How to start playing Warhammer 40K?
Warhammer 40K is also played as a role-playing game, in a future so distant that only war remains. You play soldiers, an inquisitor's agents, the retainers of a great house, or ordinary people caught in a machine far larger than they are.
Getting started is mostly about picking the right door, because several games share this setting. Here is what they do, which one to take first, what you need to gather, how to build a first character and how to run your first session, around a table or online.
What is Warhammer 40K?
Warhammer 40K is a science fiction setting created by Games Workshop in 1987, spread across miniature games, novels and tabletop role-playing games. One player takes the game master seat: they describe the worlds, play the enemies of the Imperium and arbitrate the rules. The others each play a character caught in that endless war.
Several role-playing games tell this setting. Wrath & Glory stages heroes able to face the worst the galaxy has, using pools of six-sided dice. Imperium Maledictum plays lower down, among agents and retainers, on a hundred-sided die system. Older lines such as Dark Heresy cover the same ground with heavier rules.
Starting 40K, step by step.
Wrath & Glory for heroic action, Imperium Maledictum for investigation and survival. Both tell the same setting in a different tone.
Both lines publish one, with the core rules, ready-made characters and an adventure. It is the cheapest way to try before committing.
Four players and a game master is the balance most adventures are written for. Fewer works too, more stretches out every fight.
This is the person who describes the worlds, plays the xenos and the heretics and rules on the rules. An hour of prep per session is plenty.
Space Marine, Guard trooper, inquisitorial agent, priest or tech-adept: that choice sets the tone of the game as much as your abilities.
A world, an objective, a threat: the published adventures hand you all of it. Improvising comes easier once you have played.
What you need to get started.
The set holds the essential rules and a complete adventure. The thick book can wait for the second or third session.
Wrath & Glory uses handfuls of six-sided dice, Imperium Maledictum uses hundred-sided dice. Check before the first session.
Print the official sheet for the game you chose. Bring a pencil, gear and wounds change constantly.
They save two hours of creation before the first scene and show what a workable character looks like in this setting.
Under three hours the mission barely stands up. Plan a break in the middle, attention drops after two hours.
World names, officers and contacts vanish between sessions. One player taking notes does the whole table a favour.
Building your first character.
Creation starts with a question of tone: are you a hero able to stand against a horde, or an agent who survives by staying unnoticed? In Wrath & Glory, a shared power level lets a Space Marine and a plain trooper sit at the same table. In Imperium Maledictum, everyone stays human, fallible and entirely replaceable.
Then come origin, faction and role, followed by characteristics, skills and gear. Count an hour for a first character, a few minutes from a pregenerated one. Do not chase the optimal sheet: in this setting, a character becomes memorable through what they accept to lose in order to finish the mission.
Your first session.
Plan a full evening and a short mission written for beginners. The adventures bundled with starter sets exist for that: they hand you a place, an objective and a threat, without asking the game master to know forty years of publications.
Open on a simple scene, a landing, a summons, a contact who has gone silent, and let the players ask questions. The game master does not need to know every rule: when in doubt, call it quickly, note the question and check after the session.
The mistakes beginners make.
Forty years of publications do not fit in one head. The Emperor, the Imperium and one specific threat are enough for a first session.
It is the best known image, rarely the most interesting to play. An ordinary servant makes the galaxy far more frightening.
Characters built apart turn up with no ties and no reason to cooperate. A shared creation session settles it and starts the story.
In 40K a straight fight kills quickly and often. Investigation, caution and preparation save more characters than shooting does.
Announcing two years of play before knowing whether the group holds is the surest way to give up halfway. Three sessions is test enough.
Looking up the exact rule for ten minutes breaks the pace better than any xenos. Make a call on the spot, check between sessions.
Playing Warhammer 40K online.
Your players rarely all live in the same city, and free evenings seldom line up. Online, everyone joins from home, with voice, video, dice and a shared space that stands in for the table.
Tomeus is a virtual tabletop built to be quick: you create a game, import a backdrop image, pick a track and send the link. Your players join in one click, with their sheets and the dice roller in front of them, and nothing to install.
Go further with Warhammer 40K.
The basic rules of Warhammer 40K
The dice and symbols of Wrath & Glory, the d100 of Imperium Maledictum, the pools, combat and corruption: the rules of the 40K roleplaying game explained.
The lore of Warhammer 40K
The Imperium and its institutions, the Space Marines, the Inquisition, Chaos and the xenos, the Heresy and the Warp: the lore of Warhammer 40K explained for your table.
The archetypes of Warhammer 40K
The archetypes and roles of the 40K roleplaying game explained: Space Marine, trooper, tech-priest, psyker, savant and penumbra, factions, and how to choose yours.
The Space Marines of Warhammer 40K
The Adeptus Astartes explained: the implants, the gene-seed, the chapters, the primarchs, the cost of the transformation and how to play one.
Go further with tabletop RPGs.
How to Find Players for a Tabletop RPG
Game shops, clubs, conventions, Discord, online listings: where to find players for your tabletop RPG and how to write an ad people answer.
How to Prepare a Tabletop RPG Campaign
Setting, central stake, factions, NPCs and per-session prep: the method to build a tabletop RPG campaign without writing everything in advance.
The Best Tabletop RPGs for Beginners
Dungeons & Dragons, Call of Cthulhu, Alien, Monster of the Week: six easy tabletop RPGs for a first session, and how to pick the right one.
How to Create a Tabletop RPG Character
Concept, class, ability scores, skills, backstory and bonds: the full method to create a tabletop RPG character who will carry a whole campaign.
Frequently asked questions.
Which Warhammer 40K RPG should a beginner choose?
Wrath & Glory if you want action and powerful characters, on a fairly direct six-sided dice pool system. Imperium Maledictum if you prefer investigation, tension and fragile characters, on a hundred-sided die system close to Warhammer Fantasy. Either plays without knowing anything about the other.
Do you need to know the setting to play?
No. Three sentences carry it: a vast, dying human empire, an Emperor kept artificially alive for ten thousand years, and enemies everywhere, outside and within. The rest is learned by playing, mission after mission, exactly the way the characters find it out.
Can you play a Space Marine?
Yes, particularly in Wrath & Glory, which uses power levels so a Space Marine can sit alongside more fragile characters. Many tables still prefer to start with ordinary humans: the galaxy is far more frightening when you have no power armour.