narrated by Jon Rand. Runtime 10 hours and 36 minutes, approx.

©2024 Games Workshop Limited (P)2024 Games Workshop Limited

You love the bad guys!

In the lore of Warhammer there are no “good guys” however, chaos and their many warbands might be the furthest from “good guys”. Regardless this book makes you truly love and appreciate the chaos god worshipping, pillaging, slaughtering and crazed barbarians that are the Brands. I would absolutely recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the lore and stories as this tells a great story from a different perspective. Now excuse me while I buy an army’s worth of Darkoath models.

Dark, compelling and awesome.

This is my second AoS book. I absolutely love the Darkoath faction. From their Viking-esque (not in an overdone way) culture to their strained relationship with both chaos god and the "civilized" world. Gunnar is an interesting protagonist. The way he rides the fine line of control and chaos, trying to keep his people alive and appeasing the gods.

Great characters

One of the best black library books ever. It depicts the slaves of darkness so brilliantly. Other than that it’s just an all out awesome barbarian novel, as great as any Conan novel.

Path to glory

Seek the portents, bohold the feast and it it all or none of it!

This can be applied in any life that seeks glory

Excellent, evocative and engaging until the very end.

This was a wonderfully paced novel. As someone who isn't fully aware is the Warhammer lore and universe, i still found this very engaging and addictive. Absolutely loved this. Highly recommend.

Darkoath done right

Amazing story with characters you become invested in as they grow. Really captures the essence of the tribes. The story spurred me on as I finished my minis.

Awesome Narrator

The narrator was fantastic and the beginning was good. After that it lost all direction and never really had a clear plot. Too much exposition with not enough dialogue. Parts of this almost felt like it was an outline for a book.

Not Very Warhammer

The warhammer elements feel more than anything else like set dressing for a story that was otherwise fun. I mean, not to spoil anything but considering the protagonists are all chaos worshipers and all the stuff that one in particular gets into.... it just feels as if the chaos gods are a one sided power up for him and his band of warriors.

Wheres the negatives from chaos? The mutations? The madness, the world building the daemons... its a fun set of characters and the story and fight scenes are pretty good but... it just feels like they painted warhammer over another fantasy book, which is kinda crazy because age of sigmar already can feel like its been rather diluted in this same way.

The crux of the story ends up rather limp because of all of this. This, more than any other book i've ever read by black library felt like it was made specifically to introduce a model range.

Terrible prose , no character development and filler

Darkoath starts just after the sundering of the realm and the oathsworn tribes themselves. Introduced to Gunnar and a few of his tribes people you get to see them stand around , talk like poorly realized characters, and do nothing and occasionally get into incredibly lifeless melees.

Eighty percent through the book I realized I couldn’t name a single thing that Gunnar had done. I couldn’t describe him or anyone in this novel. There is no character development not even a smidge . Gunnar, his daughter, and everyone else, gets one sentence descriptors and that is it . There are no set pieces no memorable speeches just filler. Older black library books used the most halfhearted, terrible fighting scenes as filler newer ones use equally bad scenes of standing around and talking.

I think this author had a beginning and an end and five characters. He didn’t know how to develop the characters so the background he wrote for them in his mind was the beginning and the end. He didn’t have the creativity to write a story so in between his start and end there are scenes about talking about nothing, swearing to the gods, and occasionally the awful action scenes you only get with black library. This is an absolutely terrible novel I recommend it only to people who care nothing for how something is written , caring only about the license.