I’m still very much a normie with 40k but I want to get into the lore before the show comes out. Unfortunately it’s not like LOTR, Wheel of Time, Ice and Fire, etc where I can buy a series of books and start on book one. I’ll see what books are a good starting point and I’m sure there are some YouTubers that can give lore insight that I can listen to on my walks. I have like 40 books to read in my immediate stack so I’ll hold off on any of the books until I can knock those out.
With the show coming I’m wondering if the usual suspects have tried to latch onto the IP or have the fans gate kept it pretty well?
The fans gate kept it until fairly recently, the left has their hooks in now and they're busily gaslighting away. As for an introduction to the lore, I suggest the Horus Heresy books (Gaunt's Ghosts is also pretty good), and avoiding anything written by that tricycle bound alcoholic midget CS Goto.
Thanks!! I still need to read the Witcher and Elric books. Then I’ll dive into those. Are they using the usual tactics of whining about lack of diversity, females, or lgbt?
They're presently running with the "it was always woke" gaslighting. As if people who have been playing it for thirty years, like me, don't remember exactly what the game was back then.
Oh and I don't know if he wrote any of the novels but avoid anything by Gav Thorpe. He's a pencil-dicked weasel who was the first big entryist in the IP, and the proximate cause for a lot of the bullshit in the game today.
Thanks for the heads up
No problem. 40k is a lot like Star Wars (used to be). It's been around long enough and there's just so much of it, that you have to be careful not to step on a proverbial landmine. But if you can get into it there's a lot of rich and enjoyable content.
Let's run down some of the major storylines:
Horus Heresy - The big one, lots of involved authors. A massive tale told from all possible perspectives. Not for the casual reader.
Gaunt's Ghosts - Probably the most highly regarded of the serial stories. Basically an entire brigade of Rambos with no home to go back to.
Eisenhorn & Ravenor - Inquisitors doing inquisitor shit. Pretty much every character either turns out to be a hypocrite or gets fucked over for trusting a hypocrite.
Ciaphas Cain - Blackadder Goes Forth in SPAAAAACE.
Ragnar - Mary-wolfing-sue incarnate. Not even Bjorn's plot armor is this thick.
However, instead of going into 40k, I suggest you pick up Glen Cook's The Black Company. Can be a bit more confusing at times but the characters feel a lot more real.
Ever have a friend who fucks up 100% of the time, but it just works? Cain! Ever try to flee the battlefield, but run into the enemy-- and slaughter them on accident? CAIN! Ever get repeatedly promoted because the universe has to balance out born losers? CAAAAAAIN! That's who I'm talkin' bout.
I'd just watch this video that perfectly explains Cain
Also fun fact, he was pronounced KIA so many times only to return, they just put him as missing because they don't know if he'll come back again despite the fact he is one of the few in 40k to die OF OLD AGE.
He also fucked an inquisitor and lived so he is ridiculously lucky.
"Not even Bjorn's plot armor is this thick" What about Cato Sicarius?
The Helsreach series. You can listen, read or watch it.
I will die on this world. I will die on Armageddon.
100% watch it, that is an amazing piece of fan work.
If you want to wet your whistle, I recommend watching Astartes 1-5 on YouTube. Captures the feel for the 40k universe quite well.
As far as reading, Dan Abnett is my favorite 40k author by far. He’s responsible for Gaunts ghosts and eisenhorn (among others).
If you want to fall down a deep DEEP rabbit hole go check out
https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Warhammer_40k_Wiki
Just be careful, you can get lost for hours here.
Thanks!
I am not your go-to Warhammer nerd, but I know the SJWs have come for it.
Something deeply ironic about Warhammer being attacked by vile, twisted mockeries of humanity.
Hopefully they are being repelled
They have been. At the end of the day Games Workshop (The creator of Warhammer) knows who their market is and their not keen to piss off those players. Their bread and butter is the models they sell at the end of the day and they know that.
The barrier to entry is also a repellent. It costs hundreds of dollars to buy an army and then hundreds of hours to paint them.
SJWs (cancel pigs) destroyed American super hero comics without buying them. I wish the cost barrier kept them out. Social media doesn't care if you bought models or not. I hope GW holds the line.
Games workshop is not a smart company.
They've done thier screwups before and will likely do so again. Is it going to lead to them going full woke, all woke? Dunno. I've seen way too many people burbling mindlessly about how the Imperium is horrible bad and in no way the 'good guy', but, eh.
We'll see.
