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When Warhammer Was Radical:
The Egalitarian Origins of the
Fantasy Battle Game
Zhu Bajiee / January 14, 2019
 Follow

Amazon women repel Norse invaders on the cover of The Second Citadel Compendium,
1984

In its current and most popular incarnation, Warhammer—a brand of tabletop sci-몭 and
fantasy wargame that has been published for 35 years—is readily associated with alt-
right memes of the God Emperor. In this grim universe, fanservice fetish dolls stride
across battle몭elds in bikinis, cast-iron bustiers, and kinky boots to wage eternal war
alongside dehumanized, hypermasculine tanks. Warhammer is held up by the far-right as
a shining example of a 몭ctional property that enshrines the authoritarian ideal of “might
makes right” and encapsulates an exclusionary worldview that seeks to justify
intolerance and violence against the Other while enforcing strict social hierarchy, making
mockery of egalitarian values and ideas of social progress. Yet it was not always thus…

The dominant female image in fantasy gaming in the 1980s, as now, tended towards the
overtly sexualized. Countless magazines, such as TSRs Dragon and Games Workshop’s
White Dwarf, portrayed women as sexy warriors in chainmail bikinis, or as passive victims
in desperate need of rescuing by some grunting, mighty-thewed barbarian. One thread
of this representation of women is the sexy-but-dangerous image of the Dark Elves, or
Drow, as they were known in Dungeons & Dragons—a game that dominated fantasy
gaming throughout the early ‘80s and was an instrumental in몭uence on Warhammer.
Examples include the D&D adventure module Vault of the Drow (1978) with its wonderful
psychedelic cover art by old school maestro Erol Otus, displaying a whip-wielding Drow
priestess in ornate metal armor that strongly emphasizes the breasts; the back cover,
from the mighty pen of Je몭 Dee, features a nude female succubus. Otus’s portrayal of the
demoness Lolth in a spider web bikini in module Queen of the Demonweb Pits (1980) is
equally iconic. Drawing on traditional sword-and-sorcery archetypes, such as Dejah
Thoris from Edgar Rice Burroughs’s sword-and-planet saga John Carter, such imagery has
been deeply entrenched in mainstream fantasy, from Frank Frazetta’s voluptuous women
warriors and Evil Lyn of the Masters of the Universe franchise to the Night Elves of Warcraft
and contemporary incarnations of Warhammer‘s Witch Elves. While the D&D game
describes Drow society as matriarchal, where females hold dominant leadership
positions, the nature of the imagery is entirely determined by the male gaze, rendering
the feminine body as spectacle, reducing the idea of female power to the male fantasy of
the dominatrix.

In Warhammer supplement Forces of Fantasy (1984), on the other hand, we see a Dark Elf
female not as cunning seductress, but as a fearsome warrior slicing the head o몭 a
monstrous eight-headed Hydra, in combat-appropriate (i.e. full-length) chainmail
armor, illustrated in striking black and white by Tony Ackland, the artist responsible for
much of the look of early Warhammer. The center page spread, which also forms the cover
for The Book of Battalions, features female Dark Elves—similarly depicted in full armor—
몭ghting Orcs alongside their male counterparts, represented as their armed and armored
equals. The text in Forces of Fantasy makes it explicit: “Dark Elf soldiery is as likely to be
female as male; Elf maidens are as cruel and murderous as their menfolk.” This aspect of
gender equality, in both text and image, radically subverts established conventions of the
fantasy genre. While there are certainly examples of cheesecake or pin-up art, these tend
to be non-warrior types such as magic-users. In the early Warhammer oeuvre, the
transformation of the Dark Elf from sexy dominatrix to serious combatant is a departure
that establishes a tone of equality in terms of representation and ability.

Dark Elves vs. Orcs, from The Book of Battalions, 1984

With The Legend of Kremlo the Slann by Richard Halliwell, published in First Citadel
Compendium (1983), Warhammer moves from deliberate egalitarianism to
deconstructing myths of colonialism. The titular hero Kremlo is a member of a race of
humanoid frog-men called the Slann. These amphibious beings inhabit an area of the
Warhammer setting called Lustria, roughly analogous to South America. Far from being
natives, the Slann are instead descendants of ancient aliens. The concept of alien
presence in pre-colonial South America owes much to Erich von Däniken’s ancient
astronaut theories postulated in his best-selling Chariots of the Gods? (1968). But
whereas Däniken’s ancient alien theory serves to uphold a fundamentally racist ideal of
colonial superiority by claiming non-white, non-modern peoples were unable to develop
art and architecture of their own, instead receiving remote assistance from unknowable
aliens, Warhammer replaces the colonized natives with the extraterrestrials themselves.

