fancy myself quite the nerd, and I've got plenty of games and books on my shelves to prove it, but there's been one series that, until recently, intimidated me: Warhammer 40,000. During these days of extended free time that we find ourselves in, let's take a moment to find out about this series, and hopefully see what it's all about starting with a few questions: What is Warhammer 40K, why is it intimidating to newcomers, and where should someone start out if they want to get into it?
Chances are if you're not into tabletop gaming or sci-fi, you have no idea what Warhammer 40K is about. For the most part the franchise keeps to itself and doesn’t draw much attention from outside its established fanbase. Launches for a new Warhammer game don't get quite the same promotional campaigns that most other games do. The franchise’s novels and books are published by the studio’s own publishing company, and most of the tabletop games seem to be promoted mostly by word of mouth. So, let's take a look at Warhammer’s developer: Games Workshop.
Games Workshop was founded in 1975 by three key members: John Peake, a game board maker, Ian Livingstone, an aspiring author, and Steve Jackson, who had a career as a journalist writing for Games & Puzzles magazine. The three flatmates shared a fondness for board games and decided to start a small business around it. They started selling Dungeons and Dragons content in the U.K. For a while, Games Workshop was just three guys selling these kits from their apartment, but eventually they gained enough attention from fans (and an angry landlord) that they decided to start investing in an actual store. In 1978 the first official Games Workshop store opened in London. Games Workshop had developed a reputation for tabletop RPGs off of their Dungeons and Dragons sales and soon began selling American-based RPGs (such as Call of Cthulhu and Traveller) to a hungry London fanbase.
Games Workshop also started developing their own games. Rick Priestly, a staff member, came up with an idea for a fantasy war game that would pit two players against each other each with an army of miniatures. This game would come to be known as Warhammer Fantasy Battle. The game launched in 1983 and people loved it, due in no small part to its detailed ruleset and gameplay, but also the collectible nature of the miniatures. Fantasy Battle seemed to hit the right spot for Games Workshop, as they now not only had their own game to sell, but immense amounts of miniatures to sell alongside it.
Four years later, Games Workshop debuted the next branch of the series, a dark sci-fi taking place during the wars of a distant future: Warhammer: 40, 000 (also known by its shortened designation “40K”). This new tabletop saw the same approach to design and ruleset as Fantasy Battle, but flaunted a heavy sci-fi aesthetic that stands out even today. The game took off easily at that point and eventually became one of the most popular wargames in the world.
ow that we've covered how we got here, let's discuss the game itself. Warhammer: 40,000 takes place, unsurprisingly, around the 41st millennium, when war has consumed everything. All the races of the galaxy are locked in perpetual warfare and there really seems to be no end in sight. The world of Warhammer 40K is incredibly grim and dark compared to most RPGs, giving rise to a subgenre known as “grimdark" (see what they did there?). Within this world, multiple factions have arisen to try and claim dominance, starting with what is perhaps the most famous faction: The Imperium of Man.
The Imperium is where humanity finds itself in this future, and we're not doing so hot. Ages and ages of bloodshed (and worse) have turned the Imperium of Man into a totalitarian military society that worships The God Emperor of Mankind, a legendary emperor who was mortally wounded during a great battle on Earth thousands of years prior, and is kept alive by a complex life support system known as “The Golden Throne.” Despite being mostly dead the Emperor's mind still guides and protects humanity through his immense psychic ability. The Imperium fights heresy across the galaxy with heavy firepower and mechanical prowess, both traits captured perfectly by the classic space marines. Space marines are eight-foot tall human death-machines that weigh as much as a tank (and could probably toss one— if it was charged with heresy). Their squads love spending their time mowing down aliens while barking zealous phrases to inspire the enemy with fear, either fear of death or the shocking realization that organized religion has gone too far.
The Imperium won't stop there, however. This is war, and we humans need the biggest guns possible, whether it be a tank or a massive mech, we need explosions, and we need them directed at heretics. The Imperium realised the solution to any problem on the battlefield is solved by a bigger gun, which is displayed by the “Emperor Class Titan," a massive bipedal mech that stands well over a hundred meters tall with a shocking amount of firepower and a cathedral built on top of its shoulders. The standard for war machines is the factor of ridiculousness, and, in this effort, the Imperium seems unmatched.
Fighting against the Imperium of Man are the Ork Horde, who favor brute force over any type of strategy since they have the numbers (and lack of self-preservation) to make it work. Orks build tanks and other war machines out of scrap, and add sharp and pointy bits on them too. Orks don’t fight for survival— they fight because it’s the best way to kill time, and dying doesn’t seem to phase them all that much. Ork units are known as “Ork Boyz” led by the larger leaders known as “Nobz”. Their fighters are reinforced by vehicles such as speedy warbikes and heavy war beasts named “squiggoths.” They may be terrible at spelling, but when it comes down to hitting things really hard, they can’t be beat.
