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[nenjin]

I dunno, I find the idea that the Emperor has been faffing around in our time in disguise and accomplishing nothing a little implausible. There's also the whole, you know, humanity leaving earth for the stars as well. That would sort of mean he stood by and watched the Dark Age of Technology and Old Night happen and did nothing.

[Dutchling]

Sooooo- I want to devour all of this lore.

Having very little WH40K experience, which book do you guys recommend for me to start with :V?

[nenjin]

Well, 40k lore comes from three places generally:

-Codices. (Ranging from the 80s Rogue Traitor and Realms of Chaos books all the way up through today with all the different army codices.)
-Novels. (Everything published by the Black Library.)
-Really old stuff published in White Dwarf Magazine. (Also no longer in print.)

Codices can be broken down into army-specific books, and general books. GWS doesn't really do universe-setting books anymore, that's all roled into the Core Rule Book and isn't terribly concerned with ancient, ancient history. What universe-setting they did publish was made up primarily of Rogue Trader and Realms of Chaos. That's where a lot of the most ancient 40k lore resides (and much of it has been retconned.) All that stuff is out of print now.

The novels can roughly be broken down into two groups: Horus Heresy series, and not Horus Heresy. The vast majority of published novels are about either the Imperium or Space Marines specifically. Other races get a lot less play in those novels, but most races have at least one or two novels about them. (Can't remember if "'ere we go!" is an actual novel or a series of Ork short stories or what.) The order of most material published tends to go: Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Inquisition, Eldar, everything else.

So where to start? I'd probably say starting with the Horus Heresy will start you farthest back in the lore you can go without spending an arm and a leg on discontinued material on Ebay or Amazon. I would not recommend buying new codices just for the lore unless you have a shite ton of money to burn, and each Codex tends to be very specifically focused on the army in question. (Like, you're not going to get ALL SPACE MARINE HISTORY by buying a Blood Angles Codex.)

Most of my 40k lore knowledge comes from reading literally everything I can get my hands on that's 40k, over the last 20 years.

In a pinch though, just browsing all the topics on Lexicanum is a great start. It's all sourced (where it can be) and has generally decent overviews. It's also straight-laced. If you go to 1d4chan looking for 40k info, you'll find it, but with a ton of snark and memes thrown in to the mix.

[Dutchling]

This made me remember downloading some PDFs a few years ago because I wanted to know what this Warhammer thing was. Never actually bothered reading them though

Spoiler: has some Dark Heresy stuff in it (click to show/hide)

I guess I'll start here..

[Grim Portent]

I dunno, I find the idea that the Emperor has been faffing around in our time in disguise and accomplishing nothing a little implausible. There's also the whole, you know, humanity leaving earth for the stars as well. That would sort of me he stood by and watched the Dark Age of Technology and Old Night happen and did nothing.

He did accomplish stuff, like locking up a C'Tan in Mars after beating it with a lance and a horse, founding most of Earth's religions, many philosophies and occasionally helping out with scientific advances. The Old Night was specifically when he began his conquest of Terra, he spent much of it gathering the supplies to engineer the Thunder Warriors, making an army of them and then conquering Terra. The last little while of it was spent making the Primarchs.

Sooooo- I want to devour all of this lore.

Having very little WH40K experience, which book do you guys recommend for me to start with :V?

The best start would be the fluff sections of the main rule books and the specific army books, but as  novels go I'm very fond of ADB's Night Lords series.

[nenjin]

founding most of Earth's religions, many philosophies and occasionally helping out with scientific advances.

Source? I know which HH novels you're referring to with the prior bit, but I have not seen anything claim he was responsible for the creation of Old Earth religions. He was responsible for their extermination. In the story "The Last Church", the Emperor doesn't seem like a guy who regretfully is unmaking all this stuff he helped start. He seems like a guy who has nothing contempt for religion.

[Drakale]

Sooooo- I want to devour all of this lore.

Having very little WH40K experience, which book do you guys recommend for me to start with :V?

Here is a fun Ork thing for starts
DEFF SKWADRON

mmmh removed the link because it's probably copyrighted. I do know it's not in print anymore though. Very easy to find anyhow.

[Grim Portent]

founding most of Earth's religions, many philosophies and occasionally helping out with scientific advances.

Source? I know which HH novels you're referring to with the prior bit, but I have not seen anything claim he was responsible for the creation of Old Earth religions. He was responsible for their extermination. In the story "The Last Church", the Emperor doesn't seem like a guy who regretfully is unmaking all this stuff he helped start. He seems like a guy who has nothing contempt for religion.

This is ooooold fluff. Pretty sure it's not canon anymore, except the St. George thing since that gets referenced in the HH books.

