Gotrek, Felix, Thanquol and Boneripper Hype After the Lords of the End Times Trailer
We had one of those very specific Warhammer lore chats that starts with a trailer link and immediately spirals into named-character appreciation, old book memories, campaign trauma, and wishlist models.
This time the spark was the new Total War: WARHAMMER III – Lords of The End Times cinematic, and honestly: yeah, it looks fantastic.
The immediate reaction in our chat was exactly what you would expect when Gotrek and Felix show up: pure excitement. Wilini instantly clocked them and remembered reading one of their books years ago — the classic setup of a dwarf slayer and a human getting dragged into increasingly terrible situations involving Chaos, monsters, and the general end-of-the-world energy that Warhammer does so well.
And honestly, that is a big part of why these characters still hit so hard. Even if you first met them through books, games, or just osmosis from the setting, they feel iconic in a very grounded way. They are not just symbols of the setting — they feel like they actually lived through it, got beaten up by it, and kept going anyway.
What made the whole thing even better is that this was not just abstract lore appreciation. Wilini mentioned that literally the day before, he had played a narrative battle where Gotrek and Felix were trapped in the Realm of Slaanesh, and Louen Leoncoeur arrived with an army to rescue them. That is such a gloriously Warhammer sentence that we had to stop for a moment and appreciate it.
It also says a lot about why we love the lore side of the hobby. These characters are fun in novels and trailers, sure, but they become even better when they spill over into our own games. Once named characters start appearing in narrative battles, the setting stops being something we only consume and starts becoming something we actively play with.
Then the conversation naturally swerved into Skaven territory, because of course it did.
For Michał, the real star of the whole thing is Thanquol. No hesitation, no qualifiers — just straight up favorite named character in the entire Games Workshop universe. And to be fair, it is hard to argue with that. Thanquol is exactly the kind of unhinged, scheming, self-destructive Skaven disaster that makes the faction so entertaining. He is dangerous, ridiculous, and somehow always one bad decision away from making everything even worse.
The extra bit of hype came from seeing that he is going to appear with Boneripper, which immediately elevated the whole thing even more for us. Boneripper is one of those companions/monstrous bodyguard types that just makes a character feel complete. Michał went even further and said he would absolutely love to see Boneripper as a mount option in Warhammer: The Old World — and honestly, that kind of wishlist feels extremely relatable. Half of being into Warhammer is seeing something cool in one format and immediately wanting rules and a model for it somewhere else.
Wilini also gave Boneripper a solid approval rating with a simple “good model,” which is probably the most efficient possible summary.
And because no Skaven discussion is complete without a little confusion and trauma, Wilini also realized who he had mixed up Zikkit with: Ikit Claw. Which then immediately turned into a memory of being haunted by Ikit in Total War: WARHAMMER III. Anyone who has had a campaign derailed by a particularly obnoxious rat engineer will understand that feeling perfectly.
So this little trailer chat ended up becoming a neat snapshot of why Warhammer lore works so well for us:
- it pulls old book memories back to the surface,
- it feeds directly into our narrative games,
- it gives us iconic weirdos like Thanquol,
- and it reminds us that Skaven are always waiting just off-screen to ruin somebody’s day.
We are very curious where this Lords of The End Times release goes, but even from the trailer alone it already succeeded at the most important thing: it got us talking about characters we love, stories we remember, and the battles we want to play next.
If a cinematic can make us jump from Gotrek and Felix nostalgia to Boneripper mount wishlist posting in a few messages, that is probably a good sign.