A guide to the cool parts of the Warhammer 40k Fandom
So, suppose you’ve heard Henry Cavill being out of both the DC movies and The Witcher is now planning to be in a Warhammer 40k thing, or you’ve seen stuff about the upcoming Rogue Trader or Space Marine 2 videogames, or been playing Darktide, and you might be thinking “Well… maybe it’s cool, but also I’ve heard the fandom can be scary and has a Nazi problem!” this is a quick guide to finding the cool parts of the fandom.
First off, the golden rule of 40k is anyone who thinks the Imperium are “The Good Guys” and misses the satirical elements of the setting should be avoided like they’re carrying Nurgle’s Rot (that’s a really bad plague…if that wasn’t obvious).
The Imperium of Man is a fascist religious oligarchy where people live on horrible polluted shitty planets eating “corpse starch” which is exactly what it sounds like, and everyone worships a mouldering corpse on life support because if you don’t, an inquisitor might arrest you for heresy and you’ll get turned into a frankenstein’s monster robot drone. Anyone who thinks that’s cool is definitely a pile of wank. Being shitty is the whole point of the setting; if it was a nice place, I wouldn’t want to send all the nice people to get shot with guns literally called “Meltas” that do exactly what they sound like they do, or get chopped up with chainswords (that’s a chainsaw-sword! No kidding!). It’s an outrageously shitty galaxy where bad people do bad things, but it’s exaggerated to such an extent it becomes kind of cathartic or funny?
There ARE people who play 40k who are total asshats, and a minority who are nazis, it’s true, and a real issue (just last year GW had to make a statement about it when people with nazi-themed armies turned up at tournaments and despite nearly everyone at the tournaments refusing to play with them, the staff wouldn’t throw them out because of “the rules!!!” so thankfully now the rules are “no nazis” finally), but there are also lots of really great people in the hobby too, and you can find them by looking for spaces that explicitly don’t welcome them. The more cool people are in the hobby, the better!
Cool 40k Youtubers who can be a gateway into the cool part of the hobby and finding cool people in it include:
Arbitorian - Makes great lore videos and even ones commenting on the problematic elements of the setting
Snipe & Wib - Couple who are in a ska band (and so are cooler than I will ever be) and make tongue-in-cheek lore retrospectives in their Codex Compliant series.
Midwinter Minis - Chilled out painting videos and fun, easy-to-follow battle reports, not gatekeepy, so great for beginners.
Dana Howl - Really cool and unique painting videos that don’t take the hobby too seriously.
Goobertown Hobbies - The Bob Ross of Warhammer.
Oculus Imperia - This absolute legend makes incredible, atmospheric lore videos in-character as an Imperial scribe discussing the historical events of the setting, complete with character development as he gets gradually disenchanted with the state of the Imperium. Chef’s kiss.
And a cool place to get news and stuff that’s explicitly trans-friendly and doesn’t welcome the shitty side of the fandom is Goonhammer. You can find starter guides to most Games Workshop/warhammer games on there.
So hopefully… if you’re looking for a taste of grimdark but with decent folk, that’ll get you rolling. I take no responsibility if you wind up spending a ton of money on little plastic people and paints due to this.