Further detail of the Slann is published in the inaugural scenario for the second edition of
Warhammer, The Magni몭cent Sven (1985). Gurggl Greenwake’s tribe of Slann presents an
entirely sympathetic rendition of victims of colonialism:

“ The peaceful lives of their ancestors have ended. They have grown up in a
dangerous world where their friends and relatives have died in droves. Many
su몭ered violent deaths in the successive decades of adventuring raiders.
They have seen the remnants of their Empire rolled back to a tiny portion of
its former territories. Now they 몭nd themselves outlawed and hunted down
in their own homelands.

The Slann are not the faceless, ignorant monsters of the similarly frog-like Aztec-
themed Bullywugs in D&D adventure The Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan (1980), who exist
only to be killed and looted by the players. Instead, Warhammer encourages the player to
see the Slann as motivated people with legitimate grievances, with the understanding
that they are victims of colonial persecution. (It’s probably not a coincidence that Slan, a
1946 novel by A.E. Van Vogt, is about a race of psychics persecuted by the wider human
1946 novel by A.E. Van Vogt, is about a race of psychics persecuted by the wider human
society.)

Warhammer does use the Slann to sublimate the identity of historical South American
peoples. On the surface this is inherently problematic. Replacing real historical peoples
with monsters while keeping the material trappings, costume, armor design, and so on
echoes the worst aspects of dehumanizing propaganda. But Warhammer, through both
Kremlo the Slann and The Magni몭cent Sven, then proceeds to do something quite
progressive in those pre-Avatar times: portraying the primitive Aztec alien frog monsters
as sympathetic creatures with motives, feelings, history, and expressions of their own.
On the one hand, we can see that the identity of historical South American peoples is
entirely written out of the pseudo-historical fantasy world in ways that European
peoples are not. On the other hand, the experience of the subjugated people are
communicated without conforming to reductive and essentialist ideas about race, and
thus avoiding Gayatri Spivak’s “epistemic violence” by replacing images of native bodies
with fantasy monsters.

Slann frogmen warriors from The Legend of Kremlo the Slann, 1983

In contrast and con몭ict with the Slann we have the Norse, a fantasy barbarian version of
10th Century Vikings, replete with massive beards and completely ahistorical horned
helmets. By transposing the European invasion of South America by Hernán Cortéz in the
16th Century with a fantasy re-imagining of Leif Erikson’s 10th century landing in North
America, Lustria invites parallels between the colonization of South America with the
Migration Period of British history. “Skeggi,” the name of the Norse settlement in The
Legend of Kremlo the Slann, is common slang for the northern seaside town of Skegness,
whose name is derived from Norse. Lustria parallels its exotic Lustrian natives—the Slann
—with ancient British natives, and portrays the Viking-Norse raiders as the common
invaders, creating empathy between the two native peoples. Rather than reproducing
the colonialist myth of white Europeans being a benevolent civilizing in몭uence, this
allows the colonists to be seen as savage villains.
In the Legend of Kremlo the Slann, our bulging-eyed alien hero Kremlo is found alone as an
infant frogling and adopted by Harold Stoutback, the chieftain of the Norse village of
Skeggi. This act serves to humanize the Norse from their popular characterization as
masculine aggressors, the mindless perpetrators of rape and pillage, to more rounded
human beings able to express nurture and care. As notable 10th century Persian scholar
Ahmad ibn Rustah wrote, “They [Norsemen] have a most friendly attitude towards
foreigners and strangers who seek refuge.” Such open mindedness to those of other
cultures runs counter to the doctrines of far-right race theorists such as the Nazi
ideologue Hans F. K. Günther, who popularized an entirely fabricated image of the Nordic
race as an idealized symbol of white supremacy. Simultaneously, Kremlo’s adoption by
Stoutback usurps conservative gender roles, with the male chief enacting the supposedly
female role of nurturing infants (i.e. Pharaoh’s daughter 몭nding and rescuing the infant
Moses). This might not seem quite as novel now, as media such as the television show
Vikings and the video game God of War have further expanded popular concepts of
barbarian masculinity, but in 1983 such depictions of the Nordic Viking barbarian were
virtually unheard of.

After the death of Stoutback, Kremlo is begrudgingly accepted as the leader of the
village. Only his adopted younger brothers openly resent Kremlo’s leadership, and this is
as much aristocratic sibling rivalry as anything else. The white supremacist dream of the
proud Aryan-Nordic with his racially superior natural leadership ability is casually
obliterated by codes of honor that transcend racial boundaries. Kremlo then wreaks
genocide upon his own tribe of BlueSpineSpick Slann in revenge for the killing of several
of his adopted culture’s 몭shwives—returning loyalty to his adoptive society, not to his
race, eschewing ideas of racial essentialism.

