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What is Warhammer 40k?

Warhammer 40k is a miniature tabletop wargame produced by Games Workshop. As a tabletop miniature game, it can be played on any size board, table, multiple tables, or even an entire floor. The movement is controlled by inches, not by squares or spaces, and players brandish tape measures to make their moves and attacks.

Players collect armies from one of the many factions of the Warhammer 40k universe. Collecting, assembling, and painting miniatures is one of the hobby’s biggest draws, and the main reason that many people are in the hobby at all. Some people collect and paint and never play a game, while on the other hand, some people pay for commission artists to paint their armies for them, and they only play. The Warhammer 40k hobby attracts all types of hobbyists.

To play the game, you will need a rulebook (which contains all of the overall rules of the game), plus a Codex specific to your Warhammer 40k army or faction (for example, the Space Wolves have their own book that has special rules just for the Space Wolves, or the Necrons have their own book with special rules just for the Necrons). You will also need an army–typically a 2000 point army is played in tournaments, but you’re free to play any size that you and your opponent agree upon. You’ll need a tape measure and dice (you may need a LOT of dice–sometimes you’re rolling 25 at a time). Terrain is a nice addition, but if you’re just getting started in the hobby you can use boxes as buildings, cans of soup as silos, etc.

From there on, you dig in, and you start to play!

Is Warhammer 40k a board game?

Warhammer 40k itself is not a board game, but there have been board games that exist in the Warhammer 40k universe. One of the best known and most beloved is a game called Space Hulk, the first iteration of which came out in 1989. In this game, Space Marine Terminators (think Space Marines in extremely bulky, extra-powerful armor) battle against Genestealers (an alien race no entirely unlike Alien’s Xenomorphs). The game all takes place on an abandoned relic of a starship–the eponymous Space Hulk.

Other Warhammer 40k board games have also been introduced including one of the most popular recent releases, Blackstone Fortress. In this game a team of heroes (four or five) work their way through levels of a Blackstone Fortress, an extremely ancient spacecraft that has been overtaken by the forces of Chaos.

What genre is Warhammer 40k?

The genre of Warhammer 40k is a little harder to pin down. On its surface, it appears to be science fiction, because it’s all about spaceships and laser guns, but there are elements to the Warhammer 40k world that are distinctly fantasy in genre: the Gods of Chaos warp the boundary between science fiction and fantasy, as do things like Celestine, the Living Saint, an actual angel who can appear on the battlefield.

When it comes to Warhammer 40k’s books, the Black Library, there have been books that are mysteries, thrillers, military sci-fi, fantasy, horror, and even some that are played for laughs.

What edition is Warhammer 40k on?

Warhammer 40k is currently in its 9th edition, which was released in July 2020 (Buy from Amazon | Buy from Element Games). Ninth edition didn’t make major changes to 8th edition 40k, but there were enough tweaks that they felt it needed more than just continued Errata and Chapter Approved.

Warhammer 40k 8th Edition, which came out in April 2017, was a radical shift in the way the game was played. It was an attempt to simplify the rules as much as possible, opening the way for new gamers to get involved in the hobby.

The previous editions were released as such:
Warhammer 40k 7th Edition: May 2014
Warhammer 40k 6th Edition: June 2012
Warhammer 40k 5th Edition: July 2008
Warhammer 40k 4th Edition: 2004
Warhammer 40k 3rd Edition: 1998
Warhammer 40k 2nd Edition: 1993
Warhammer 40k 1st Edition (Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader): 1987

What year did Warhammer 40k start?

Warhammer 40k started in 1987 as Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, and was largely a transposition of the Warhammer Fantasy Battles game into a science fiction setting. In this edition, there was more of a role-playing element to the game.

In this first edition of Warhammer 40k, not everything was released as a cohesive set of rules, but additional rules were added in the White Dwarf magazine, and occasionally these rules would be condensed into a book, such as the Warhammer Compendium, which contains the rules for all Imperial Guard, Squats, and Harlequins.

What year does Warhammer 40k take place in?

This is a tricky question to answer. The obvious thought is that Warhammer 40,000 takes place in the 41st Millennium, and it does, but where in that millennium it takes place is a harder nut to crack. According to the in-game lore, Primarch Robute Guilliman is not sure of the year, and it’s implied that it could be off by as much as 100 to 1000 years, meaning it might not be in the 41st Millennium at all, but the 42nd.

But it is even harder to keep track of in the lore, because traveling through the Warp will sometimes alter the timeline–you may be in the Warp for what seems like days only to emerge and a hundred years have passed. Or you may be like Ghazghkull Thraka (Buy from Amazon | Buy from Element Games), the Ork Warboss, who was heard of to be in more than one place at once.

Why is Warhammer 40k so expensive?

We have addressed that in an entire article, but suffice it to say that Warhammer 40k is so expensive for a few reasons: the first is quality–you’re getting the best rules with the best lore with the best minis with the best production value. (All of this can be argued, but that’s the gist of it.) The second reason is that, according to capitalism, everything is worth what the consumer is willing to pay for it. And consumers are willing to pay a lot for Warhammer 40k.