What is Warhammer?

[Melhisedek]

Well in search after some nice RTS games I was recomended "Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War" I tried demo and was very impressed. Snooping around and looking for mods I came across 100s of pages with stories and roleplaying stuff.
Than I heard that Warhammer has even bigger following than Forgotten Realms...

So can anyone give me some page that explains story behind the whole thing... Are there any books that I can read? Any other games I could try?

[daPhoenix]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_Fantasy

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warhammer_40%2C000

[jolle]

WH40K is a kickass universe..
I suggest you read the Eisenhorn triology books.. its about more "background" stuff with a inquisitor doing his work, other then the usual brutal mayhem and genoside traditionally going on hehe..

WH40k DoW is really fun, bit short on the SP side tho..
Expansion coming soon adding some stuff and Imperial Guard "race"

Basicly WH40k is a "background" universe for a tabletop "strategy" game of sort, never played it but I painted some models, detailed and really cool stuff.
Basicly its a universe with the human Empire spanning milions of worlds, the emperor sitting a rotting corpse on the golden throne on earth since the "Horus herecy" where warmaster Horus betrayed the Emperor, and alot of the Spacemarine Legions followed.
So there are the Tech Marines of mars who guard all the lost technology, alot of different Space Marine chapters, spacemarines are "cloned" out of a genepool generated from the chapters Patriach, sortof "super men" with extra internal organs to survive better, and bound to their armors.

And you got Chaos, Space Orks, Eldar, Tyranids and some newer races.
Chaos is more of a mental realm with deamons and stuff that leaks over to the physical world thru "portals" like the eye of terror (some nebula or some such, a nexus for the worlds), got 4 chaos Gods and stuff there.. and the Traitor Legions, chaos marines..
Space Travel, sortof "Warp speed" goes thru the Warp, the chaos realm, and needs Psykers to keep the ship from being torn apart.

Space Orks are just "Orcs" sortof.
Dumb, tough and ruthless, got some wierd stuff like a Teleport cannon that teleports small snotlings into enemy warmachines where the snotling goes insane from the teleport and often manages to kill the drivers in a frenzy hehe..

Eldar is pretty much "Elves", slender ancient race.
Tyranids are like "Aliens", they roam out with Hive Fleets, organic ships that shower planets with assorted aliens that has been geneticly adapted to what ever enviroment they come across..
consume all genetic material and then moves on, leaving a dead rock behind.
As a response to this, the Space Marines sometime virus bomb entire planets that are in the path of the Hive Fleet.
The virus kills all life, and then ignites the gases created by the decomposing organical material, burning the planet and leaving no organical material for the Tyranids to assimilate.

Well there is alot of cool literature around this universe, its pretty cool stuff IMO.

[Melhisedek]

Great thanks a lot mates!

(note to himself use Wikipedia more)

[BigPapa]

It can be a bit confusing because Warhammer is either:

a tabletop RPG set in a fantasy universe
a tabletop RPG set in a futuristic universe (that's the 40k)
a battle game with miniatures set in a fantasy universe
a battle game with miniatures set in a futuristic universe
and now there are different video game adaptations

and all of those are different games.

[lumpyhed]

It is teh ban hammah only of epic proportions

[wonder squirrel]

Originally Posted by lumpyhed

It is teh ban hammah only of epic proportions

I could weild such a weapon.. if the mods would let me

[daPhoenix]

Originally Posted by wonder squirrel

I could weild such a weapon.. if the mods would let me

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, thus only I could wield such power fair and just

[Melhisedek]

Hehehe
Damn I never played tabletop RPG games Can they be played online somehow? As I don't know anyone that would play such games with me :/ (most of my buddies are music and car obsessed)

[Johnmcl7]

You can't play the tabletop online, I used to play WH40K when I was younger, went to the local club they had for it and played my games there. Dawn of War does a great job of capturing the essence of Warhammer 40K and putting it into an RTS game.

John

[Hyrax]

a battle game with miniatures set in a futuristic universe

That's the only one I've heard of.

[wonder squirrel]

Originally Posted by daPhoenix

Absolute power corrupts absolutely, thus only I could wield such power fair and just

I never said I wanted to be fair and just, I just said I could weild the power

[Encyclopedia_b]

i played warhammer and 40k tabletop ... its awsome ... awsomely expensive as well!!

i played with a squad of eldar harlequins ... handpainted them all ...

i just dont have the time to play the tabletop ... the vid game your referencing is wickedly awsome ... good news on that expansion ... tnx!

[Melhisedek]

How come it is so expensive to play? And can you give me a famous name or two in the universe so I can read about it?

[Encyclopedia_b]

go to games workshop and check the prices of the individual pieces ... and then think about your 40+ member army not to mention the price of the support vehicles and mechanery

[BigPapa]

The miniature game is expensive because you have to buy all of them miniatures. Then you have to paint them. Obviously that costs a lot of $$$.

I've never played it so don't know if it's worth that much cash.

[Johnmcl7]

I enjoyed it at the time but as others have said, it is very expensive. I can't remember how big my Ork army was pointswise (it was scaleable right up to the maximum) but single metal figures cost around five to six pounds each and the vehicles and squads could be well over 20 pounds each. The main game cost 50 pounds which had the rulebooks you needed, then a codex for your army was around 11 pounds, 'dark millenium' which was needed for the psykers and vehicles was yet another 20 pounds. Off the top of my head my army had:

- five vehicles(15-20 quid each)
- psyker and his bodyguards (10-15 quid)
- warlord (7 quid)
- around 100 standard orks
- five weapons placements (10 quid each)
- main box set (50 quid)
- Ork codex (12 quid)
- Dark Millenium(20 quid)
- squad of boar riders(15 quid)
- boar leader on cybernetic boar(12 quid)
- two ork dreadnoughts (15 quid each)
etc. and none of that includes glue, paint (not cheap) and other modelling materials

John

[Oui]

I attended my local gamesworkshops weekly battles for about a year. It was a complete sausagefest through and through, it was nerdy to the nth degree with a nerd hierarchy inwhich the staff were the nerd masters and the customers with the n00bs. Didn't see a single girl enter the shop in the time I played there

I remember a gamesworkshop employee physically slapped me in the face infront of everyone for asking if his elder assault squad were equipped with splinter guns. It was at that point I gave up playing Warhammer 40k.

[wonder squirrel]

Originally Posted by Oui

I attended my local gamesworkshops weekly battles for about a year. It was a complete sausagefest through and through, it was nerdy to the nth degree with a nerd hierarchy inwhich the staff were the nerd masters and the customers with the n00bs. Didn't see a single girl enter the shop in the time I played there

I remember a gamesworkshop employee physically slapped me in the face infront of everyone for asking if his elder assault squad were equipped with splinter guns. It was at that point I gave up playing Warhammer 40k.

So let me get this straight.. YOU, got slapped by a NERD?... in the face, infront of everyone.

[ASCI Blue]

Table top strategy game done by a greedy company who enjoys screwing everyone when they release new rules. On that note I have two armies.

[Notorious P.I.T]

i never heard about the table top until after i started playing dawn of war, great game if u ask me.