Warhammer 40k
In the Grim Future ...
At work it became known that I played games. My manager eventually approached me because her (12 year old) son was “really into this War … Hammer thing?” and had I heard of it? Was it appropriate?
I’d heard of it. It would be tough not to. A year prior the local (print) newspaper ran a spread in the lifestyle section about Warhammer 40k a game “popular among the local military personnel”. I first saw a “Games Workshop” store around 1990 (give or take), much brighter and cleaner than other stores. It was full of absolutely beautiful painted miniatures … and copies of Warhammer.
Even earlier I was aware of Warhammer … but not 40,000. I’d played the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying Game, which my group preferred to Dungeons and Dragons. D&D (for us) was a Tolkien rip-off and a silly Saturday Morning Cartoon. The Warhammer world felt … medieval and lived in. You didn’t start as a wizard or druid, but as a … Rat Catcher or pickpocket. Warhammer Gods were malevolent (like the Nurgle, the God of Disease)1.
Games Workshop had formed during the RPG craze, but they weren’t content with selling role playing games. They felt the real money was in miniatures, so they produced games that needed miniatures, starting with Warhammer Fantasy Battles and a few years later they added a SF crossover, forty thousand years into the future.
As the box says, “In the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, There is Only War.”
Rick Priestley’s Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader was the first entry into the 40k world, and spawned a monster big enough to be played on military bases, game stores, and middle schools around the world. A game in progress usually looks amazing, with painted miniatures moving around terrain that would be perfectly in place on an expertly made model railroad. No grid or hex maps, when you take a shot you use measure the distance and chuck a bunch of dice.
Now is the time to admit that I’ve never actually played Warhammer 40k (or Fantasy Battle). The idea of buying (and painting!) a small army has appealed to me from time to time, but I preferred fantasy Japan to “the grim dark future.” But (as near as I can tell) Warhammer isn’t complicated, just … big.
The base rules aren’t difficult, but there are numerous factions2, each with its own miniatures, units, and sourcebooks. Each type of miniature may have its own statistics and rule-bending or -breaking game changers. And that’s just the game, if you want to know the lore, that’s a much deeper dive. There are novels (lots and lots of novels).
Warhammer 40k can be (and often is) what I call a “lifestyle game” — something you play regularly, possibly the only game you’ll ever need3. Instead of joining a bowling league, find a Warhammer group and play every week (or more often). And if you want to explore the universe by reading the novels, that can occupy the rest of your week for months (or years) on end.
If you randomly wander into a hobby game store, chances are you’ll see people playing a collectable card game. There may be a roleplaying game in the backroom, and on a big table there will likely be some miniatures and people shoving them around and throwing dice. That game might not be Warhammer 40k, but that’s the one your most likely to see.
Miniatures were a genre before 40k, but this game has dominated the market for nearly fifty years, which makes it an almost certain entry into The 100 Most Influential Games of the 20th Century.
Being a rat catcher didn’t give you much, but you were immune to a lot of diseases.
The Imperium of Man, Chaos, Necrons, Aeldari, Tyranids, Orks, T’au, Leagues of Votann and probably more.
I like the idea of playing 40K but given the regular rules updates (and life getting in the way) I've probably spent more time enjoying the hobby aspect of assembling and painting minis.
I know nothing. Never played it; don't know anyone who has. But I'm an oldie (I'm even pre-WFRPG)!