Z2 has announced Amon Amarth: The Great Heathen Army, a new graphic novel and board game collaboration celebrating the heavy metal quintet’s last album of the same name. Channeling the thunderous epic poem winding through these nine tracks, the graphic novel dives into the heart of the Viking Age, as oars propel longships to shores awaiting the brutal collision of steel and bone.

The project unites the band with writer Dan Watters, artist Ario Murti, and cover artists Montos and Tom Thiel.

The pages of The Great Heathen Army unspool throughout a 9th-century battle siege, in which a coalition of Viking warriors from Scandinavia invades England, wreaking unprecedented chaos. The tale dynamically pivots between large-scale dioramas of destruction to the lives of the men and women whose decisions leveled populations, capturing the devastating human cost to both sides of this legendary clash. The book will also include a foreword from professional WWE Wrestling Hall of Famer and Viking devotee, Adam “Edge” Copeland. 

Z2 and Amon Amarth present The Great Heathen Army in standard hardcover and deluxe hardcover editions, set to release in Fall 2023. The deluxe hardcover will come signed with three art prints illustrated by Tom Thiel, a Silver Pennigar Viking Collector’s Coin, and a limited edition board game with an oversized battle map. 

The Great Heathen Army board game will also be available separately. In the deck-building war game, players assume the role of the Vikings on the attacker’s side or that of the Anglo-Saxons on the defender’s side; each side will strategize their own goal to defeat or repel the other in absorbing, hours-long campaigns.