Warhammer 40k expands Zone Mortalis and teases Ghosts of Cadia

Journal Tactica: Zone Mortalis is now cataloged as GW-31-175, with preorder set for June 27 and release on July 11. The timing matters because the Horus Heresy book does more than repackage the earlier PDF rules: it pushes Games Workshop’s cramped, infantry-first board style into a fuller release while Black Library is lining up new Cadia and Blood Angels fiction beside it.

Zone Mortalis games are built around 1,500-point armies fighting through dense terrain, obscuring walls and hazardous obstacles, with aircraft and barrage weapons left out of the format entirely. The PDF preview includes three missions designed for square battlefields and is meant to work with the Zone Mortalis floor tile pack. In practice, that means confined movement, reserve play and corridor fighting come to the front, while Bulky infantry get squeezed by the layout and fast assault units can dart around firing lines. The missions even turn doors into part of the weaponry. The new Journal Tactica goes further by adding missions and specialist units for Legiones Astartes, Solar Auxilia and Mechanicum, which makes this feel like a real expansion rather than a simple reissue.

Black Library’s side of the update shifts the focus back to 40k itself with Ghosts of Cadia by Rob Young. It is the sequel to 2023’s Longshot, and it brings back Sergeant Darya Nevic after her earlier fight with the T’au Empire. This time, Nevic is heading into the liberation of Parrescum from heretic hordes, with Chaos forces complicating the job. The novel is coming in hardback, eBook, audiobook and Special Edition formats, and the Special Edition adds camouflage-printed page edges and a thematic cover. Longshot is also getting a new hardback edition to sit alongside it.

The other major Black Library reveal leans into the Blood Angels. Darius Hinks’ Mephiston trilogy, which began with Blood of Sanguinius in 2017, is back in a limited box set, with the series made up of Blood of Sanguinius, Revenant Crusade and City of Light. Black Library is also issuing a new hardback of Guy Haley’s The Devastation of Baal, the Blood Angels’ war against Hive Fleet Leviathan and one of the defining 41st Millennium events of the modern setting.

That split tells the story cleanly. Zone Mortalis is the piece that changes how games play, especially for players who like tight terrain, infantry pressure and board-control puzzles. Ghosts of Cadia, Mephiston and The Devastation of Baal keep the faction shelves moving and keep Cadia, the Blood Angels and the wider setting in the company’s spotlight at the same time.