Warhammer 40K’s anti-fascist future: How GW is rebuilding The Hobby

Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 setting has a problem with fascist fans. Alt-right extremists attempted to hijack the hobby using images from its dystopian settings to promote their agenda. Games Workshop has been speaking out on this issue in recent years. Many of their fans are now resisting fascist invasion. Some of the extreme right’s most vocal opponents in the hobby include an irreverent group of YouTubers and other online personalities committed to anti-racism and progressive politics.

The alt-right began circulating Warhammer 40,000 memes during the run-up to the 2016 election, welcoming Donald Trump as god-emperor, humanity’s all-powerful ruler. One or two of these reactionaries hoped to support the type of dictatorship that the game featured.

Ian Williams is a UNC Chapel Hill game designer and teaching fellow for communication. He suggests that the alt-right Warhammer 40,000 fans are more isolated than a large movement. According to Williams, most meme-sharers are more interested in the imagery than the actual game.

Details of a gothic spaceship show grim, dirt, rust, and decay. The paint was originally a pale, Russian green.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Some fascists were, however, deep in the folklore, such as Matthew Heimbach who was a white nationalist founding member of the Traditionalist Worker Party. He credited the game’s bleak vision of eternal war as his inspiration for moving away from mainstream conservatism toward a more militant far-right politics.

Fascist trolling appeared in the hobby from time to time in years following the election. However, they were confined to the comments section of YouTube channels and other online forums. Games Workshop did not speak out on the issue initially, however, they were vocalized during the George Floyd protests in June 2020. the company released a statement affirming that everyone is welcome in the Warhammer community and promising “to continue to diversify the cast of characters” portrayed in its games and related media.

However, this did not solve the problem. Games Workshop made another condemnation when a man dressed in Nazi symbols showed up to a tournament at Talavera, Spain. According to Games Workshop, the authoritarian society depicted in the setting is “satirical,” an exaggerated “amplification of a tyrannical, genocidal regime” rather than an endorsement of it.

Games Workshop’s messaging represents a new approach for a company that previously kept fans at arm’s length. It didn’t start building a strong presence on social media until 2017 and it has only recently adopted the socially-conscious and responsive voice that customers have grown to expect from online businesses. Games Workshop has continued this trend with its decision to stop selling in Russia following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Details of a gothic spacecraft. The camera zooms in past destroyed pipes, over an ominous red glow, to the bones of the room itself — which is built out of skulls.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Aaron Trammell assistant professor of informatics, UC Irvine says that fascism isn’t a new phenomenon in wargaming. To make it more welcoming and inclusive, however, public statements will not be enough.

“There has always been a contingent of gamers in the tabletop space that has been suspiciously interested in Nazi and Confederate iconography,” Trammell argues. For example, in the 1970s some wargamers fascinated by Nazi militarism identified themselves using names associated with Hitler’s regime: One gaming club called itself “The Fourth Reich.” At the same time, Trammell observes, wargamers during this period engaged in vigorous debates, with many of its members expressing progressive ideals.

Beasts of the Warp — the maelstrom that defines the galaxy of Warhammer 40,000 — assault a throne room on a gothic warship. Their carapaces are green and filthy, studded with rock-like protrusions.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Despite its recent association with the right, Games Workshop’s games from the 1980s adopt a broadly anti-authoritarian if not leftist stance. Zhu is an author who wrote extensively about politics in Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer Fantasy, and Warhammer Fantasy games. Zhu also noted that the company often made fun of the right.

An early Games Workshop scenario invites players to side with dwarven characters patterned on the workers in the 1984-1985 U.K. miners’ strike, a labor action that was crushed by conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher’s government. One orc figurine appearing in White Dwarf #81 (Sept. 1986) even hoists a banner with Thatcher’s face on it.

Warhammer 40000 Rogue TraderA similar political outlook is adopted by the Imperium of Mankind. The Imperium of Mankind borrows often from 2000 AD’s Judge Dredd comics, a British science fiction satire that mocked Dirty HarryAmerican pop culture is full of images and praises for tough cops.

Looking through the ruined windows of a gothic spacecraft, you can see in the distance two moons rising over the rim of a dark planet.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

As Zhu says, the early Space Marines were painted as petty tyrants rather than superheroes: “A lot of the artwork emphasizes their dehumanized nature. They’re presented as kind of monstrous, horrible. […] More often than not, they are depicted getting shot by space goblins, or carrying out trivial duties like arresting graffiti writers, or doing obviously bad things like taking slaves.”

Zhu discovers other radical political elements early Warhammer 40,000. The 1980s saw the appearance of the alien Genestealer Cultists. They were limousine-driving, industrialists who took advantage rural planets to warn about capitalist and colonial oppression.

These satirical aspects have been downplayed by Games Workshop in the later years. Some of this tonal shift was due to personnel changeover, Williams argues, but much of it was driven by the company’s growth. As Games Workshop expanded into overseas markets such as the U.S. in the 1990s, it dropped its working-class critique of British politics along with characters with names like “Obiwan Sherlock Clousseau” in favor of a more corporate style that would translate better for young American gamers.

Space Marines, along with the Imperium allies became the most popular faction of the game. Warhammer 40,000 fiction in the Black Library series has been better about emphasizing the morally problematic nature of the Imperium, but advertisements and fluff as well as tie-ins such as video games undermine this by asking players to pledge loyalty to the game’s totalitarian empire.

