A brief history.

Science Fiction combat games are on the whole a hit and miss affair. You can either get a system that has some excellent miniatures and bad rules, or the other way around and there are only a couple of systems that combine both, and perhaps chief among these is Warhammer 40,000!

The history of 40K goes back to the very early 80’s. Ex-Games Workshop MD Bryan Ansell wrote a simple set of rules called Laserburn. Laserburn was a very simple system and the seeds of 40K were right there. In fact a lot of things from Laserburn have ended up in Workshops later systems (Redemptionist from Necromundia made there first appearance here).

It wasn’t until 1987 that the real 40K system made its debut at Games Day in London. The system almost completely sold out that day and its been one of the companies best sellers ever since.

The idea behind the system seems very simple at first glance, but some have said that there is an underlying message in 40K about Workshops domination of the global games market, that is not for this reviewer to comment on so I will leave it for perhaps another time.

Mankind has left the Earth and reached for the stars. On his travels he has met many strange alien races and of course being what he his raged war with them all. The elite of humanity are the Space Marines of the Adeptus Astartes. These genetically advanced warriors are at the forefront of mans fight against the evil aliens that roam the universe. One man leads the rest of humanity. He is known only as the Emperor and he is by far the most powerful man who has ever lived.

But such power isn't easy to contain and now after one of his most trusted lieutenants betrayed him and mankind, the Emperor sits almost lifeless upon his Golden Throne. His Empire crumbling around him, with a future filled with war.

The original system of 40K was known as Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader in its first incarnation and was like the original Warhammer Fantasy Battle more of a prelude to a roleplaying system than just a wargame. Contained in single bound book were all the rules that you needed to create the armies of the Empire, the savage Orks and the mysterious Eldar. The rules (over 200 pages) were simple but a little confusing in places and for over 5 years after it came out almost 90% of the letters that the Games Workshop Studio received were about 40K in one way or another.

In 1988 the first of the rules supplements was released. Chapter Approved was going to be the first in a long line of products that looked at the 40K universe in more detail and offered troop listings for all the major races. I can clearly remember almost rubbing my hands with glee as I looked at the photographs of the up and coming miniatures that adorned the pages of the tome, and painting some of my multi pose Space Marines (the old MK6 Marines or RTB01 as it was known in the trade at the time) in the color schemes from the books and converting some of my Eldar to look like those of Aly Morrisons.

With more sales of 40K and its miniatures White Dwarf, Games Workshops own in house magazine started to print rules and clarifications each month for 40K. Some of these were collated into the 40K Compendium and Companion and gave the player the first real lists for Eldar and Genestealers and extra rules that some players still use today.

But the system itself was at a loss. The problems with misprints, bad wording and even bad binding on the spines of the books, caused the company to think about re launching it once again.

In 1992 GW released the 4^th edition of Warhammer Fantasy. The system came with plastic miniatures and sold exceptionally well. Repeating the process 40K was given a revamp and but back out as a boxed game, containing Space Marines, Orks and Gretchen. A sure fire success ensured and the system as remained the same since.

A series of army books or Codex followed and gave a complete background for a particular race or branch of the Imperial war machine, and this, along with some of the best background material ever written for a game system as helped keep 40K at the front of the pack.

Check out the Warhammer 40,000 Webring that is maintained by myself and my good friend and fellow ringmaster Alien 164 for the best of the Warhammer 40,000 sites on the Internet!

Alien164, is the ringmaster of this ring. Please visit his excellent site, Alien164's Warhammer 40,000 Universe.

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