Warhammer 40,000 (sometimes colloquially called Warhammer 40K, WH40K or 40k) is a miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is the most popular miniature wargame in the world, and is particularly popular in the United Kingdom. The first edition of the rulebook was published in September 1987, and the tenth and current edition was released in June 2023.

As in other miniature wargames, players enact battles using miniature models of warriors and fighting vehicles. The playing area is a tabletop model of a battlefield, comprising models of buildings, hills, trees, and other terrain features. Each player takes turns moving their model warriors around the battlefield and fighting their opponent's warriors. These fights are resolved using dice and simple arithmetic.

Warhammer 40,000 is noted for its science fantasy setting in the distant future, where a stagnant human civilization is beset by hostile aliens and supernatural creatures. The models in the game are a mixture of humans, aliens, and supernatural monsters wielding futuristic weaponry and supernatural powers. The fictional setting of the game has been developed through a large body of novels published by Black Library (Games Workshop's publishing division). Warhammer 40,000 was initially conceived as a scifi counterpart to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, a medieval fantasy wargame also produced by Games Workshop with which 40,000 shares a number of tropes and concepts despite not being set in the same universe. The game has received widespread praise for the tone and depth of its setting, and is considered the foundational work of the grimdark genre of speculative fiction.

Warhammer 40,000 has spawned many spin-off media. Games Workshop has produced a number of other tabletop or board games connected to the brand, including both extrapolations of the mechanics and scale of the base game to simulate unique situations, as with Space Hulk or Kill Team, and wargames simulating vastly different scales and aspects of warfare within the same fictional setting, as with Battlefleet Gothic, Adeptus Titanicus or Warhammer Epic. Video game spin-offs, such as Dawn of War and the Space Marine series, have also been released.

Games in this series

Release Date 1992-01-01

Wikipedia