How many episodes does Hammer and Bolter have?

Hammer and Bolter, one of two animated TV series released so far for the Games Workshop’s Warhammer+ subscription service, will begin a run of three weekly episodes starting Wednesday, October 6, GW has announced. There’s a rather energetic ‘sizzle’ trailer for the three new episodes, too, which you can watch below.

The three new Hammer and Bolter episodes all focus on Warhammer 40k (the TV show’s ‘Bolter’ aspect). They’re titled ‘Fangs’ – focusing on aspirants to join the Space Wolves Space Marines; ‘In the Garden of Ghosts’ – starring a Warlock and Striking Scorpions of the Craftworld Eldar  (as well as Ultramarines chapter Space Marines) and ‘A Question of Faith’ – which features Sisters of Battle fighting Chaos cultists.

The three new Hammer and Bolter releases will take the place of Blood Angels-themed Warhammer 40k CGI show Angels of Death, which has headlined most weekly Warhammer+ content drops so far. GW says Angels of Death – which released its fifth episode, ‘Tempest’, on Wednesday, September 23 – is now on a “mid-season break”, and will return in November.

In the absence of a new episode of either Angels of Death or Hammer and Bolter on Wednesday, September 29, GW released the first episode of a new studio talk show titled ‘Deep Strike‘, featuring Warhammer TV presenters discussing their favourite parts of GW’s latest series, and interviewing members of the teams behind them.

The inaugural episode was hosted by regular Warhammer Preview livestream main-man Adam Troke, flanked by Louise Sugden and Wade Pryce, the respective presenters of Warhammer+’ Citadel Masterclass and Loremasters shows.

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As well as chatting through their highlights from Angels of Death’s first five episodes, the hosts interviewed cast members, including veteran GW voice actor and Black Library audiobook narrator Toby Longworth.

We don’t yet know if Deep Strike will be a regular feature that extends to future series, although it seems likely.

Alongside Deep Strike, Wednesday, September 29’s Warhammer Plus content drop added three new in-house show episodes to the platform, including a Battle Report episode featuring the new Kill Team Second Edition Octarius box set forces; a Loremasters episode on Ork Warboss Ghazghkull Thraka; and a Citadel Masterclass painting tutorial on glazing.

Interested in the particulars of GW’s subscription service? Check out our full Warhammer+ guide. Or, if you fancy the basics of brushwork before watching Citadel Masterclass, read our beginners’ guides to painting miniatures and the best paints for miniatures.

Hammer and Bolter is a animated anthology series exclusive to Warhammer+. It features stories set in the universes of Warhammer 40,000 and Warhammer: Age of Sigmar.

The show provides examples of the following tropes:

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    Death's Hand 

• Exact Words: Upon her capture, the callidus assassin explains to inquisitor Kiamoro that she isn't there to kill him. She's actually there to serve as bait, to bring him where she wants him to be so that another assassin, a vindicare, would have him in his sight.
• Half the Man He Used to Be: One of Kiamoro's retinue, an aeldari ranger, suffers this fate at the hands of the callidus, having their body sliced vertically.
• Identity Impersonator: The main schtick of the callidus temple of assassins. A callidus assassin impersonates as one of inquisitor Arturo's retinue. By the end of the episode, the callidus shapeshifts into inquisitor Kiamoro after a vindicare assassin shoots him dead.
• Sword Cane: Arturo's weapon of choice.

    Bound for Greatness 

• The Bad Guy Wins: The Prefect manages to secretly corrupt the ministorum preachers with books tainted by Chaos, with the preachers unwittingly spreading their corruption onto the masses. The ending heavily implies that the entire planet ultimately falls to Tzeentch.
• Great Big Library of Everything: The setting was built to be an attempt at this and carries the aesthetic, but by the time of the story it has degraded to the point that the only people in it are adepts who do nothing but count the books on the shelves and are forbidden from reading them.
• I'm Melting!: Neath's fate as he is being absorbed by the chaos-tainted book, first with his flesh melting and then his skeleton until he dissolves into nothing.
• Poverty Food: The food that Neath and the other adepts eat everyday is a sort of dark, mushy type of gruel.
• Scary Librarian: The Prefect is one, as he is the menacing head of the librarium and a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch in disguise.
• The Shadow Knows: The Prefect is seemingly just a mutated cultist of Tzeentch. By the end of the episode, his shadow is shaped like a Lord of Change, suggesting that the Prefect was actually a Greater Daemon of Tzeentch in human disguise.