In The Magni몭cent Sven, the Norse

village contains a diverse group of
adventurers. Unlike Tolkien’s
archetypal Fellowship, drawn from
the upper echelons of Middle-earth
society and its loyal man-servants,
called together in a time of great
need to do great deeds, the cast of
Sven are a bunch of lowly drifters just
passing through: Juggo Joriksonn, a
berserker punk dwarf; Aygar, an
agoraphobic human wizard;
Raidocks Timwilt, a failed hobbit
chief; Karl Ustracutter, one-legged
Norse treasure hunter; Riolta Snow,
professional Sea Elf sportswoman on
holiday in Amazon country; and
Karra Lakota, a pink-haired lesbian
Amazon. However, while the
adventurers do provide diverse
representation of gender, class,
sexuality, and mental and physical
ability, there are no characters that are visually identi몭able as non-European.

The Amazons of Warhammer were introduced in The Second Citadel Compendium (1984),
the cover of which features dramatic wrap-around cover art by John Blanche, whose
blistering drawings still forge the imagery of the game today. Depicted are pink-haired,
non-sexualized, technologically-advanced lesbians defending their lands from scru몭y,
furry-booted, patriarchal Norse invaders. The Compendium‘s scenario Rigg’s Shrine,
written by Richard Halliwell, goes some way in detailing Amazon society: entirely female,
living peacefully beside the Old Slann, becoming custodians of their advanced alien
technology after the Slann Empire fell. The scenario sets up a gendered dichotomy
between the devoutly religious, peaceful, and advanced feminine Amazons with a
brutish, aggressive, masculine group of Norse Raiders.

The visual design of the Amazons seen in the illustrations by John Blanche and Tony
Ackland, and the miniature design by Michael and Alan Perry, portray the Amazons with
pink-dyed mohawks, wearing high-necked tunic dresses and ankle-length robes. These
designs are more akin to punk fashion designer Vivienne Westwood’s 1980s collection
“Nostalgia of Mud” than the chainmail bikinis and big hair of ‘80s fantasy warrior
women, thus reinforcing Naomi Wolf’s notion of the “beauty myth”: the feminist
recognition that only conventionally beautiful women are allowed to be of value in
patriarchal narratives. The Amazons clearly take design cues from Native Americans: the
Mohawk from the Mohawk tribe, and intransigent punk Karra Lakota who’s named after
the Lakota People. The naming convention continues the tradition of reference set by
post-punk pioneer Siouxsie Sioux through Westwood’s partner and punk svengali
Malcolm McLaren’s bands Adam and the Ants and Bow Wow Wow, connecting
Warhammer to a wider framework of post-apocalyptic pop-primitivism.

Like the Slann in The Magni몭cent Sven, the Amazons of Rigg’s Shrine are not removed from
the context of being robbed by colonialists, nor do they conform to the Pocahontas myth
of Native American women. One example of the contemporary references in The
Magni몭cent Sven is that Karra herself is on the run from her sisterhood after attempting
to assassinate the head of state—the Queen of the Amazons—at a time when the British
prime minister and the current monarch were both women, providing an image of what is
clearly an anti-establishment 몭gure as an unabashedly heroic character.

Still more of Amazon society was developed in the Bestiary book of Warhammer Second
Edition (1985). Warhammer Amazons reproduce “parthenogenetically”—without the
requirement of a male. This is completely unlike Strabo’s account of the ancient Greek
Amazons, who reproduce in the usual human method with the neighboring Gargarean
tribe. It should be reasonably clear from this fact that Warhammer Amazons are all
lesbians. Not only do Amazons fully inhabit the traditionally exclusively male roles of
priest and soldier, they biologically do not need men at all.

That is not to say that early

Warhammer is entirely
subversive in its depiction of
fantasy races. Many
reproduce the tired
Eurocentric cliches without
irony or satire. Old Worlders,
from the “technically and
socially primitive” (11th
century) to the “advanced”
(15th-16th century); Norse,
who “live for War and for
alcohol”; Arabians, whose
“religious dogmas prevent
them from developing
either socially or
technically”; Steppe
Nomads, “not as primitive
as one might imagine”;
“Orientals,” who comprise
the “largest single
population of humanity”;
and 몭nally, Other Humans, a
category that includes
“Black-skinned Southrons
of the South-lands and red-
skinned natives of the New World. Both of these groups are very primitive and have little
contact with any of the major races.” While these descriptions appear to enforce
stereotypes, the words “primitive” and “advanced” are used almost exclusively to
describe the development of arms and armor rather than culture. The real problem is
that, having de몭ned these peoples in the fantasy setting, Warhammer then sidelines
them into complete obscurity.

