In the beginning. . .

Among my most prized possessions are my copies of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the Compendium, and Compilation.  I stumbled upon these sometime in 1991 or 1992 in my early days of gaming.  The first draw was that they had Bolt Thrower art on the cover!  Obviously, I now know that I have that reversed, Bolt Thrower had Warhammer 40,000 art on the cover of their album.

I was immediately drawn to the ideas and imagery of this gaming universe - it was like Dungeons and Dragons but in space!  But not the glossy, high sheen, goody-goody space of Star Trek.  This stuff was bleak and nihilistic, but with a sense of humour - perfect for my adolescent mind.  I especially loved the random passages they stuck underneath the book art.  Things like: "For every battle honour, a thousand heroes die alone, unsung, and unremembered." 

Space marines were an immediate draw.  At the time I was enthralled with the movie Excalibur, with Arthur and his buddies listening to Carmina Burana and riding around in Renaissance armor with beaky helmets.  And here was the same aesthetic!  More beaky helmets, but in space and assigned to such troops with such colorful names as "Flesh Eaters" and "Blood Drinkers."

On the other hand, I found the game rules incomprehensible and the very idea of painting miniatures an impossibility.  I have no latent artistic talent and couldn't conceive getting the same results I was seeing in the books - which is amusing to me now because I can paint much better than what is featured in Rogue Trader.

Aside from the cover imagery, I never made the connection that much of the rest of Bolt Thrower's Realm of Chaos was in reference to WFB/W40K.  Mainly because I never knew of the existence of the two chaos books.  Again, this was the days before internet.

If you ever have the opportunity to page through these early tomes, I highly recommend it.  Its interesting to see the genesis of the 40K universe and game system.  The Compendium and Compilation are collections of articles from White Dwarf.  You get early versions of the Eldar, terminator armor, and even Genestealer cults, which have since gone the way of the squats (which are also in there).  Actually, re-reading these helps me appreciate the ire of gamers dealing with their "squatted" armies; miniatures that existed long before Dark Elder, Sisters of Battle, Necrons, and Robotech (err, Tau) were ever a glimmer in Games Workshop's eye. 

Its also interesting to compare and contrast the flavor of these early books to later works.  The earliest stuff is both grittier but also much more cartoony than current works.  They are definitely the work of a collection of young, inspired artists and game designers working around a central theme, but in its early days before the vision was fully realized. . .and implemented with corporate efficiency.