EDIT: Can't actually recall what it was from, I think it was some scans of old stuff I'd collected out of curiosity, but I lost all that stuff a month or so ago when my laptop got stolen. 

EDITEDIT: I miss my pdf of the orignal Ork codex, it had nice information on squigs. 

[nenjin]

Ork codices are hilarious reads. The humor inherent in the species doesn't really come out in the novels, and I don't think an Ork-focused novel has been written in years. But the bits in the Ork codices are priceless.

This made me remember downloading some PDFs a few years ago because I wanted to know what this Warhammer thing was. Never actually bothered reading them though

Spoiler: has some Dark Heresy stuff in it (click to show/hide)

I guess I'll start here..

I have pretty much all of those. There is only so much "deep lore" you'll get out of them. Basically, current 40k lore stops backward at the pre-Heresy, dabbling with Old Earth lore very, very lightly. There's a big knowledge gap between the Old Ones era, and the Emperor's Reunification of Earth. Partly because some of that is technically our era, and because it's a metric assload of time. I'd really love if GWS published some stuff set in the Dark Age of Technology or Old Night eras....because it's so far from Imperial history, it'd almost be original fiction by GWS standards

Anyways, the Fantasy Flight 40k RPG series of books are a good primer. Just not that great for ancient wisdom.

[Grim Portent]

Ork codices are hilarious reads. The humor inherent in the species doesn't really come out in the novels, and I don't think an Ork-focused novel has been written in years. But the bits in the Ork codices are priceless.

Most of the novel depictions come out fine to me, Orks are funny on the surface, but get pretty damn terrifying when you start to consider the implications of their biology, technology and culture.

Siege of Castellax and Rynn's World both handled them pretty well in my opinion, the Ciphas Cain stuff... eh hit or miss really.

[Avis-Mergulus]

Well he was canonically the St. George who slew the dragon

Emperor on Terra. I just remembered that.
My city (and country) has the Emperor of Mankind on its coat of arms. Whoa.

[nenjin]

Ork codices are hilarious reads. The humor inherent in the species doesn't really come out in the novels, and I don't think an Ork-focused novel has been written in years. But the bits in the Ork codices are priceless.

Most of the novel depictions come out fine to me, Orks are funny on the surface, but get pretty damn terrifying when you start to consider the implications of their biology, technology and culture.

Siege of Castellax and Rynn's World both handled them pretty well in my opinion, the Ciphas Cain stuff... eh hit or miss really.

Well, it's not that the portrayals in the novels are incorrect. They just lack the "moronic but dangerous English soccer hooligan humor" most of the time, opting for showing how hardcore and mean Orks are. Which is fine. Real orky humor pretty much deflates the seriousness of 40k, which is why they have traditionally kept it contained in their codices. But still, some of dat shit is funny. Like a Kommando trying to explain to some Boyz what an ambush is.

I think the Cain novels probably have da funniest Orks out of any novels I've read. Still want to go read 'Ere We Go! I wonder if I can find a scan of it somewhere.

[Grim Portent]

Ork codices are hilarious reads. The humor inherent in the species doesn't really come out in the novels, and I don't think an Ork-focused novel has been written in years. But the bits in the Ork codices are priceless.

Most of the novel depictions come out fine to me, Orks are funny on the surface, but get pretty damn terrifying when you start to consider the implications of their biology, technology and culture.

Siege of Castellax and Rynn's World both handled them pretty well in my opinion, the Ciphas Cain stuff... eh hit or miss really.

Well, it's not that portrayals in the novels are incorrect. They just lack the "moronic but dangerous English soccer hooligan humor" most of the time, opting for showing how hardcore and mean Orks are. Which is fine. Real orky humor pretty much deflates the seriousness of 40k, which is why they have traditionally kept it contained in their codices. But still, some of dat shit is funny. Like a Kommando trying to explain to some boyz what an ambush is.

I remember having great fun playing an Ork Freeboota in a Rogue Trader campaign.

Kaptin Egregious Maximilian Bewiderforce Gitzogga, the finest dressed Ork this side of Octarius. He had a six barreled shotgun that shot flaming bullets. 

[nenjin]

Speaking of Rogue Trade, I really want to run it for my friends, but the Fantasy Flight version is a logistical nightmare sometimes.

[Tack]

I like 1d4chan simply because it's the only wiki which talks about the crunch. I wanna know about tabletop stuff too.

That being said, the Warhammer Wiki is better than Lexicanum for facts 'cos I don't think the Lexicanum is being updated anymore.
But the WHWiki has so, so much adds. I have trouble using it on my phone.


Plus I thought the whole 'Multiple Shamans combining to become the Emphrah' story happened after the dark age of technology.