BL: Path of the Outcast

Black Library - August release date but slotted under September
Amazon - August 28


Path of the Outcast - the latest installment from Gav Thorpe in the "Path" series.

black Library wrote:

Aradryan has chosen to leave his sheltered life on Craftworld Alaitoc and walk the Path of the Outcast, seeking the myriad pleasures and threats the wider galaxy has to offer. Still unfulfilled as a ranger, he is lured into the life of a star pirate, bringing him into conflict with the Imperium of Man. A chain of events is set in motion that could have catastrophic consequences for Alaitoc, forcing Aradryan to take drastic action if his old home is to survive.

Read a 3-page excerpt from Path of the Outcast here in pdf.

I've been keeping a very close eye on this series since day one. I greatly enjoyed the last 2 books as they were both exciting and provided a more in depth look at the Eldar race, delving into the current fluff and developing it. So nice to get some decent Eldar novels! Hopefully this shall provide a suitably climatic ending to what has been a refreshing look at the Eldar from Black Library. I can't wait to get reading this as it will feature both Eldar and Dark Eldar, my 2 favourite races. It will be interesting to see how Gav Thorpe presents the Corsairs and Exodites as well. I wonder if we'll see any cameos from Path of the Renegade?

The artwork on these books I absolutely love and I have a funny feeling I'll be painting another squad of Rangers for my Eldar after finishing this to go with the Striking Scorpions and Farseer inspired by the previous books' artwork. I guess I'll be trying to pick up a limited signed print of this cover as well as that from Path of the Incubus at Games Day UK!

Is the series good or are there a few little bits that I will become really cynical about? I have been interested in this series for a while but stayed away as pointy eared Space Elves who don't torture people don't seem to be much fun.

The cover looks good other than the Exodite's face. The proportions just seem wrong.

I haven't read the other two books (altough I think I should maybe pick them up at some point), but this one has Corsairs, which are awesome (what is more awesome than space elf space pirates?), and base on the excerp in the preview cataloque, Harlequins too (oh, space elf space ninja clowns, obviously). And the Dark Eldar will probably make an appearance as well.

Well, I really enjoyed the other 2 books, both as books by themselves and also for fluff purposes. But then, I'm an Eldar player so I'd be biased. I would suggest any Eldar or Dark Eldar fan reads them as the last book looks like it will include pretty much every single facet of the Eldar race to some extent and the other 2 books are really quite necessary to this one. It's not like the Horus Heresy series where you can jump in at any point, this is a proper trilogy although also a rather unusual one in that rather than each book following on one after the other chronologically, the plots all run at the same time giving different viewpoints of a similar series of events. Of course, this book will then extend that series of events a bit further to conclude the trilogy. Dark Eldar are featured a few times in Path of the Warrior with one of the characters being a Dark Eldar, a Dark Eldar raid upon a Craftworld vessel is described in an Exarch's memories and we also get to see some of Karandras's memories of when he met Ahra. There's another extract from the book in those little free Black Library previews/catalogues that GW stores give away for each quarter of the year and that extract features Aradryan, the main character, as a Corsair, battling alongside other Corsairs, Rangers, Harlequins and a very odd psyker known as a Kami against Daemonettes.

I quite like the face of the Ranger as it really emphasises the fact that the Eldar, although humanoid, are actually very alien.

Going from that review I may start the first book, although if it is anything like Path of the Renegade I won't continue the trilogy. Meeting Arhra does sound interesting though.

The eyes are all right but the area around where the nose meets the mask just looks off. The are around the ask jsut doesn't look like it has any real depth unlike the rest of the picture.

I take it you're not a fan of Path of the Renegade then? There isn't much about Ahra although it is nice to learn a bit more about how the current Striking Scorpions view him and what his relationship with Karandras was initially like.

I see what you mean now about the artwork, it doesn't look quite right. Ah well, I still absolutely love the artwork as a whole. All 3 covers are stunning in my view.

Has anyone read this yet? I saw it for sale in a LGS last weekend and even though it is the one that I want to read the most out of the series, I somehow couldn't bring myself to buy it after my experience with the first two.

No I haven't read it yet but it goes on sale officially in all GW stores this Saturday so I'll pick it up then.

Ok, I've finished the book now and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was refreshing in that, unlike the previous 2 books, it didn't show a different view of the same events, after the first battle but took quite a different route. I was glad in that, although a different look on the same battles may have been interesting, I didn't fancy reading through the same events a 3rd time. Rather, Aradryan's experiences showed the Eldar race as a whole, and how the various factions all interact with each other and their views on each other. So yes, there are Craftworlders, Exodites, Outcasts, Corsairs and Dark Eldar in plentiful amounts, plus a Troupe of Harlequins. It's not just Alaitocii either. There are also Ulthwenese and Biel-Tani characters. Regarding other races, there are Orks, Chaos Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Space Marines and plenty of Slaaneshii Daemons.

There were quite a few cool moments in the book including a Solitaire and Keeper of Secrets having a bit of a showdown but I won't say too much more for fear of spoiling it for people who have yet to read it and are planning to. Safe to say there's a couple of very interesting nuggets of fluff and a very impressive display of what a bunch of Farseers can do when they pool their might together and with that of the infinity circuit.

So, yeah, it gives a great view of the Eldar race as a whole and the vast transformation in character and swings of emotion an Eldar can experience without the Path. The conclusion to the trilogy it gave was unexpected but impressive and fitting nonetheless. I'd heartily recommend this book to anyone interested in Eldar, Dark or not.

You think one could read this without reading the previous two? I haven't picked up those yet, but this book interests me.

Possibly. As I said, this book doesn't follow the same plot as much as the other 2, branching off not far into it to do its own thing before coming together again for the conclusion. Due to that, you probably could get away with it, you'll just lack most of the detail in the final battle, not fully understand the odd thing and maybe feel a few characters are underdeveloped. I think one of the things about this trilogy is that because they don't follow each other in chronological order, you probably can read them in whatever order you want and how many of them you want, you'll just have to accept you aren't quite getting the full picture. Hopefully that helps you a bit.