There is some logic to this. Warhammer began life as a way for Citadel Miniatures to
advertise the 몭gures they made, and the pseudo-historical factions such as “Arabians,”
“Orientals,” and so on simply represent the historical miniatures they made. Had Citadel
made 몭gures for Old West wargames (a popular genre at the time), then no doubt New
World Natives would have been included; had Citadel produced 몭gures for the Ghana
empire or even the Biblical Ancients wargaming period, then we may have seen armies of
African descent. The Pygmies—who fall halfway between grinning cannibal golliwogs
and dark skinned hobbit folk in mock Zulu garb—became somewhat recontextualized by
the Afrofuturist Floating Gardens of Bahb-Elonn scenario in White Dwarf #100. This isn’t to
excuse the omission; in the more than 30 years since, no attempt has been made to
redress this imbalance. Nonetheless, the early focus on Lustria as exotic fantasy, as well
as the deconstruction of the status quo colonialist framework, gets left behind in favor of
a more exclusively Eurocentric fantasy heavily indebted to the worlds of Tolkien and D&D.

The theme of fantasy diversity surfaces again in the Warhammer campaign supplement
The Terror of the Lichemaster (1986), a grisly tale of an undead uprising in the Alpine valley
of Frugelhofen. Much of the sensibility here re몭ects that of the English Gothic cinema
(think Hammer or Tigon 몭lms in the 1970s): remote European locations and sinister
overlords, revolting peasants with pitchforks and 몭aming torches, and the Lichemaster
himself: Heinrich Kremmler, the foul Necromancer who summons his army of undead.
The name is clearly a pun on both Heinrich Himmler, the Nazi occultist, and Heinrich
Kramer, witch-hunter and author of the Malleus Male몭carum (“The Hammer of
Witches”), published in 1487 as a handy guide to the persecution of scapegoats during
the Inquisition. Heinrich is very much a two-dimensional caricature, with little more
motive than to unearth the evils of the past and destroy all life that stands in his way. Any
philosophy or motive that might drive him to genocide or to muster an army of undead—
unthinking automatons whose only task is to follow orders—are unexplored, and the
player is expected to play him very much as a Saturday morning cartoon villain, not a
complex mirror of real world hatred and bigotry.
complex mirror of real world hatred and bigotry.

This Halloween ghoul of far-

right lunatic occultism,
attended by his legion of
skeleton warriors, are set up
against an unprepared
population of hardy miners
and goodly farmers,
symbolically the hammer
and sickle of the communist
worker-peasant alliance—
who are, of course, the good
guys in this scenario. Once
again, the worthy proles are
a multicultural bunch,
including Grimwald Calaco,
explicitly labelled an
anarchist; Albi Schutz, the
ex-wrestler; Gim Grundel,
the hal몭ing runaway; and
Antonio Epstein (half
Italian, half Reiklander,
from Albion), whose name
and identity call to mind his
namesake from The
Merchant of Venice. In that
play, Bassanio, Antonio’s friend (and perhaps the object of Antonio’s own desire) is
romantically pursuing the wealthy Portia. In The Terror of the Lichemaster, this role is
played by the elf Riolta Snow. It is notable that Snow becomes a recurring character,
almost a female lead within the early Warhammer milieu, appearing in The Magni몭cent
Sven, Lichemaster, and Ravening Hordes. While descriptions of her focus on her beauty, her
depictions avoid overt sexualization. We are told that “as a woman” she travels freely in
Amazon lands, that she is attractive, that she “especially” impresses the punk Amazon
Karra Lakota, and that she is completely indi몭erent to the romantic overtures of Antonio
Epstein. She’s also described as having the quite annoying traits of the upper classes,
being both condescending and not a little camp, referring to people as “sweetie” and to
things not to her taste as “gauche,” preventing her from being overly idealized.

More bold women and Shakespearean allusions surface in the campaign set The Tragedy
of McDeath (1986). An obvious pun on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, McDeath has three main
female characters: Lady McDeath herself—an even more villainous analogue of Lady
Macbeth, albeit in a goth, spike-and-chain version of Elizabethan dress; Julia Laird of the
McEwmans, a leader portrayed as sensibly clad in combat armor, who seems to
counterbalance Shakespeare’s villainess by providing a positive example of female power
seeking justice for the murder of her father; and Sandra Pangle, a “squire” who is also
sensibly attired and prepared for medieval combat. Much of McDeath explores Scottish
stereotypes: violence at sporting events epitomized by sectarian football con몭icts
frequent at the time (i.e. the Scottish Cup Final in 1980), whiskey distilleries, and the
Loch Ness Monster. But it is in the Battle of Dungal Hill where Warhammer shifts from
what is arguably an attitude of anti-establishment, pro-diversity politics into the realm
of overt political satire. The vile Een McWrecker leads a gang of Orcs against Arka Zargul’s
“long-su몭ering miner” Dwarfs. These names are puns on Ian MacGregor, responsible for
overseeing the shutdown of Britain’s coal mines in the 1980s, and Arthur Scargill, the
leader of the National Union of Mineworkers during the 1984-1985 miners’ strike and
founder of the Socialist Labour Party.