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    Old Bale Eye 

• An Arm and a Leg: The episode shows how Yarrick and the Ork Runtherd lost their limbs. Yarrick loses his left arm during the fight against warboss Ugulhard, and the Ork Runtherd loses his left leg after surviving a confrontation with Yarrick.
• Continuity Nod: The episode adapts elements of the novel "Chains of Golgotha", which details Yarrick's capture by Ghazghkull.
• Lampshade Hanging: After the umpteenth "FOR THE EMPEROR!" the Runtherd tells the boys that yeah, 'umies say that a lot.
• Title Drop: The episode's title is in reference to the nickname the Ork's have given Yarrick, which is in reference to his bionic laser eye known as the "Bale Eye".

    Fangs 

• Continuity Nod: A helmet of a Rubric Marine can be seen beneath a frozen river, alluding to the fact that Fenris was invaded (more than once) by the Thousand Sons.
• Dire Beast: Befitting it's status as a Death World, the Fenrisian fauna includes giant bears, giant bat-like creatures, Kraken and the iconic Fenrisian Wolves.
• Kraken and Leviathan: A silhouette of a kraken can be seen whilst one of the aspirants is fighting a Fenrisian wolf underwater.

    A Question of Faith 

• Dirty Coward: A khornate cultist is killed by another cultist for attempting to use a ranged weapon, with his killer deeming him to be a coward for not charging at their targets in close combat as Khorne demands.
• Last Stand: The entire episode centers around two Sisters of Battle trapped in a crypt and making their last stand against a horde of khornate cultists.

    In the Garden of Ghosts 

• Do Not Go Gentle: The Avatar of Khaine dies fighting against the Primaris Marines, but makes sure to slay several of his killers before finally expiring.
• Fate Worse than Death: The Aeldari spirit stones are meant to contain their souls when they die. Should an Aeldari die without a spirit stone or if the spirit stone is broken, then their souls are condemned to go to Slaanesh, the Chaos God of Excess. Many of the spirit stones that Iocarus finds amongst the dead Aeldari are shown to be broken. He ultimately manages to save three spirit stones, one of which contains the soul of his mother.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Flashbacks show that several Aeldari guardians (one of them being Iocarus' mother) held the line against the invading Primaris Marines so that the Aeldari civilians (including Iocarus) could escape to safety.
• Knight Templar : Space Marines are this in Warhammer 40000's lore in general, but thus far it is the Bolter and Hammer episode who plays this trope the clearest way. We do not know exactly why they attacked the craft-world, but they slaughtered Eldars, including civilians and presumably children, just for being xenos, in the name of Humanity's good.
• Too Dumb to Live: There is a scene where a squad of striking scorpions are confronted by a redemptor dreadnought. Seeing that this foe is beyond their skills, as the striking scorpions are not specialized in anti-armor, you'd expect that they would quickly retreat. But no! They just stand there and futilely shoot at it. This works as well as you'd expect, as they are quickly slaughtered without so much as scratching the dreadnought.

    Kill Protocol 

• Bait-and-Switch: When the Tech-Priest and her Kastelan Robot encounters a lone guardsman, the latter reasons that he might be of some assistance. You'd think that the Tech-Priest could bring along the guardsman as extra protection, but in actually she murders him for his bionic arm to repair her Kastelan's damaged leg.
• Hidden Depths: Despite the Mechanicus' doctrine of cold logic and reasoning, after the Tech-Priest murders the lone guardsmen for his bionic arm to repair her Kastelan's damaged leg, she justifies what she just did to her Kastelan as necessary in a somewhat somber tone, implying that she does feel some amount of guilt. By the end of the episode, she sacrifices a very precious STC just to fully repair the severely damaged Kastelan after a battle with the Orks. Her justification that she was never going to get the thing off the planet without the Kastelan anyway gets greeted by some apparent skepticism by the machine.

