Gotrek & Felix: Rememberers (Warhammer: The End Times)
Publisher: Games Workshop
Cost: $1.99 ($15.49 as part of the bundle)
Page Count: 6
Release Date: 2/26/2015
Get it Here: The Black Library
Okay, remember the joke I made in yesterday’s release, The Bride of Khaine where I noticed the stories are getting shorter and more expensive for the page count. Remember how I joked that the next two stories would be 10 pages and a paragraph long each? Well unfortunately, the reality of the situation is actually worse than the intended comedy of that statement. Today’s release IS ACTUALLY LESS THAN TEN PAGES LONG. Oh my god Games Workshop, how can you keep doing this stuff to your customers? This is why you keep losing market share and profitability. I would love to hear how anyone can actually justify charged two bucks for a six page story. That’s fifty cents per page which is astronomical for any type of publication. Seriously, everyone involved on the pricing side should be completely and utterly ashamed of themselves and I feel for the poor author because they’re going to take crap for the pricing even though they aren’t involved in that sort of thing. So head’s up, do not purchase this tale for ANY reason, simply because it’s the only way to send a message to Games Workshop that that are some bits of insanity from them you won’t stand for. Of course, many of you have purchased The End Times Quick Reads Bundle and so you got a nice surprise of this virtual middle finger from the company when you awoke this morning. So it is what it is, and this will probably teach any of you not to purchase a collection from GW sight unseen ever again – unless you learned that lesson with this year’s Advent Calendar(s). Ugh. Okay, disgusting rant over. Let’s actually review these six pages.
Gotrek & Felix: Rememberers takes place between Kinslayer and Slayer, the latter of which has not been released (nor has any semblance of a release date yet). At this point, the much beloved pair has broken up their alliance and gone their separate ways. Unfortunately, the story does nothing to tell you any of the background of these characters. It assumes you already know everything about the titular characters and have read all of their adventures. That’s always a huge red flag with any short story. As such, this is the first of the four to be exceptionally newcomer unfriendly and even some Gotrek & Felix fans will be lost with this one.
The story actually feels like cute pages from the upcoming book rather than a stand-alone piece. It’s not developed at all. The team has broken up yet they are travelling together. The new Remember, Kolya, is here, but a lot of people will be lost as to who he is and why the twosome broke up in the first place. Again, there’s no exposition to remotely help anyone understand the story save those who own every piece of G&F fiction ever written. Honestly, this story really only reads close to decent if you are the author or GW editorial. There’s no way this would have made it out to the generic public at any other company. I can’t imagine Wizards, Paizo, Chaosium or the like allowing a story like this to go out, and with a price tag to boot.
As for what the story is about? I generally have no idea. It’s the three character Gotrek, Felix, and Kolya killing Northerners as they walk through the Empire to Altdorf. That is literally all that the story is about. There is no character development, no meaningful dialogue and so real tale being told. This is filler and nothing else. You get six pages of Felix babbling to himself while a couple Chaos warriors are killed and a decision to cut through a forest to Altdorf. Then the story ends. That is all you get with this piece. Even without the pricing issue on this one, this is a truly terrible piece of fiction and you’d feel ripped off if you got it for FREE. It’s a shame too, because the other three pieces were of varying quality, but they were all good to great. With Ice and Snow was fantastic. Marienberg’s Stand had its moments. The Bride of Khaine was a well told story that showcased Dark Elven relationship better than most full novels.
Rememberers however is pretty up the incarnation of every complaint and terrible business decision that fans (and haters) have levelled at Games Workshop for the past two year. It is nothing more than an overpriced piece of nothing that exists for no other reason han to fleece fans of their disposable income. No one is going to be happy with this story and the sad thing is that no one at Games Workshop will remotely care. They were on such a roll with these short stories this week too. Then Rememberers happened and we see that for all the improvements made in 2014, the old ugly side of Games Workshop is still there to rear its ugly head. Shame on everyone involved with this piece.
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