Orcs, originally created by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Lord of the Rings, long represented in
fantasy literature and gaming the archetypal brutish, evil foot soldier, a race of inhumane
monsters and one-dimensional bad guys. In more recent years, properties like World of
Warcraft have made Orcs, like the Klingons of Star Trek, more humanized, less monstrous.
As the Warhammer Bestiary describes them, “[Orcs] are repulsive monsters who live to
in몭ict pain, cruelty and death on other living creatures.” From Tolkien’s The Hobbit to
D&D, Dwarfs are proud, stubborn good guys, described by the Warhammer Bestiary as “a
very material people, they are excellent artisans and sturdy workers.” Their relationship
with mines and mining goes back to folklore and fairy tales like the Seven Dwarfs of Snow
White. It is that relationship between work and mining that makes Dwarfs the obvious
choice to represent the working class miners. Arka Zargul’s Dwarfs carry a banner bearing
the slogan “I ho I ho go slow,” in reference to industrial disruption, to help underline the
narrative. The miners’ strike action erupted into violence under a militarized police force
led by a right-wing government in the UK. In McDeath we see Warhammer give voice to
the struggle of the miners, with a reimagined socialist movement fronted by good and
stalwart Dwarfs, and the aggressive forces of the reactionary government painted as
loathsome, evil Orcs. The political message could not be clearer.

In September 1986, ‘Eavy

Metal, the regular
miniatures painting
column in Games
Workshop’s White Dwarf
magazine, published a
pro몭le on miniature painter
and designer Colin Dixon.
One of the works
showcased, entitled Mag-
gies Death Banner, is a
custom-painted
wargaming miniature of an
Orc holding a standard, a
kind of decorative 몭ag used
to identify a regiment. The Orc 몭ying “MAG-ies Death Banner” from White Dwarf
banner held up by the Orc is #81, September 1986
emblazoned not with a
baleful eye or demonic
horned skull, or any such commonplace fantasy signi몭er of evil, but a portrait of then-
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. The alignment of the Orc with the image of the
conservative Prime Minister leaves little doubt as to the underlying political message
here; Margaret Thatcher is portrayed as an evil dictator, her visage used as a symbol of
evil.

Thatcher makes a 몭nal appearance in The Enemy Within (1986), an adventure in the
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game. The adventure makes a rather feeble pun when, in
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay game. The adventure makes a rather feeble pun when, in
imperial year 1979, an Empress Magraritha comes to power, 1979 being the year
Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of the UK. No longer portrayed as an outright
evil, idolized by inhuman Orcs, one of the most divisive British politicians of the 20th
century is instead just a minor leader of men referenced in a footnote joke. However, the
legacy of Thatcher can be seen in other ways: the title of the campaign itself, referring to
underground cults of chaos demon-worshiping evildoers that threaten the Empire, is a
phrase Thatcher used in one of her most infamous speeches: “We always have to be
aware of the enemy within, which is much more di몭cult to 몭ght and more dangerous to
liberty.” Thatcher was speaking, in 1984, about the exact same miners that the Tragedy of
McDeath caricatured as wholly sympathetic heroes 몭ghting an evil oppressor. Games
Workshop took the phrase from a right-wing politician used to divide the country, and
put it on the front cover of a product to describe the in몭uence of demonic forces within its
fantasy setting. The player characters are directly pitted against these “enemies,” whose
motivations concern not saving their livelihoods or protecting their families, but, as
Thatcher spun it, to the overthrowing of liberty.

Eventually, any anti-authoritarian aspect of Warhammer slid away, heroes overthrowing

tyrannical despots like McDeath replaced by entrenched defenders of imperialism. This
change in editorial direction occurred as the publisher, Games Workshop, lost exclusive
rights to import the big-selling American roleplaying games such as Dungeons & Dragons
and Runequest to Europe. Focusing on its own products, the company perhaps sought to
appeal to what it assumed would be a larger audience. Characters opposed to the far-
right fantasy of neo-feudalism were rendered as monstrous and evil—agents of Chaos.
The overt political references, brief as they were, ceased altogether. Gaming scenarios
built around strong female characters disappeared, replaced with an almost exclusively
male cast. The complex and often critical dialogue Warhammer had with colonialism
switched to an entirely Eurocentric worldview within which other cultures simply didn’t
exist and had no representation. Images of females as realistically attired warriors
regressed to sexualized clichés. In short, the idea of the countercultural fantasy faded out
of the Warhammer milieu, conforming to the established conventions of mainstream
fantasy.

Gradually, over the decades, once staid and conservative fantasy games such as Dungeons
& Dragons took the lead, successfully increasing the diversity of representation across
race, gender, and sexuality. Yet Warhammer got left behind, a strangely cartoonish relic of
the genre’s lowest common denominator. Seemingly, the publisher has begun to make
moves to quietly remedy this across both its fantasy and science-fantasy incarnations—
a person of color here, a non-sexualized female character there—despite or because of
the infantile and reactionary “liberal politics is destroying my fandom” bickering on the
internet. Yet diverse representation and liberal politics aren’t new to the game; they are
what made Warhammer unique in the 몭rst place.

