Games Workshop / Warhammer / 40K

Why the hell have we never talked about Games Workshop / Warhammer / 40K?!

I’ve searched and found nothing. I’ve been on here for well over 20 years (albeit barely even lurking since 2010) and remember no threads or discussion about it. But it’s massive, now more than ever, and I know that some people on here partake, because I’ve seen you elsewhere on the www doing so. Superficially the demographics would seem to have quite a lot of crossover… and I know a bunch of you are into D&D, a forebear of the whole Warhammer thing.

So why have we not talked about it? Do you partake? Did you as a kid? Do you paint, play, or both? Have you - as I and various friends have - got back into it post-pandemic? What’s your game and faction of choice?

Talk about Warhammer as a cultural phenomenon…

I was a Battletech dweeb growing up and only briefly dallied with Warhammer (40K and the low-tech fantasy version) but Necromunda was my shit. Post-apocalyptic squad level game but the real fun part was recycling junk into terrain for it.

Necromunda really appeals, but I've committed to Blood Bowl (four years ago) and Kill Team (August) so there's not space for that right now. Skirmish level is definitely the way to go as a 40-something dad of two.

I was into everything when I was 10-18 or so, WFRP, 40k, Man'o'War, Blood Bowl. I'd buy models just to not-quite-finish-painting them, although I've always found painting and modelling just a little bit stressful; I was desperate for painted squads etc but didn't enjoy the process or have the patience to get there.

I didn't really think about Games Workshop stuff for well over 20 years. During the pandemic a friend who never really stopped got me back into the latest version of Blood Bowl, and I had a hankering for WFRP. So now I run a WFRP campaign (five years and counting; no models, just books and imagination), a Blood Bowl league (in our 11th season), and now a bunch of local friends into Kill Team. We have a multi-channel whatsapp community with streams on painting, Blood Bowl, Kill Team, and unrelated stuff (there's a 'gym buddies chat', anathema to who we thought gamers were when we were 12).

And I've finally got a bunch of fully-painted teams and squads. They're 'minimum viable product' rather than fancy, but I'm very happy with them. And they look good on the table.

I got back into painting via Warhammer Quest: Silver Tower, and various Age of Sigmar projects that got to that kind of almost-finished standard you describe

then actual Warhammer Fantasy came back last year and I could stop trying to like AoS

I've been painting a High Elf army in a sea green and pale yellow scheme I think is fairly fetching, since Feb 2024 give or take. It's taken forever but I don't mind the slow progress at all tbh

I really enjoyed the bits of WFRP I played and then briefly DM'd, but the main London cafe that ran organised nights stopped doing it and it kind of fizzled out during the everyone's sick of Teams and Discord phase of Covid. I still have a bunch of the source books just cos

I have slowly been retrieving my Games Workshop boxes and miniatures from my parents, including the box set of Warhammer Fantasy Battle I won in 1992 when I TRIUMPHED at a Space Marine battle- I was a representative of Oxford Games Workshop at that year's Games Day at the NEC in Birmingham. Good times!

I've played one or two of the strategy games I've gotten back e.g. Doom of the Eldar, I need to go through the sets properly (Man O' War, Blood Bowl etc.) and see what can be retrieved but they look to be in pretty good shape. There's a Talisman box which looks worht revisiting.

I have a friend with whom I've played a couple of the skirmish games. My daughter is currently a bit too young for GW but her time will come!

I'm from the home of Games Workshop, it's in my blood. For his last birthday I took my boyfriend to Warhammer World - neither of us particularly care for the actual wargaming element but he likes the art and I like the landscape dioramas (really I wish it was model trains, though, ha). It was pretty cool - some amazingly huge set-ups, a Warhammer-themed pub, a big (space marine?) tank outside the building. There's not a HUGE amount of stuff to do but it's a fun day out.

I could’ve sworn I created a thread.

Currently painting Bel’akor for my Chaos Daemons army.

I'm from the home of Games Workshop, it's in my blood. For his last birthday I took my boyfriend to Warhammer World - neither of us particularly care for the actual wargaming element but he likes the art and I like the landscape dioramas (really I wish it was model trains, though, ha). It was pretty cool - some amazingly huge set-ups, a Warhammer-themed pub, a big (space marine?) tank outside the building. There's not a HUGE amount of stuff to do but it's a fun day out.

