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So, Black Library released part one of their new Bladestorm series, Vengeance Eternal, and it is free.

http://www.blacklibrary.com/aos/whaos-qu-re/vengeance-eternal-ebook.html

It is also worth a serious look.

1. It is short, won't take up much of your time, perfectly readable on a computer.
2. It is free, can't argue with that.
3. It features Thostos Bladestorm, a Lord-Celestant who went through reforging - and you get to see the real effects of that.
4. It features Orruks - and it is good to see that whether he is in the MOrtal Realms, the World-That-Was or the 41st Millennium, an Orc will always be an Orc (or an Ork, or an Orruk).
5. It has 'normal' humans,.

At least two of those aspects are things people have been wanting to see - this story has them!

Sweet!

Being a Celestial Vindicator fan I must check this out!

Thnx for the heads up

I read it, and for a free read it was worth the time, but I do find the prose in AoS fiction so far to be way too rich for me to stomach. So there's much: The enemies' blades glanced harmlessly off the blessed sigmarite, the god-forged armour turning aside any blow, as the Stormcast enacted glorious vengence upon Sigmar's enemies, righteous hammers and swords crushing skulls and slicing foes in displays of crimson gore as they triumphed through mighty-strength in the name of their God-King, Sigmar, ruler of Azyr, Sigmaron and all the Celestial Realm, pushing back the foul taint of chaos that had beseeched the mortal realms since the Age of Myth, when Sigmar still roamed the mortal realms in feats worthy of the heroic hymns the Stormcast now hummed in his honour as they march ever onwards in obdiendant fury.

Still, some interesting parts:

1. Tension within the Stormcast ranks is interesting. What would happen if blades are drawn?

2. The talk of how much bigger the Orruks were (as big as a Stormcast), compared to the Orruks the Stormcast hunted in the Azyr realm seemed like a not so subtle hint at how big the new models will be. "Ironjaw" is the new name for Black Orcs right? Think we can expect a new Black Orc kit at some point...

3. Are we going to see a primitive human faction? That seems like an exciting move by GW. We have had lots of primitive tribes in the fiction so far.

I will wait for something that does not contain the word sigmar or variant of it a bazillion times. Sigmar was the least interesting aspect of the Age of Legends series to me, even in his own trilogy he was uninteresting compared to everyone else. Here is for hoping fluff without the sigmarines and their manbearpig god.

I did take a look at it, and it pretty much confirmed that Age of Sigmar Black Library isn't going to be for me. The rest of Black Library was on the fence - you had some absolute gems (Skarsnik, Gaunt's Ghosts, and so forth), and then you had the rest, which was...okay, and exhibit some of the qualities that bug me about GW's new direction for their writers. The excerpt felt very much like it was being rushed from quick fight scene to quick fight scene; a brief bit of conversation and exposition, then jumpcut to killing skaven. A bit more conversation, then cut to a a setup for another brief battle. Almost like GW insists on a quota of fight scenes per publication, actually...it's a problem that I have with a lot of licensed fiction, in fairness. I thought The Brother's War was captivating, but, say, Odyssey was...the opposite, and I think the main reason for that was the amount of leeway allowed by the company responsible. The former felt like I was diving into a world of epic fantasy, whereas the latter read more like a checklist of cards interspersed with fights, and I think the biggest problem was a shift in management style and an insistence on more solidarity with the 'brand'.

4. It features Orruks - and it is good to see that whether he is in the MOrtal Realms, the World-That-Was or the 41st Millennium, an Orc will always be an Orc (or an Ork, or an Orruk).

Still disagree on that - they're similar, but hardly the same thing This lot didn't even have any gobbos to kick around! Who's gonna dig out da drops, eh? Maybe that's why they wanted the 'umies so bad! They seemed vaguely black-orc-ish, but didn't stick around long enough for the quirky bits you can expect from orcs and goblins or orks.

I did like a few bits - nice to see regular humans, of course, and I thought the scene with Thostos realizing he was wounded was well done. Evidence that the local orcs - or orruks, if you insist - fight Chaos was expected but also fun. I like how the author was teasing a possible greenskin/sigmarine teamup. Surely they could find a local warband who didn't much care for Drekka's lot!

Thanks for showing this, MongooseMatt!