This article has been revised on January 24, 2019, to re몭ect the following correction: in the
original version, The Merchant of Venice‘s protagonist Antonio was identi몭ed as pursuing
Portia, when in fact it was his friend Bassanio.

Zhu Bajiee is an artist, designer and level 17 Dungeon Master from the
barren wastelands of the New Town project, England. He can be found
musing on the cultural detritus of the ’80s fantasy boom and other
 matters at Realm of Zhu.

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34 thoughts on “When Warhammer Was Radical: The
Egalitarian Origins of the Fantasy Battle Game”

 Dungeons and Possums (@DungeonsPossums)
January 14, 2019 at 4:37 pm

Terri몭c article! Always loved seeing White Dwarf on the shelf back in the
day, and certainly noticed when the focus shifted from weird and tongue-
in-cheek adventures full of cutpurses to dead serious space marines all
around the clock. Honestly never put nearly this much thought into it,
just lamented the loss of “my 몭avor” of things as has slowly happened in
so many arenas as time marched on and marketing strategies shifted
away from me and those who came before me. Its really cool to see it
looked at on a timeline and examined with a careful eye.
Reply

 Jacob C. Edwards January 14, 2019 at 9:09 pm

Wow! I had no idea the Warhammer had such a storied history! I am only
familiar with the most recent iterations of the game. I’ve only really
played the 40k and Total War video games. I loved the way the
Warhammer lore is 몭eshed out, I guess it never occurred to me that there
was a lore behind that lore! The part with Thatcher as part of the game
was surreal. I’ll have to look into it further.

Great article man!

Reply

 Andrew January 15, 2019 at 1:12 am

You forgot one of Margret Thatcher’s appearances, she showed up, along
with Ronnie and Nancy Reagan, as Harpies sculpted by Bob Olley and his
Iron Claw line.

Reply

 Gus L January 15, 2019 at 2:47 am

I remember these things from my weekends at the local game store in the
late 80’s but it’s nice to put it into a context. It’s especially nice when so
much of gaming is now subsumed with a fascistic gloss, or at best
painfully consumerist.

Reply

 Slouch the Sloth January 15, 2019 at 3:09 am

NIce article I think you can still see aspects of the satire in the early
rogue trader rules too. It seemed to me that in those early rules the
imperium was political commentary/satire – along the lines of Carl Sagan
believing we were trending toward an age of ignorance.
Another factoid to consider is the chants of the Orks. As you likely know,
‘Ere We Go! was a soccer hooligan chant. As an American kid, I never read
the orcs to have cockney accents, but when I 몭rst heard it in Dawn of War
it came across rather classist to me.

Reply

 Jeremy Fridy January 15, 2019 at 1:54 pm

The early days of GW were a strange time. The company was founded by a
bunch of skater punks who loved miniatures and found a sci 몭 market
underserved in particular. They saw inspiration in 2000 AD and Heavy
Metal, and then over time morphed into a much more conventional
company as those founding 몭gures left.

Reply

 Mark Schumann January 16, 2019 at 5:45 am

Rigg, goddess of the Amazons, is named after actress Diana Rigg, who
played Emma Peel in The Avengers

Reply

 Rick Priestley January 16, 2019 at 1:45 pm

Well yes… I don’t think any of us thought about what we doing in quite
such depth at the time. Great read though and it made me smile. One
aspect of characterization that I feel is often missed in Warhammer, is
that many of the invented personalities and cultures have a deliberately
self-deceiving quality. What they are and what they believe themselves
to be are in con몭ict – and ultimately that gives you the idea of Troll
Slayers, which is uniquely and almost de몭nitively one of Richard
Halliwell’s 몭nest concepts. I don’t think we took ourselves all that
seriously or felt the need to do so though. The 40K universe was certainly
conceived in the same spirit. It always amused me that the GW Mail Order
‘Trolls’ as we (starting with me) had always styled ourselves insisted as
being rebranded ‘Space Marines’. Why anyone would want to be
associated with semi-lobotomized, hypnotically indoctrinated slave-
soldiers in thrall to an uncaring (and possibly non-existent) god I couldn’t
imagine. But times change, don’t they. Thanks for publishing this – it
stirred a few memories.
Reply

 Alexis West January 19, 2019 at 2:53 am

I think the fact that you didn’t think of it in such depth is part of
why it worked so well. All too often, when people set out to
speci몭cally make something that has socio-political
commentary mixed in, it ends up falling 몭at. But when people
just try to make what they think is awesome, and it happens to
also include some cutting insights or critiques on society, it
seems much more likely to work.