― emil.y, Friday, October 3, 2025 6:35 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

In a recent edition of Railway modeller there was a Warhammer 40K themed layout.

Really nicely done and a nice crossover between the two hobbies. I did both warhammer and model trans as a kid and picked both of them back up in small ways since becoming a parent, but ultimately found model trains and dioramas more satisfying. There’s barely time for one hobby, definitely not two.

Besides I was really into Epic (Eldar) and that died a death somewhere along the way.

Not interested in the gaming aspect but recently read and really enjoyed Peter Fehervari’s Dark Coil: Damnation omnibus. Long obligatory passages of plasma rifle battles but otherwise a compelling mixture of Apocalypse Now, Jeff VanderMeer and Caitlin R. Kieran. Also quite enjoyed Dan Abnett’s much sillier Eisenhorn omnibus. Would be open to reading more but 400+ books with, apparently, wildly variable quality is fairly daunting.

I am astonished there is an actual profitable audience for 40K books - hundreds! - but good luck to them. I'm tempted by the Abnett book as I've jusy belatedly come to realise what a great (comic book) writer he is.

I used to play Bloodbowl as a pre-teen in the early 90s, back when the board was made out of condensed packing peanuts. Brilliant game. I think I had Space Hulk too -- even WHSMiths sold it! -- but didn't have patience to learn the rules. I owned the WFR and 40K manuals, they were beautiful books, but I can't remember playing them.

The main obstacle was that I was absolutely shit at painting figures. So hard! How could anyone do it??

I did buy Paranoia at the Oxford Street branch - back when they sold non-Games Workshop games - which I did actually play.

The books are huge. One of the flagship series has 65 novels alone, with a new one coming out at the rate of about one every four months. I get the impression that their publishing business operates in a fairly similar way to low-budget 80s action films where, as long as you can guarantee a certain number of shootouts and car chases, you can be as lazy or creative as you like. The guaranteed pay check means you can get some interesting genre writers on board (Fehervari, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Cassandra Khaw, etc) - though, as with 80s action films, the chances of picking any one at random and it being good are not great.

I did collect Warhammer fantasy figures from 11-14 but due to not living v near the 2 friends I had at school that played it I only ever actually played one battle. which I lost badly. I don't think I had the right strategy at all tbh. I was Skaven and my friend was Elves and I think the idea with Skaven is to swamp your enemy with loads of units and because I didn't have v many figures I had to make small units of higher level warriors, which the Elves just routed or cast Change Allegiance spells on, which there didn't seem to be any counter for, so all my high level units got turned against me

I have a Skaven warrior on a shelf in my bedroom that I think I did a reasonable job of painting, most of them are not so good though. my other figures are in a biscuit tin in my grandma's attic still

RIP Skaven, one of the factions that GW did away with arbitrarily, like the Squats and those weird space lizard men

the blood bowl card game (team manager) was so good

I met a Serbian Warhammer fan who lived in Sarejevo during the siege, when he was teenager. Since getting new 40K figures was impossible, he and his friends would make moulds of existing figures, then melt down their coin collections to fill then up. The currency was valueless anyway.

My experience is similar to Colonel Poo's, but even more tangential: I discovered the whole thing while my family was vacationing in the UK, and took a buncha minis + Warhammer Quest + White Drawf subscription back to the island, where OF COURSE no one had the slightest interest. So I painted figures and played Warhammer Quest solo (this was possible to do); I also joined my first internet forums and pretended to be a player (an awkward situation ensued when someone came to ask me advice on how to build a better Dark Elf army).

These days I play Warhammer RPG with a group of friends but I have to admit that if you take away the painted little guys I don't really see much reason to opt for this particular fantasy world over the one from D&D or a gazilion others.

the sci fi stuff I never got into; I get it's the same vein of satire that brought us 2000AD but it doesn't click with me in the same way. that Mad Max style game they had seemed lots of fun tho.

I really like the Fantasy novels. Last year I made the NYE resolution to read In Search of Lost Time and part of the reason I think I fulfilled that resolution is because I’d read a Gotrek and Felix novel between volumes.

My experience is similar to Colonel Poo's, but even more tangential: I discovered the whole thing while my family was vacationing in the UK, and took a buncha minis + Warhammer Quest + White Drawf subscription back to the island, where OF COURSE no one had the slightest interest. So I painted figures and played Warhammer Quest solo (this was possible to do); I also joined my first internet forums and pretended to be a player (an awkward situation ensued when someone came to ask me advice on how to build a better Dark Elf army).

