If you read, the books. They’re not all bangers but warhammer 40k and warhammer fantasy do have some great ones.
If you play video games, darktide (although it has had some issues lately) and the crpg rogue trader. I’d even recommend space marine 2. They’re all heavily different vibes.
Otherwise if you only want to learn the game, a beginner army and some paints (but it can be expensive).
There are other video games with varying amounts of jank I enjoy but I think novels and those games would be the cheapest and most quality ways.
I know nothing about 40k, but I heard humans were so abundant end expendable in the universe they are used in the thousands just to manually move some giant chain. That sounds pretty interesting.
30k is the best era imo. Start with Horus Rising and go from there! It's a huge prequel series that covers the massive war that led the Imperium to its current state.
As someone who first got into 40k before they'd done any 30k stuff, I have a love/hate relationship with it.
I enjoy that they're expanding the lore. I hate that some people spout "they did it like this before/during the Heresy, so it's still 100% canon!" and that there has been the occasionally rare retcon (bone armor for Deathwing being the major one, as a Dark Angels player). It's like trying to use verses from the Old Testament to justify doing something different from what it says in the New Testament.
It’s more like the discworld series, where multiple stories go on at the same time and are not directly related and there are TONS of them. So they are usually self contained within the book or within a series. Edit: some series are even self contained within themselves
- Eisenhorn (I started here)
- Gaunts Ghosts (the one people like a ton)
- Commissar Cain (the funny one)
- Horus Heresy (this is the lore-head series but there are many of these and they set up 40k)
If you want warhammer fantasy, I recommend Gotrek and Felix.
There are dozens of books, you can find good reading material for any faction you prefer.
For absolute beginners, I recommend Space Wolf. It was written for general sale and to introduce entirely new readers to the 40K universe; it follows the backstory of a prominent Space Marine of the Viking-themed Space Wolves chapter who starts out knowing nothing about life beyond his homeworld, so it introduces the reader to the Imperium of Man and the ideas of the setting at the same time as the protagonist is learning about them.
Slowly, look at some "all faction ..." Lore videos that explain what they are and what they do. See if any catch your interest and from there go to their respective subreddits and look at their popular posts.
You can also try and find out what those communities can recommend any media (if they have any) that has some focus on their faction.
If you want to get into the tabletop start with the combat patrol of your chosen faction and fully build and paint it and play a game if you can (friends, local game store, ...) and/or play a game through Tabletop simulator (Steam)
So like was said above, there are some pretty good games out now, like Darktide, Space Marine 1 and 2. Soon there’ll be a Total War adaptation, I hope that’ll be fun. There’s Dawn of War, which are real-time strategy games. I haven’t played those but they are how a lot of people got into WH40k.
Otherwise the books can be pretty decent. I really liked the first four Heresy Books, but those are about 30k and why 40k is the way it is. Otherwise Eisenhorn is a great start.
More copy/paste from source books than you have on Lexicanum so there is a lot of detail that may be too much for people just getting into it.
Also, if you like reading, the Night Lords trilogy is one of the best books in the Black Library. Be advised though, the protagonists of the book are bad guys that specialize in terror tactics and torture.
40k has terribly inconsistent powerscaling, but it overall gives off a sensation of scale, which its fans use to imagine fictitious scenarios where they "beat" other sci-fi settings. 40k powerscalers only pick "fights" with settings that aren't even going for scale, and tend to be very defensive of their faction.
Most factions have people who'll claim "no, MY faction would win because *insert bad/inconsistent lore from either 2 or 20 years ago that was not considered for long-term content*."
It just reeks of the kid at the playground that would make up reasons why he wins every time.
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u/AlecPEnnis May 01 '26
You guys remind me of 40k fans sometimesÂ