One of the enduring superpowers of 40K is the deep lore that started with Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Rogue Trader

Exploring the evolution of the settings of Warhammer and how they came to be: The world-building of the Warhammer universes has undergone decades of work which means there’s now so much to pick from!

So Warhammer Fantasy Battle launched back in 1983 and Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader launched back in 1987. That is respectively 42 years and 38 years ago for each (if you’re reading this in 2025!) In that time each setting has now had decades of lore, games, characters, miniatures and more created. This means there are a lot of things for current fans to dip into and a lot of things for the current creators of the settings to reference, if they wish. What got me thinking about this was a younger relative recently got into Warhammer (via the Warhammer Adventure books) and he was asking me about the settings and what was what and it is when you’re explaining almost from scratch, that you fully realise quite how big it all is. For as a fan, I’ve been following it since around 1985, so you sort of take for granted what is what. Then you start to explain 40K and then the 17 years of Horus Heresy novels and 30K and then the Age of Sigmar and Warhammer Fantasy Battle and RPG settings and then the Old World and Bloodbowl and so on. Yeah, there is a lot. Which is great as my relative has a lot of stuff to enjoy.

So an example of where this depth of setting then becomes of value for the current creators of the game is the Horus Heresy. So GW just announced a 2nd edition of Age of Darkness, the Horus Heresy game. This is something that back in the early days was only a small note within the lore. The Horus Heresy was not in the original 1987 Rogue Trader release, it gets its first mention in Warhammer 40,000 Chapter Approved, the First Book of the Astronomican (Arbitor Ian covers the full history really well, here) in 1988. Which, by now has expanded to those 17 years of novels, board games, video games and, as noted, its own wargame titled, Age of Darkness. So it is no surprise that the current creators are referring back into other parts of 40K history with some of the new updates to the game. The most noted was the new release of Saturnine Terminators. This was a great reach back into the past, originally debuting in December 1988 (thanks to Wib for the date reference!):

(Image - Left, The older model, picture from a now deleted Reddit user and right, the new model from Warhammer Community)

Oh and this is the WD 108 where the armour first appeared! (middle)

(Image - by author, a page from WD 108 showing terminator armour. There is another, ‘Terminator Marines’ via SOL from the 1989 catalogue)

But this is not just happening overtly, I feel (and this is just my POV) you can see a more subtle version of referencing in other aspects of newer designs. Take this new Age of Darkness model (right) and compare it to an older art page from Rogue Trader (left) and feels to me it pays homage to that design:

(Image - Left is my image from page 104 of Rogue Trader and right is a new MK II Assault Marine from Horus Heresy - Age of Darkness)

Random Vox-Casts

Finally in this post I want to do a couple of shout outs to interesting Warhammer/Oldhammer things. First off, the images of chaos terrain being created for a Siege of Praag game look bonkers/amazing!

Also check out these amazing Ziggurat of Doom model images via Reddit. This is based on an old 1983 Warhammer battle setting.

Last, but not least, Auroch Digital announced Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun 2 which you can go wishlist!

(Image - A Bloodletter from Boltgun 2, from the Steam page)

Thanks for reading!

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