You’ve beaten Space Marine 2, played every Operation, found every dataslate, and you’re still hungry for more Warhammer 40k lore – but where should you begin? The 40k franchise has been going for over forty years with hundreds of books, dozens of games, not to mention the world’s most popular miniature wargame. Don’t worry – this guide has all the information you need.
If you finished Space Marine 2 wanting a very top level overview of the universe and the hobby as a whole, check out our guide explaining ‘What is Warhammer 40k?’ Wargamer’s library of Warhammer 40k faction guides will also be useful, as they have lore overviews for everything from Space Marines to Tyranids.
But we strongly recommend you go straight to the source with our picks of the best games, books, and other media that will take you deeper into the grimdark world of Warhammer 40k.
This is the best way to get into Warhammer 40k after beating Space Marine 2:
Great Warhammer 40k games to play next
All of these games appear on our guide to the best Warhammer 40k games, but we’ve singled them out because they’ll drop you right into the universe with great stories or impeccable world building.
Chaos Gate Daemonhunters
Chaos Gate Daemonhunters is a turn-based strategy game, and a stonking good one, earning a place on our list of the best games like XCOM. Controlling elite Grey Knights space marines, you fight back the vile forces of the Chaos plague God, Nurgle. It may feel like a power fantasy initially, but the danger you face escalates fast and keeps on rising…
Mechanicus
Mechanicus is another turn-based game with a brilliantly written story and a soundtrack so good we sometimes listen to it on repeat for hours without realising it. It’s a great introduction to the post-human tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the ancient, alien Necrons. Their tombs might be a bit familiar to those who have completed the final Space Marine 2 missions…
Darktide
Darktide is a four player co-op FPS set on a hive world overrun by Chaos cultists. It’s light on direct narrative, but the ambience is incredible. The level design, chatter between your companions, and even the descriptions of items will immerse you in the 40k universe and what it’s like to exist there. It’s also a corking shooter in its own right, and the soundtrack is a blood pumper.
The best Warhammer 40k books to start with
While our guide to the best Warhammer 40k books is full of bangers, the selection we’ve picked below is going to be more accessible for total beginners. GW doesn’t keep all of its novels in print, but these are all available as Audible audiobooks as well as on Kindle.
Dante
What does it take to become a Space Marine, and what are their lives like when they’re not at war? Dante follows a very significant character in the Blood Angels chapter, and is technically part of a much longer series, but it’s a really good introduction to the harshness of life in the 41st millennium, and the strangeness of the Space Marines.
The Devastation of Baal
The next book in the same series as Dante, The Devastation of Baal goes in depth on the mass Tyranid invasion of the Blood Angels home world. It’s a siege defense that will absolutely resonate if you’ve been crushing it in Operations mode, and puts the invasion of Kadaku into proportion: the war on Kadaku barely rates as a skirmish compared to the war on Baal!
The Night Lords trilogy
The Night Lords trilogy by Aaron Dembski-Bowden shows you what it’s like to be a Chaos Space Marine renegade. This was one of the first books to do this successfully, following a kidnapped Imperial navigator who learns about the culture of her captors at the same time as the readers. The Night Lord Talos and his band of misfit warriors are particularly enjoyable monsters, each one afflicted, cursed, and damned in his own interesting way.
Warhammer Crime: Bloodlines
Bloodlines is a classic noir detective novel that happens to be set on an Imperial hive world. Because the average imperial citizen knows so little about the wider galaxy, you don’t need any lore to get on board with the story – it’s just a good solid detective story in a very bleak sci-fi world. It also has one of the coolest power-weapons in the setting – power knuckle dusters.
Marneus Calgar
Want to know more about the origins of Marneus Calgar, the Ultramarines Chapter Master? This short Marvel comic, written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by gore-master Jacen Burrows, is action packed, witty, and as explosively violent as Space Marine 2.
The Horus Heresy series
If you want to go in at the deep end, the huge Horus Heresy series explores the most important event in the Imperium’s tragic history, the civil war in the year 30,000 that almost destroyed mankind. This is a truly massive series with many strands: our Horus Heresy book order guide is intended to help you navigate it.
Original Warhammer TV animations
Aside from the upcoming Space Marine 2 Amazon Prime animation, Games Workshop makes original Warhammer 40k short animated films. These are only available via its Warhammer Plus subscription service.
If you’re a newcomer to the franchise, we don’t recommend you subscribe for more than one month. The original animations are a very small part of the subscription, and you have to really want everything you get in it to make a full year subscription worthwhile.
You may have heard about a Warhammer 40k Henry Cavill film deal. That’s still in the works: we’ll know in December whether it’s going to proceed beyond initial discussions.
Try Warhammer 40k the miniature wargame
The Warhammer 40k rulebook is a massive tome, but most of it isn’t rules – it’s an encyclopaedia of the Warhammer 40k universe, packed with lore, amazing illustrations, and photographs of beautifully painted miniatures.
If you like one faction in particular, each faction has its own Warhammer 40k Codex book, which has game rules and faction lore. Because people tend to play the latest version of the game, you can find Codexes from previous editions pretty cheaply second hand.
If you do fancy giving the game a try, we have a guide to the different Warhammer 40k starter sets which will help you pick the correct one. We also have guides to painting miniatures, including one focused just on how to paint Space Marines – after a tense Operation, it’s actually a great way to unwind!
Source: Wargamer