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    Cadia Stands 

• Alien Blood: The Tyranids are shown having purple blood in this story.
• Determinator: During their journey through the trenches, Eoin and Harlan find a wounded guardsman. Despite being gravely wounded, his legs cut off and his intestines spilling out of his stomach, he insists on being given a lasgun and brought to the trench parapet to continue holding off the attacking Tyranids.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Harlan saves Eoin from an Spore Mine, at the cost of her life.
• Mercy Kill: Harlan delivers the Emperor's Peace to one unfortunate guardsman being eaten by rippers. When a horrified Eoin condemns her for the act, Harlan strikes back that the guardsman was beyond saving and he would have done the same had she been in the same situation.
• Not So Stoic: Sergeant Harlan shows herself to be The Stoic when facing against the Tyranid swarm. Yet even her cold and steely character breaks at times, such as when she briefly reacts in horror when she witnesses a guardsman being eaten alive by Tyranid Rippers.

    Artefacts 

• Continuity Nod: The ending of the episode gives us a showing of Trazyn's "carefully, curated collection". This includes Ursakar Creed, confirming that it was he who saved Creed during the Fall of Cadia and added him to his collection.
• Failure Is the Only Option: Trazyn gleefully explains to Hesiod that he and his squad are not prisoners. All they have to do to escape their Stable Time Loop prison is to not enter the Labyrinth. However, even if they do free themselves or never enter the Labyrinth in the first place, Abaddon is likely to kill or torture Hesiod and his squad for returning empty handed.
• Foreshadowing: That cryptek's staff looks awfully familiar, eh? A hint of his true identity as Trazyn the Infinite in disguise.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The cryptek attempts to bargain with the chaos terminators in that he will reveal the location of an Aeldari artifact in exchange for his life. Hesiod refuses his offer, but Abaddon arrives and demands to know the location of artifact. After the cryptek reveals the artifacts location, under the belief that they have a deal, Abaddon shoots off the cryptek's head. Though it is later revealed that the cryptek was Trazyn in disguise, and that he was never in any real danger.

    Plague Song 

• Body Horror: Suffering a transformation by Nurgle's power is this in the most horrific way imaginable. How bad is it? Let's just say, it starts with the torso splitting open to reveal a huge, gaping maw and ends with the still (barely) cognizant head being devoured by the body. It says a lot when the extra eyes popping up alls over the body are perhaps the least disturbing part.
• A Fate Worse Than Death: The aforementioned body horror.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Ephisis' plan mainly runs on it. How dare he attack a such heavily guarded Imperium beacon with just one ship? Because it was foretold his mission will be a success. So he tries, and easily succeeds. He just needs to kill some of his soldiers who don't believe in this reasoning, and to bring a sacrifice to help Nex takes care of the hardest part.
• Stable Time Loop: The main crux of Ephisis' plan is to use the corrupted choir, combined with the Warp's ability to affect space and time, to send a plague back in time, and allow his past self to succesfully conquer the and planet and corrupt the choir to... well, you get the idea.

    Double or Nothing 

• Batman Gambit: Hamilcar manages to save the Sigmarite city with a rather elaborate plan. First he goes to the invading Orruk warboss' camp and makes a wager: If he will defeat Warboss Urgarrk in battle, then he and his forces will leave. If Hamilcar is defeated, then Hamilcar will name Urgarrk the greatest Warboss to have ever lived and spread his reptuation across the mortal realms. However, Urgarrk wants to test how mighty Hamilcar is, so he pits him against his boyz. With the exception of the first challenge, Hamilcar is defeated each time, but each time afterwards he requests another bout whilst increasing the wager. First he offers his gryph-hound, Crow, then his armor, and then the secret of reforging if Urgarrk defeats him. The last one has Hamilcar slaying Urgarrk and proclaiming himself the Orruks boss...Then he makes the same offer that he made to Urgarrk to the rest of the horde, but demands that they all prove themselves. This causes the entirety of the Orruk Waaagh! to fight amongst themselves, thus allowing the Sigmarites to safely evacuate.
• Breather Episode: This episode comes after Plague Song, and compared to the latter which was filled to the brim in Body Horror,
  
