I haven't made any progress on the next batch of Dwarf Warriors, as I have been too caught up in reading books. I've read as far as I can in the Gaunt's Ghosts series, as there is one anthology of short stories and one final novel to read. They are on order, so it will be a few days still before they arrive. There are rumors that the next novel is in the works, but it will be a while yet before it is released. I don't even think it is fully written yet.

I've been toying with the idea of reading through the Horus Heresy books, although I've heard that with all of the different contributing authors the quality of each book varies greatly. But I still may take the plunge and try them out to get a decent look at the background of the Space Marines.

My parents sent me a couple of books, the Bone one-volume anthology which collects the entire run of the adventure comic into one massive paperback tome. It does not have the color art of the individual books, but I don't think it detracts at all from the story. I am currently reading the other book they sent, Stolen World: A Tale of Reptiles, Smugglers, and Skulduggery.  It covers the career arcs of several big players in the world of illegal reptile smuggling. It's a pretty interesting story, and the people involved in this sort of smuggling are about the same sort as you'd expect international smugglers of just about anything to be. I also received a recent issue of Reptiles magazine from my wife, and it was interesting to me that one of the guys from the book who served a couple of prison terms for his actions had a feature about one of his snakes and a couple of ads in the magazine. You'd think that he'd move away from the reptile industry, but maybe he's legit now. From what I've read in the story, though, these guys have a hard time sticking to your garden-variety legally-acquired creatures.

My wife also sent me the most recent issue of White Dwarf, which heavily features the Skaven. I have been thinking of modelling my Warhammer armies as opposing pairs with common terrain sets to use between them. Dwarves and Night Goblins might make good enemies, and there would be plenty of terrain that could be built for underground battles; pillars and stone monuments for the Dwarves, and rubble and giant cartoon mushrooms for the Goblins. The bigger greenskins don't fit this model very well, though, and neither do the other Goblin types. The Empire and the Skaven would work well against each other, although the Skaven would also be natural rivals for the greenskins and the Dwarves. I'm not really sure how to fit it all together. It really only affects my choices for basing schemes, but the bases are an important part of making the army look like it fits in with the other things on the battlefield. I'll have to think about it some more. I am looking forward to flipping through the issue, though, as it looks like it contains plenty of stuff that is of interest to me.