Gotrek & Felix

The characters and name of a classic series from GW's Black Library, the series is on the top tier of the library's publications alongside Gaunt's Ghosts by Dan Abnett. It is pity then the quality of the series has gone downhill somewhat in the most recent books, as BL is milking the series now and stringing it out in the name of the noble profit.

Characters

Gotrek: The most manly dwarf ever (ironic turn of phrase noted), he's butchered his way through so many legions of monsters, horrors and demigods it just makes your balls shrivel in honest to gods jealousy (and more than a little fear). Armed with a mighty rune axe that was probably forged and used by the Dwarf ancestor god of war and vengeance in the first big throw-down with Chaos, which is also mutating him into some sort of super-Dwarf, Gotrek is a mythical ass-kicker of truly earth-shattering proportions. He wants to die in battle, but is just too good at winning. Also, the axe won't let him.

Felix: The Robin to Gotrek's Batman, the Samwise to his Frodo, Felix is, despite appearances and his occasional obnoxiousness, the real hero and narrator of the series. Felix is the dwarf's pet human/toy/best friend/memoir writer who is travelling with the dwarf to record his death poem. Constantly in terror he is going to get killed one of these days to the extent it get annoying. Constantly picks up a new busty wench for nooky in nearly every book. His long golden hair must have a magic appeal.

Snorri Nosebiter: Gotrek's best Dwarf friend and fellow Slayer. Complete idiot without two brain cells to rub together, he's still a badass and can almost keep up with Gotrek. He and Gotrek go way, way back, when they were the sole survivors of an expedition to the Chaos Wastes. A massive sweetheart for a Dwarf, he's good friends with Felix as well. Disappears from the series around the middle, he returns much older and even more befuddled, to the point where he can't remember the shame that drove him to become a Slayer, which is a massive dishonor in and of itself. This is exactly as pathetic and sad as it sounds. Still kicks ass, though, and finally manages to find his doom.

Max Schreiber: An badass Gold wizard who accompanies Gotrek, Felix, and bunch of other Dwarfs on a giant air battleship to investigate the fate of the lost hold Karak Dum, in the Chaos Wastes. Originally hired to magically ward the airship, he proves himself a valuable asset in combat against all sorts of nasties. Initially involved in a love triangle with Felix and the Kislevite noblewoman Ulrika (who later became a vampire, for reasons too idiotic to go into), which was a source of pointless tension between them and prevented them from becoming real friends, even though holy shit! they're the only two Empire dudes for hundreds of miles. Disappeared from the series when Gotrek and Felix got teleported to Albion. Showed up again much later, and was retconned to a stupid fucking non-combat Light wizard, and as the guardian of the most butt-fuck retarded witch girl in the entire Old World.

Malakai Makaisson: Insane genius Dwarf Slayer engineer, who designed the above air battleship and countless other super-badass but ultimately overambitious designs. Speaks with an awesome Scottish funetik aksent that makes him one of the funniest (and funnest) characters in the whole series.

Teclis: Showed up in one book to help Gotrek and Felix kill possibly the greatest threat (though not the greatest physical challenge) they ever faced, the sorcerer twins below. Earned something close-ish to Gotrek's grudging respect by kicking almost as much ass.

Various monsters/villains of the week whose purpose is only to be axe fodder for Gotrek and amusement for our reading.

The series

Written first by William King (before it taken off him by BL for some random reason) and then given to a bunch of other writers to continue, the series at first followed the ingenious idea of naming the book after whatever is going to feel Gotrek's axe thumping into their heads. So you ended up with titles such as Trollslayer, Skavenslayer, Dragonslayer etc. Recently though they have dropped this brilliant approach to whack any old title on the cover. This can only confirm the fact BL and GW is stretching out the series as far as they can, as they have literally used up all the possible names to slay things with that they can.

Feats of the Dwarf

Gotrek's feats are legend. Read this and wet yourself in terror/awe/appreciation:

• Killed a Bloodthirster of Khorne in single combat
• Sank a Dark Elf ark
• Stop a pair of mad Tzeentch wizard twins from blowing up the world
• Has slaughter countless skaven and rat-orges and practically destroyed a skaven army intending to take Nuln
• Killed a chaos lord of Tzeentch in hand to hand combat
• Constantly giving a middle finger to the chaos gods and spoiling every plan they try to put in motion
• Causing Grey Seer Thanquol countless loses and headaches
• Making Teclis walk carefully around him (yes one of the most powerful spell casters in the world is wary of him and his axe)
• Slaying a vampire lord in the seat of his power