Williams sees Games Workshop’s Primaris redesign of the Space Marines as reflecting a broader context of creeping authoritarianism. While the old Space Marine lines looked like “bulky space knights,” he says, the new models wear armor influenced by the “tacticool” aesthetic favored by SWAT teams and right-wing paramilitaries.

Williams asserts that Games Workshop is not responsible for the glorifying of violence. However, it has been shaped over time by a culture in which deadly displays of force are celebrated.

Once Space Marines were removed from the early edition’s satirical light and promoted as heroic protagonists, they held a great appeal for the far right. Many fans believed that the Imperium’s unquestioned obedience was necessary to counter the threat of alien invasions. In a world where war with other culture is likely, the despot god-emperor will be the last thing to protect the species. They say there is no other option.

Anti-fascist fans believe otherwise. Snipe, Wib, and Arbitor Ian are popular YouTube channels that call out fascists and work to increase inclusion of marginalized people.

These channels often take a historical view of Warhammer 40,000. Williams says that this allows them the opportunity to connect the setting with its humorous roots. The regular tours of early game materials serve to remind us that Warhammer 40,000 was originally intended to be an attack on xenophobia.

It is important to focus on how the setting has evolved over the years. This will also help you avoid arguments about Warhammer 40,000 still being geared toward straight, white, cis males.

For example, according to the game’s current lore all Space Marines are men. Women’s biology, we are told, makes them incompatible with the procedure that turns normal humans into hulking super-soldiers.

As Wib suggests, although this notion “originates from a throwaway line of technobabble from a 1988 article,” it has “long provided an in-universe justification for real-world misogyny” because it has “cemented the idea in a lot of gamers’ minds that women simply aren’t good enough to become them.”

Two automatons step out of the darkness and into the bridge of a gothic spaceship. Their solitary eyes glow, primitive rifles held in their hands. The background is rotting, rusted, and flowing ominously read.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Snipe finds the whole debate frustrating: “It is incredibly tedious to me that we can put a man on the moon, but we will spend decades arguing whether women can be fictional superpowered fascists or not.

This controversy has continued with Games Workshop’s recent Horus Heresy – Age of Darkness rulebook drawing fire from fans who object to what they describe as the “trans-exclusionary” language it uses to justify keeping women out of the faction army.

But Games Workshop’s gender politics were never really just about the lore. Ian Arbitor has performed a detailed dive to show that Space Marines were made up of men because of logistical issues in the 1980s. This was due to the belief that there would be too many female models. Because of the high number of female models in Space Marines, retailers complained.

Games Workshop wrote all-male Space Marines into the canon based on the perceived demands of its customer base in the 1980s, but that customer base — along with the technology used to make their models — looks very different in the 2020s.

As Arbitor Ian suggests, “Presenting how the lore has changed allows me to refute the main argument of the gatekeepers — that their mythical ‘fixed’ lore shouldn’t be changed to appeal to new people. 40K Always changed to appeal to new people.”

Ian Arbitor has also suggested that the 40K universe be structured around this same concept of historical contingency. Arbitor Ian believes that the Imperium is the best way for humanity to survive. However, the inclusion of another human group that thrives under different social conditions would prove Space Marine fascism not necessary.

A tiny dwarf, clad in a spacesuit and carrying a large mace, has clamored onto the bridge of a gothic spaceship. His helmet is closed, yellow, and he stands out against a fetid, rotten, rusted mechanical wall.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

That’s one of the reasons why many anti-fascist gamers were excited when they found out that Games Workshop was reintroducing Warhammer 40,000’s space dwarves, or squats, as a new faction called the Leagues of Votann.

The Leagues of Votann, also known as Kin, are an interstellar civilization of genetically modified humans who venerate “ancient thinking machines.” This new army is very different from the Imperium, which outlawed artificial intelligence after a robot uprising that took place many years before the start of the game.

Some observers were initially concerned that Games Workshop would launch a Norse-influenced faction at a time white nationalists were taking Viking spirituality to their own. Games Workshop proved, however that the Imperium wasn’t the only option for mankind.

Williams also sees promise in the Kin as evidence Games Workshop is “rekindling the satirical spirit” by taking aim at the anxieties of 2022, including our worries about digital technology. Arbitor Ian sees a somewhat different critical edge in the Kin’s Guilds: they are “all-consuming space capitalists” willing to obliterate other factions to make a profit.

Games Workshop has made positive changes as well. It now features more people of color and women in its products.

Influential figures within the Warhammer community are not content with challenging the mythology. They also try to bring the hobby closer to all.

Reflecting on their work, Snipe says, “We have tried to make our own space within [Warhammer]People who feel the community is not friendly should be welcomed. Sometimes this is as simple as putting your pronouns on your name cards, but other times it’s just being more thoughtful about how you talk about things that may not affect you but are very meaningful to others.”

The full scene on the bridge of the gothic spacecraft. Warpbeasts confront the robotic explorers while the dead Space Marine sits in the background, irrelevant and implaccable at the same time. A dark moon rises in the background against ruined, cathedral-like windows.

Photo: Charlie Hall/Polygon

Williams indicates that every day gamers can make a difference by becoming more active in the local gaming community. Williams believes fascists are attracted to isolation and rejection. Therefore, anything we can do to connect with others — especially people who are different from ourselves — disrupts their recruitment efforts.

Not everyone is comfortable speaking out against warhammer hate. Fascist ideas can be criticized by creators, particularly if they are not straight or white. This has led to some people leaving the hobby. Creators also report that YouTube algorithm favors channels with uncontroversial videos that have broad appeal. Popular hobbyists may be unable to attract viewers if they take a stand.

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