Reply

 Zhu Bajiee January 20, 2019 at 11:55 am

Glad you enjoyed the article Rick – we have a lot to be thankful

for you, Richard, Bryan, Tony, John and the rest of the pioneers.
There’s a lot to be said for the creative freedoms in the early
stages of a business, before things begin to settle too much. The
changing portrayal of Space Marines over the years has an
interesting trajectory, one to mull over, I think.

Reply

 xyzdude0 January 16, 2019 at 3:37 pm

Citadel did design a western/cowboy game called Legends of the Old

West. They never expanded to all factions mentioned in lore simply
because they couldn’t a몭ord to have that many product lines. Hopefully
Creative assembly will expand into more places like Araby and Cathy

Reply

 adamcunis January 17, 2019 at 10:01 am

Brilliant article. Lots of inspiration for future projects. The slow march
back to this ethos might be beginning? Hopefully. Loads of stu몭 here that
back to this ethos might be beginning? Hopefully. Loads of stu몭 here that
I didn’t know about. One minor point however Antonio in Merchant of
venice has no female love interest. (He can be read as in love with his
friend Bassanio). But Bassanio is the character at the heart of the main
love plot.

Reply

 Rick Priestley January 17, 2019 at 4:27 pm

Ah – adamcunis – the Antonio character is certainly nothing as

elevated as a reference to Shakespeare’s play – the name is a
skit on that of a friend of ours who was notorious for his
amorous adventurism – so it’s just an ‘in joke’ of which there are
many scattered throughout Warhammer Lore.

Reply

 adamcunis January 17, 2019 at 4:59 pm

Amazing to have a response from you Rick. Glad to hear

some context and love an onside joke. I was referring to
the original poster saying ‘Antonio Epstein (half
Italian, half Reiklander, from Albion), who, like his
namesake in The Merchant of Venice, is romantically
pursuing a wealthy female’ when in fact, within the
play, it’s Bassanio not Antonio who pursues a wealthy
female.

Kudos and massive thanks to your world building

whether or not it’s ‘elevated’- I’ve spent 20+ years
loving it all (and Shakespeare too in fairness) and
believe me Shakespeare is a lot closer to this sort of
political pastiche and in joking than English teachers
would have you believe.

Reply

 Rick Priestley
January 17, 2019 at 8:09 pm

I can believe it Adam. Thanks you for your

 kind words – nice to know it wasn’t just us
having fun Yes I did spot the confused
Merchant of Venice reference in the original –
just thought I’d o몭er some explanation on
that one. Myself – I’m still a bit wobbly on the
article describing ‘Skegness’ as in the ‘north’
of England… I know it depends on where you
come from… but still…

Reply

 Anthony Ackland.
September 23, 2019 at 9:29 pm

You know as well as I do Rick that

there is a tendency for the
inhabitants of the home Counties to
refer to anywhere north of Watford
as the North. Plenty of localities
south of Skegness have been
referred to as being in the North,
including Lincoln.

Reply

 Richard McKenna
September 24, 2019 at 7:28 pm

The North begins at

Nottingham! I say that as a
Hudders몭eld native.

Reply

 Zhu Bajiee January 20, 2019 at 12:01 pm

Yes of course, Antonio rather adopts Bassanios role as the ill-

fortuned suitor. The error must have crept in whilst whittling
down my extensive but disorderly notes. There is an interesting,
although no doubt entirely coincidental, juxtaposition between
the Merchant of Venice Antonio’s attitudes to his creditor and
the origins of Antonio of Riekland and Italy’s last name. Would
 love to hear of any future projects that might have inspired by
the article. Thanks!

Reply

 Billy bob joe January 19, 2019 at 6:17 pm

While not nonpolitical, i dont think warhammer’s goal was ever to “break
the patriarchy” or do anything about equality. It was for entertainment.
The fantasy side has always been a parody of our own history, dark and
full of humanity.
I couldnt read this article all the way through. You’re trying to push
*your* opinions on something you dont know.
For example: you said the imperium in 40k is the example of what the
right wants. No one wants that. If you look even a little past the skin of
40k you see that the imperium is a hell and not close to anything anyone
wants as reality. Extreme dictatorship, high taxes, a lot of people die
young, soldiers thrown at enemies like theyre not worth anything, etc.
Not exactly ideal for any political ideaology.
The dark elves. To put it simply they enjoy sinning. Killing, sex, etc. Witch
elves show a lot of skin. Yet, in total war warhammer 2 (directly based o몭
the tabletop game), theres females among the dark elves dark elves that
are dressed in armor head to toe.
The only thing i saw that was accurate is the material you referanced,
hardly anything you said really holds a lot of water.

Reply

 Kalavier January 20, 2019 at 12:54 am

Yeah, I agree with Billy Bob Joe, this is reading heavily into
warhammer, and starts o몭 kinda implying (to me) about how if
you like warhammer 40k, you are this evil alt-right 몭gure who
praises horri몭c stu몭.