I do see them screw up again but I don't see them ever going full woke because like I said they sell toy soldiers at the end of the day and it's where they make all their money. They can't push away that audience because they'd go out of business if they do.
None of these social justice warriors will pay $50 for a single model, spend 10s of hours painting just for use in an autistic wargame. Every interview with former Games Workshop staff supports this and they're pretty open about it.
Its been kind of strange. Games Workshop has been extremely resilient about making sure anything important has been changed, because they are greedy motherfuckers and dont like anyone touching their money (even when helping them). So most of the wokeness has been in side stories and out of the main plot. Additionally, there is a bit of an issue for the SJW's where if they make a White Male the bad guy.....that is literally just basic ass Warhammer already. So people would be like "Oh thank god, I thought you were going to change it too much."
So it has been harder for them to get in than they thought it would.
Great to hear
If you want an idea of a place to start getting into it though, I would recommend a podcast called Adeptus Ridiculous. The host are kind of on the liberal side, but they care more about the lore than trying to change it, and usually keep their politics out of episodes. And I recommend it because while one guy is a lore nerd, the other host is a newb to the lore. So I like to recommend them because it makes sure that things are actually understandable for a newb since one of them is one themselves.
Cool! Thanks!
Well the maker says Empire of Man players are problematic Nazis.
Passsh. 40k, lame. Warhammer Fantasy is where it's at. Awww yeah! My skaven just nuked a Syvanian city off the fucking map.
I didn’t know there were two separate ones
There's actually three seperate ones
Warhammer Fantasy - The original Lotr races with crazy science rat people, lizards and the like. Eventually removed from production because of low sales and stifling creativity. Soon to be relaunched as Warhamer The Old World.
Warhammer Age of Sigmar - Replaced Fantasy More heroic wow style fantasy. Super magical armies clashing in different planes of existence. Hated at first but has quite a bit of lore built up.
Warhammer 40k - Originally fantasy in space. The poster child and biggest wargame played currently in the world. Horus Heresy is a spinoff wargame/book series set 10,000 years before.
Death to AoS!
Warhammer lore, especially 40K, is a little difficult to introduce non-players since the rule books and army codexes are, or used to be, chock full of lore sections that form the foundation of the setting and are then often presumed knowledge in a lot of other works.
TBH if you want to speed run the lore with minimal flavor the quickest way might be just to be get lost on the 40K wiki. Just start by reading the origins of the Emperor of Mankind and click on whatever takes your fancy from there.
Ask any 40k nerd. The hard part is getting him to stop talking about it once he knows you are interested.
Which is what I love to see. If you ask me about Skyrim or Spider-Man/superman comics or expanded universe in the same
Thanks for this. I'm a complete and utter noob when it comes to 40K, but want to know the lore and have no idea where to even start.
No problem. I’m glad I’m not the only one
If you're into retro RTS games, then I'd recommend playing Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and Dawn of War: Soulstorm. Those were my introduction to the series, and if you play every race available, it should give you a good feel for the various factions. I know that some aspects of the lore in those games seems to have been altered as the years went on, though, such as the origins of the Necrons and how they became mechanical undeads, but most of it should still be considered canon.
Thanks! I’ll definitely look into it
I got into it purely from the wiki and youtube vids. Probably stay away from the Horus Heresy book series until you know what the heck is going on because there are like 60 of them and release order is not chronological (with the exception of the very first few and the last 7 or 8). The final book comes out very early next year, and is the most anticipated book of all time as it finally details the battle between the Emperor and Horus. If you want to read that series after it comes out, I'd suggest waiting until someone compiles a list of the books you actually need to read. Welcome aboard though!
Thanks! I’m the type that would’ve diligently read all of them in a row lol.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/15/Horus_Heresy_Spoiler-Free_Reading_Order.png
Ha ha ha ha!
The bottom of that image looks like a wiring diagram that I've done before lmao
I would suggest this video as a starting point. It deals with humanity and the Emperor of Man in 40k. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyPjE1Sn-Ts&pp=ygUXbHVldGluMDkgZW1wZXJvciBvZiBtYW4%3D
It's the first in a series and the channel does a good job discussing lore and the various characters in the setting. After the suggested video just watch whatever catches your interest.
Thanks!
Luetin09
I know I've posted this before, but the All Guardsmen Party is my favorite piece of 40k media and a decent organic crash course in the lore:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pU62-Ex1cU&list=PL1fLIzO-7JpYb0ajewD4soD2PuXAcaJyy&index=6&t=8s
Thank you!!!