Beyond Orks and the Imperium, there are five other main factions to choose from: Forces of Chaos (demons from another dimension), the Tau Empire (an alien collective expanding their empire into our galaxy), the Eldar (fragments of an ancient race of psychics), the Tyrannids (an intergalactic hivemind of insect like monsters), and the Necrons (immortal cyborgs). These diverse factions, and all the units and troops that come with them, set the stage for what is a detailed and intense game where play sessions easily can be hours long. The format is played by two players, each with their own army of miniature models, on a custom built landscape. The players take turns moving their troops and attacking the other player’s army according to the game's rules, which detail what each unit can do, how far they can move, etc. For example, one player can start with an army of Space Marines while the other player starts an army of Orks. Each player will take turns positioning their armies how they see fit. The Space Marines might be positioned in a way that capitalizes on their superior ranged weapons, while Orks might be positioned to counteract that advantage. The battle is fought over a long period of turns and measurements until one side claims victory by meeting certain conditions established at the outset, such as defeating all the enemy units or holding a piece of land for a set amount of time.
arhammer 40,000 hardly stops with the tabletop. In the thirty-three years or so that the game has been around, Games Workshop made sure to expand into other fields of entertainment, mainly as videogames and literature. To give a sense of scale for how much material there is, Warhammer 40,000 has a published library of over five-hundred volumes filled with just about everything there is know about the carnage and destruction in the 41st Millennium. All these books are published by Black Library, Games Workshop's very own publishing company, based in Nottingham. Between the original tabletop and the books, you might even have enough material to cover you until the year 40,000 in order to be done playing.
My start with the series was a little less official. My introduction was a small game on the xbox 360 called Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team, which is a very bizarre place to start as the games, more so than the books or miniatures, don’t do much to cater to any audience other than 40k fans. Kill Team saw the player take on the role of a Space Marine tasked with destroying an Ork warship, which is barreling toward an Imperium forge world: a planet occupied with the sole purpose of refining raw materials and building the Imperium’s arms and munitions.
Being new to the series, I had no possible idea what any of this meant, but the game gave me a gun and pointed me at a horde of bad guys, so I started off on my merry slaughter. I found myself enraptured with everything I saw. The space marines were valiant warriors, clad in awe-inspiring armor and armed with powerful science fiction weaponry. The enemy was the Ork Horde that inhabited the ship, an innumerable force of green warriors carved straight from the general fantasy setting, wielding cleavers and hatchets as well as crude firearms and explosives. The firefights were intense and the powerups were plentiful, and I never considered that this was all part of a massive universe; I was just happy to blow up the Ork horde piece by piece. The game eventually threw a curveball at me that I couldn’t have expected— the ship's cargo deck was infested with Tyrannids, terrifying monsters that consume all life and have a particular affinity for diced space marine. Up until now the corridors of the ship had the aesthetic appeal of a junkyard— walls and machinery thrown together with scrap metal, but the rusted metallic colors gave way to dark purples and bone whites which hid swarms of Tyrannids.
It was a blast playing this game, and later I ended up diving deeper into the universe with Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine.
If you can’t tell by now, I am quite fond of these space marines. Space Marine was very similar to Kill Team in premise: bad things are happening, you take control of a space marine, and you fix the bad things. The main differences come from the fact that this game was a fully developed triple-A title and not a smaller spinoff. This time around we took on the role of Captain Titus of the Ultramarines, on a mission to stop an Ork invasion and protect The Imperium’s most valuable assets. We go from scrappy rusted corridors to great concrete courtyards and grand cathedral-looking buildings. Playing through Space Marine gave me a better understanding of the tone of 40k, where hope and peace had long been lost and constant war is really the only option left. I probably would have felt bad if blowing up Orks with Cockney accents wasn’t as much fun as it is. It was also in this game that I came to know how ridiculous the scale of these battles are, whether it be from the sheer number of enemies in the game, or units on the board, or the insane sizes of some of these war machines.
he simple takeaway is that there’s not much in the way of anyone enjoying this series if they’re on the fence. The miniatures and boards are expensive, though, so I recommend picking up a video game first. Kill Team and Space Marine are great choices, but there’s no need to start there if the Imperium isn’t up your alley. The Dawn of War series is a great place to start if you like something a little closer to the original Warhammer concept, which allows you to play around with different factions. Space Hulk: Deathwing is great for an atmospheric shooter about fighting the Tyrannids. Any of these games will help break down the intimidation factor, and as you start to get a feel for it, you can start delving into the more detailed content. Start painting a few miniatures for your shelf, or read a few short stories to immerse yourself in the world. As far as content goes, you’ll never go hungry. The fan content can be wonderfully engaging, my personal favorite being the Astartes fan project, a short film I can’t recommend enough whether you’re into 40k or not. All in all, I have absolutely enjoyed getting to know this series more, and I hope you do as well.
Anyway, I’ve got some painting to do.