  Squick and resulted in a downer ending, Double or Nothing is more light-hearted and comedic in tone.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: By the end of the episode, Hamilcar, somewhat bloodied and bruised, asks for ale after managing to turn the invading Orruks against each other.
• Jaw Drop: Lord-Celestant Carinus' reaction when Hamilcar, whom he regarded as an idiot and fully expected him to die, succeeds in his gambit.
• Lighter and Softer: While not without it's share of blood and gore, Double or Nothing is easily the most light-hearted episode of Hammer and Bolter (on par with Old One Eye) due to it's greater emphasis on humor.
• Miles Gloriosus: Subverted. The other Stormcasts initially dismiss Hamilcar as a braggart and a fool, and his insistence people should have heard of him is treated as a joke although one of them admits his name rings a faint bell. His swagger gets him in to see the Boss, but he gets his butt kicked in (almost) every fight. Right up until he gets serious. Hamilcar is an existing character with his own series of stories and really did all those heroic feats; his reputation for them just isn't what he thinks it is.
• Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Hamilcar, just as he's about to finish off Urgarrk.

  Ukrgarrk: I'm going to be a God!

  Hamilcar: Alas, you're really, really not.

    Monsters 

• Barbarian Tribe: The protagonists of the episodes are the members of a Darkoath warband.

    A New Life 

• All for Nothing: Despite the rigorous vetting of survivors and aggressive quelling of rebellion, the Genestealer cult gets enough members off world to spread their infection to another one, starting the whole cycle over.
• Ambiguous Situation: An Abbott in the same escape craft as the family soon discovers that the latter are Genestealer Cultists, along with the rest of the escapees. He is then injected with a green substance. It's unknown if he's being injected with a poison or a sedative. Or given the likelihood that the cultist who injected him might be a Biophagus, he might even be injected with the Genestealer infection.
• Arc Words: "New Life". The Genestealer Cultists mean for it to spread their infection into new worlds.
• Armies Are Evil: Imperial Guard are shown to have an intense disdain for civilians, to the point of firing on them for the "crime" of asking to be let onto the evacuation ships. It's clear that the Guard isn't there to protect the planet or save civilians, but just to protect the few VI Ps they deem worthy of survival. This becomes a case of Extremist Has A Point as the refugee family along with various escapees turned out to be Genestealer Cultists.
• The Bad Guy Wins: It turns out the family we've been following are members of the local Genestealer Cult, and they just got off world with a young Genestealer in their arms.
• Continuity Nod: Despite the fact that the family along with several other escapees are genestealer cultists, they still intend on escaping the world from the Tyranid invasion. This is a reminder that, although the cult serve as a Tyranid vanguard to weaken the planet's defenses, not all of them are on board in being consumed as biomass. Nor are they all fully aware of the true nature of their supposed "Gods".
• Death from Above: The Tyranids start the invasion by dropping in from space
• Foreshadowing: Even before the plot twist, there were hints of it.
  • One example being the lieutenant—who was sympathetic to the family—not only had a detonator, but also explosives being set up in many areas beforehand.
  • Even ignoring the frigid climate, all of them were wearing headwear to cover their Genestealer crest.
• Heroic Sacrifice: The lieutenant willingly give his life to get the refugee family run towards to ship. Subverted Trope as the family were Genestealer hybrids intending to infect other planets with the lieutenant being their accomplice.

  How long are the Hammer and Bolter episodes?

  The episodes are pretty short (usually around 15-17 minutes) serve almost as introductions to the armies and how they exist in the fictional universe.

  Will there be more Hammer and Bolter?

  Three more Hammer and Bolter episodes are coming to Warhammer+ soon – here's what they have in store.

  What is Hammer and Bolter?

  Hammer and Bolter is an anthology series that delves into the dark corners of Warhammer, presenting a multitude of different characters and factions. Hammer and Bolter is an anthology series that delves into the dark corners of Warhammer, presenting a multitude of different characters and factions.

  Is Hammer and Bolter good Reddit?

  Seriously the best stories I've seen in warhammer animation have come from Hammer and Bolter. In the Garden of Ghosts, Artifact and Plague song are the best example but I also really like bound for greatness. The thing I really like about Hammer and Bolter is simply how many perspectives it gives us.