This was my experience too. I was hooked on a family trip to Scotland.

RIP Skaven, one of the factions that GW did away with arbitrarily, like the Squats and those weird space lizard men

― Critique of the Goth Programme (Neil S), Friday, October 3, 2025 5:14 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

All three are back

Nice little free ratling today in shops. Painted him and two assassins just for fun.

I'm not into playing the games or reading the books but I like painting, especially nighthaunt and nurgle and anything that lets me do a lot of gradients.

I'm back into Warhammer in a big way these last few years, my youngest is into it and experience from the eldest shows you have a very short window in their teenage years where you will be able to share hobbies etc. so thats what drew back in from a dabbling in the early 90's.

Running a Genestealer cults 40K army, some Kill Team groups and one day will assemble my Skaven army for the Old World.

remains to be seen if I continue when my son eventually gives it up, but went to a beginners Kill Team night on Tuesday and enjoyed the social aspect along with the focus on doing something tangible and not having to drink.

I also appreciate the skills/mastery aspect of getting better at painting or playing a game in a way thats not entirely beholden to software, or an internet connection.

The Christmas boxes have been announced. I really like these.

https://www.warhammer-community.com/en-gb/articles/tqw4l4sz/muster-mighty-forces-with-seven-new-warhammer-40000-battleforce-boxes/

I think the Christmas boxes fulfill the needs for someone like me that just wants something to paint for the year. The Nemesis box took me two years to paint so I feel like one of these will take me a year.

I also appreciate the skills/mastery aspect of getting better at painting or playing a game in a way thats not entirely beholden to software, or an internet connection.

― my opinionation (Hamildan), Sunday, October 5, 2025 5:42 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I don’t know anything about the games but painting gets me disconnected and keeps me hyper-focused. I usually just give my painted models away. The process is where I’ve been getting my enjoyment.

I did buy Paranoia at the Oxford Street branch - back when they sold non-Games Workshop games

iirc GW published at least one UK edition of Paranoia, as they did for some other games such as Call of Cthulhu.

The guaranteed pay check means you can get some interesting genre writers on board (Fehervari, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Cassandra Khaw, etc) - though, as with 80s action films, the chances of picking any one at random and it being good are not great.

Day of Ascension by Adrian Tchaikovsky is a great read, for a genestealer fan

also features the most Marxist ending of a fiction book I have read in a long time. a genuinely refreshing ending

opressed factory workers unite and overthrow their overlords, then everyone is happy. THE END
(till the tyranids come and kill them all for bonesoup obv...

other books are too Space marine bro-ey for me but I use the audiobooks as something to get to sleep to, as the long descriptive passages about how the skulls are arranged on someone's throne bring out the honk-shoes in me.

I played a ton of Blood Bowl in the 1989-1993 era. Dungeon Bowl expansion was the wildest most unhinged game ever: teleportation gateways, pit traps, etc. We would build teams with lots of expendable snotlings just to have cannon fodder to rescue the ball from various traps.

I played a lot of Epic 40k, complete with Titans. So much fun and some of the best rules they had.

Played smatterings of WH Fantasy Battles, WHFRP, Space Hulk, and even Oi, 'Dats My Leg, a kids game where you play snotlings running around and collecting troll parts.

Took a long break and then played a bunch of WH40K in the early 00s, both Craftworld Eldar and Thousand Sons Chaos Marines. Nothing better than watching wave after wave of Tyranids break against a squad of Space Marines.

I had a bit of a falling out with the person I played with in the Obama era and never was into the tedium of painting so I haven't ever revisited.

Contrast paints have seismically changed my relationship to painting models. I used to get hung up on an individual model and try and get it perfect, and thus never ever finish a squad. I now seem them as playing pieces rather than display models, and being able to make them look half decent very quickly, even if they’re a bit messy, is amazing. I’ve done four Kill Teams in the last 9 weeks, and have six fully painted blood bowl teams and a couple of dozen star players (who I do spend a bit more time on).

I forgot the GW game I played the most - Talisman! The second edition. I lived and breathed and obsessed over it when I was 13, but I can’t remember a single thing about how it played!

I do recall we used to play at school during lunch break, and we had most of the expansion sets between us - it was kind of a showstopper to watch and play with all the different boards out. And yet I can’t remember the gameplay at all (except that we all thought the space extension was lame).