Reply

 D January 22, 2019 at 3:15 am

Just the fact that he con몭ates Warhammer 40k with

Warhammer fantasy without di몭erentiation killed an6
credibility the piece could have had. The two were totally
 credibility the piece could have had. The two were totally
distinct gameworlds, linked only by the notion of Fantasy
having a similar set of races in a di몭erent environment,

Just another example of how trying to force a certain political

viewpoint on things ends up misconstruing or rewriting history.

Reply

 Nezumi October 2, 2020 at 3:09 am

Actually, for quite a while it was implied that

Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40k were part of
the same universe. Only later did GW decide they were
completely separate. If you don’t know even that part
of the games’ history, you really don’t have much
justi몭cation ponti몭cating on how it’s being rewritten
and misconstrued. Especially since one of the old guard
of Warhammer designers/writers responded a few
days before you did, and seemed largely positive
towards the article, though he did absolutely say not
that much thought went into the decisions to include
the things discussed here. (Which, since it doesn’t
claim intent, is just 몭ne for the article)

Reply

 nezumi­hime October 2, 2020 at 3:13 am

Nope. Wrong. For much of of 40k’s early history, it was

implied it shared a universe with Fantasy. It was only
later that GW went with “noooo, they’re totally
separate.” Don’t lecture on subjects you don’t know or
hypocritically accuse others of doing something you
did. Also, one of the people who *helped make the
early game* commented a few days earlier than you
and was largely positive about the article, as well as
having some pretty disparaging things to say about the
idea of identifying with Space Marines.

Reply

 Jimmy Hoffa February 1, 2019 at 11:08 pm

 Jimmy Hoffa

First, I would say that I am a right leaning person. However, I have not
always been one. Many people are more to the left when they are young
and as they age, they drift to the right. This parallel can be seen in
Warhammer itself. A young company slowly matured into its current
state.
Companies are in the business of making money, not ideology. It just so
happens that this company sells products that are bought almost
exclusively from MEN of European background.
“Victims of colonialism” are for the most part not buying the products,
nor are feminists.
I am not sure it is a smart BUSINESS decision to project the negative parts
of your CUSTOMERS history onto the FANTASY history of the products
you sell.

Reply

 studywww February 9, 2020 at 9:05 am

Wrong. The political satire was there when GW products were

directed almost exclusively to men of European background.
The shift in tone occurred when they started to pander to 11
years old boys. I grew up on Wh40k when it was already
straightforward “fascist propaganda” because they turned it
from satire to glori몭cation of the Imperium.

As the audience and workers become more diverse, the

glori몭cation of the Imperium intensi몭es to absurd level to the
point when Space Marines start to resemble superheroes more
and more and other factions are marginalized.

Reply

 nezumi­hime October 2, 2020 at 3:15 am

Actually, very few people move right as they age. The shift in
voting tendency by age is because those on the left are more
likely to be poor or marginalized, and as such tend to die
younger, selecting for a more right-wing older voting base.

Reply

 studywww
  studywww October 4, 2020 at 9:55 pm

People become more conservative as they age, it’s not

the same as shifting to the right. People become more
conservative because their capability to learn and
adapt decreases. In contact with current work market it
may mean a sharp turn to the left, at least
economically.

Reply

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 Sunshine Moon May 7, 2019 at 7:56 pm

Really interesting article; I always got the impression this older era of GW
had more ‘spark’ and was better at, uh…not accidentally being fascist
propaganda.

Reply

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 Sam M.B May 8, 2020 at 5:25 pm

I feel it’s kinda silly to comment on a more than year old article on a
website I’ve never seen before now, but I felt inspired to put my two cents
forward. Good article, and it gives lots of insights to WH Fantasy’s early
days, something I don’t know very much about as I’ve only just started
getting in to the setting thanks to the Total War games, but the
comments about WH 40K’s Empire bothered me. Alt-right types may
latch on to the Imperium since they’re fascist, warmongering
xenophobes and all, but something important about this is how the
Imperium is portrayed by GW. It’s a dictatorship that indoctrinates it’s
citizens in to blindly worshiping their leader, believing their race is the
singular deserving heir to the universe, and that they should willingly and
unquestionably serve the authority, but these authorities are never the
good guys. There are no good guys in 40K, fans even got upset when good
guys got introduced (the Tau). The average imperial citizen leads a
terrible, horrible life where they’re like to get shot dead for saying,
thinking, or doing the wrong thing, or being anywhere around someone
 thinking, or doing the wrong thing, or being anywhere around someone
who did. They are sent to their death by the billions to die in war, or
worked to death in grim factories. It’s a horrible and barely working
system that only hurts. 40K is not, and never was alt-right or fascist as
some people seem to think, because they portray living under this alt-
right and fascist system as living hell.

Reply

 Chris June 24, 2020 at 12:30 pm

Didn’t Maggie also crop up in 40k as Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka?

Reply

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