I'm Worried About The Future Of Warhammer 40K

Warhammer 40K is a universe famed for its diverse range of factions and characters, each with their own stories to tell and a unique perspective on the grimdark future that makes this universe feel alive. however Games Workshop has been oversaturating both the narrative and model line with Space Marines to the point where the franchise has begun to suffer. as Warhammer 40K gets bigger and bigger, the scope of its storytelling gets smaller and smaller. with the end of the horse heresy, Space Marine 2 about to launch, and Henry cavill's Amazon 40K show coming in the future, this Space Marine problem is primed to get a whole lot worse. let's talk about it.

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Time Stamps
0:00 Intro
3:29 What is the Space Marine Problem?
6:48 Impact On The Table Top Game
12:10 Impact On The Books
15:23 The Future Of Warhammer 40K
24:54 Closing Thoughts

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*Warhammer 40,000 is an IP owned by Games Workshop. All assets contained within this video are property of their respective owners. The video is made for educational purposes only and is protected under fair use. Opinions stated in the video belong solely to Weshammer, and are in no way shape or form reflective of those held by Games Workshop. This channel is not associated with Games Workshop.

[GrimPrism]

It is a huge shame that darktide didn’t release properly. As a 40k game it could have come out swinging so much harder

[bruvamichal]

"Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim dark future there is only space marines."

[MaxUltimata]

It feels like GW is compartmentalizing the 40K universe until the only conflict is Ultramarines vs. Dark Ultramarines. It'll just be a Halo Deathmatch.

[hermaeusmora]

It is the year 2040, the new space marine chapter release was once again a raging success for GW. With that Codex they are now close to finishing all 1000 SM chapters. Bill rummages through the old GW storage room and stops. That's odd, what is this? In the very corner there is a shelf with boxes. He wipes away the thick dust on the sign of the shelf. XENOS it says. He blows away the dust on the boxes. Thats odd. On it are models that are clearly GW design, yet they.... are not of space marines! He frowns, thinking back on all the space marine books he has read over the years. Never had he come across descriptions of figures that look like the models in front of him. Everyone knows it has always just been space marines vs space marines. An ever ongoing war of infighting. Was he to believe that there were OTHER factions in the universe as well? No that couldn't be, that would be to absurd. After all he had kept up with every new release of GW over the years. It has always just been Space Marines. 💀

[Ghostgate]

Yeah it's something we've been complaining about for years, it's like they just ignored xenos in the books and it's sad

[nakenmil]

The Horus Heresy novels have had an INCALCULABLE effect on 40k. Notice how when newer entrants into the hobby talk about "warhammer lore" they'll so often really just talk about HH events, names of characters in there. The primarchs. There used to be a somewhat strong presence of later founding chapters, like the Crimson Fists and such, but nowadays it seems A LOT of players think of space marines almost entirely in terms of legions, which I suspect is a carry-over from first being introduced to space marines through HH lore.
Being able to focus on an ongoing narrative with recurring characters has clearly made the setting A LOT more interesting to lots of people. Now, personally, I prefer when 40k is a sandbox, I prefer when it is vast and unknowable and you have lots of different conflicts taking place around the place, and there isn't really an ongoing narrative beyond the initial setup, but clearly a lot of people prefer it to have ONE BIG STORY and it to revolve a limited cast of main characters. And GW has learnt that, I worry. They'll bring back the Primarchs, they'll make the 42nd millennium a continuation of their family drama. Everything else will be side stories.
It's the same trap Star Wars fell down into. They had this whole vast galaxy they could have explored, but everyone already knew about the Skywalkers, so more Skywalker-centric stories it is. Everyone knows what Tatooine is, so somehow the characters will end up on Tatooine for some reason, etc.
Maybe it will be a passing trend, I don't know, but it does bum me out. ELDAR USED TO BE A CORE FACTION FFS.

[Americium-]

I just wish they would give the Imperial Guard a bit more than "you held out until the Space Marines showed up" stories.

[Plague_Crow]

I may hate elves, but their models are inexcusable

[Zazutorque]

They need to get their prices under control. When i started a tac squad was 35 dollars. 60 for an intercessor unit is ridiculous. The most expensive things were terminators and a land raider, they were 50.

[TheAmberKing]

The Infinite and the Divine proves that great storytelling with Xenos as protagonists is possible and profitable. It's a book that comes up as a top 3 to recommend to a newcomer. Aeldari, Leagues of Votann or Tau just need a great author to work their magic. Particularly Elves are so much more popular in other franchises because the writing is better. Black Library may only be 1% of GW profits, but it's hard to gauge how much those book have an effect on what models you buy. And ultimately, using those novels to create a cinematic universe will be the greatest money maker in end. More Xenos please!

[jthompson]

Hmmm... Warhammer needs an a batshit insane animated series from the point of view of the Orks.

[Sevensup]

We walked into the local Warhammer official store yesterday to look at starter kits. They tried upselling us to the $300 kit for like 15 or 20 plastic figures (unpainted, unassembled) with no paint and no tools.

It would have cost us around $500 for the kit and some paint/tools. All just for the starter kit. This is not what we asked for, it's what the worker was trying to upsell us.

We went to another local store and got a complete Tau scout infantry kit AND a marine dreadnaught, packaged sealed, for less than $100.

The prices are insane for unpainted plastic kits, reguardless of the quality of the plastic.

[keyskdog]

Games workshop can be summarized by one ork from Space Marine 1. “I AiNt dOnE wiT yOU yeT sPacE mARinE”

[kevinchessell]

It's always been a problem. From the very beginning Space Marines were painted as mythic warriors of legend, only spoken of as a fairy tale by the vast majority of the imperium, but then *gestures broadly at everything...

[thomassmith]

Even as a black Templar player, I hate the lack of attention given to all the other factions, I'd really love to see more models for all the other factions.

[cherrypopscile]

They added Legues of Votan 2 years ago and, as far as I know they STILL don't have a lore book.

The brand new faction, with a brand new model range, dose not have a lore book to hype the range. Yet we STILL get more Space Marines

[rolling-roadkill]

My greatest problem with 40k is too few Noise Marines and Harlequins.

[Theepobe]

You forgot the other problem. As a new player I feel overwhelmed by space marines options. I can't make heads or tails of what to buy for black templars. I want to build them but feel lost. So I went with what models I think look cool and am building adepta sororitas. But yeah I want black templars but feel like it takes so much research

[yamahadrag]

I remember reading the "Priests of Iron" omnibus which was supposed to be an admech centric story about an explorator fleet. Half the book focused on a rogue trader from Ultramar who took any opportunity to gush about Ultramarines or that one time he stood relatively close to Cato Sicarius' personal bubble and most of the other half was about *six* Black Templars, including a scene that infuriates me more than almost anything I've ever read: A Techpriest who's studied every martial art known to mankind and was so deadly with his meticulously crafted cybernetic body he got a nickname for killing a catachan monster losing an honor duel to a rookie space marine.

[darthtalyn]

This is why I respected Owlcat Games. Yes they added a space marine to the roster, but not until the ass end of act 3 in a 4 act game. Rogue Trader really sold the universe of 40k. I can also say the same for Darktide after the course correction. Not a SM in sight.