I met a Serbian Warhammer fan who lived in Sarejevo during the siege, when he was teenager. Since getting new 40K figures was impossible, he and his friends would make moulds of existing figures, then melt down their coin collections to fill then up. The currency was valueless anyway.

This is metal as FUCK, btw.

My stepkid is really into this, he paints figurines and carts giant cases of gear to and fro to his mates house a few times a month or more to get some sessions in. I've no idea what campaign theyre playing, though he's gone over them in the past but between it and D&D its all a blur to me haha.

xp Talisman was one of the boxes I retrieved from my parents' house recently, I need to have a proper look at that!

I don't think I have my copy anymore. So much of this stuff falls into the category of "supposedly embarrassing things I gave away when I got into music, but now wish I hadn't"

Man I feel that statement.

fuck everything, I'm getting back into Blood Bowl

Hell yeah brother

glued some vampires last night

show us your little guys!

what's the new edition like? as fun/easy as the old styrofoam one?

what's the new edition like? as fun/easy as the old styrofoam one?

Yes, with caveats!

The basic mechanics and stats are simple. It’s the variances that complicate it: the skills, the teams, all the little supplementary rules. It’s a great game and very fun but incredibly dice dependent; you can do nothing wrong yet still lose if the roll poorly at the wrong time.

Season three has lots of little tweaks over season two, which stack to seemingly make it slightly more fun and less rewarding of horrific negative risk management play overall.

I’m biased since I loved Total War Warhammer but I’d bet that Total War Warhammer 40k will be a massive blockbuster. If they thread the needle, it could potentially be bigger than anything other than the next GTA.

That said, I’m a little underwhelmed that there isn’t something identical to Immortal Empires and shipping with only four factions feels lackluster. Especially without any Chaos factions.

Immortal Empires was an enormous undertaking that took them several games to stitch together and optimise to be fair, Total Warhammer 1 only launched with five factions. Although you might say that doing a lot of different coloured gun-toting chud spacemen is not as development-intensive as having to make models and animations for five wildly varying fantasy species

I played Blood Bowl last week! For 7 turns, because there was a lot of intro to the game stuff beforehand

https://i.postimg.cc/FRN1dq27/20251209-141134.jpg

here's one of my vampires his name is Dagobert

I just don’t like the idea of the maximum game time to be limited to a few sessions. I love Immortal Empires campaigns that take me weeks.

Thinking back, they did have Chaos Daemons and Norsca in the game at non-playable factions. Maybe they’ll do something similar.

Especially since Chaos Daemon assets already exist

Dagobert rules.

"It matters not who won or lost, but how you caused the pain" from BB 2e(?) rulebook has stayed with me for 35 years. I loved the sendup of American football culture in the entire game.

Dagobert is excellent. I love the vampire team.

https://sickmouthy.wordpress.com/2026/01/01/the-reinvention-myth-and-the-joy-of-good-enough/

<3

This was me with rpgs.

hm what Polish synth + clarinet drone?

Waclaw Zimpel. Tidal says I’m his number one fan in the world…

your post described my exit/re-entry to the hobby and current mindset pretty closely SM. Minis looking really good, those Harlequin lads particularly striking

it's amazing how much just putting a coherent basing scheme on a model makes them look good and finished, I was digging out some old Cursed City models that are like OK enough for how good I was four years ago, but it's like why are they on featureless black bases? They're not fuckin finished!

The Good Enough thing strikes a real chord, there's a kind of paintjob dysphoria you can get looking at insanely good Instagram minis, but it's also like, this result takes too fucking long and it isn't my full time job. Age of Sigmar feels like the poster child of impractically detailed models that nobody can finish in bulk, and after labouring with some of those it took the return of OG Warhammer Fantasy and its endearingly janky classic models to get me actually finishing units to a standard I'm happy with. Having an upcoming game with someone definitely helps with this too

I've spent Christmas getting my Blood Bowl team up to four (two vamps, two snacks), and also painting some trees and assembling some Battle Systems card stock terrain for playing Rangers of Shadow Deep (with Warhammer minis)

I also bought Guards of Traitors Toll, an investigation/city watch simulator/Guess Who-type skirmish game by Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay alumnus Graeme Davis which I'm excited to try - there are just tons of guards and civilians to glue together in different poses/gear first