50 free Warhammer 40k trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
45 free Warhammer 40k trivia questions with answers. In the grim darkness of the far future there is only war, and apparently quite a lot of trivia. This Warhammer 40,000 quiz covers the whole hobby: Games Workshop's rise from a London games shop to the FTSE 100, Rick Priestley's Rogue Trader rulebook of 1987, the lore of the Emperor, the Horus Heresy and the Imperium's million worlds, the factions from Space Marines and Sisters of Battle to Orks, Aeldari, Tyranids, Necrons and the T'au, the Chaos Gods and their literary sources, Black Library's novels and the video games from Dawn of War to Space Marine 2. The easy questions ask what the tagline says and which faction fights for the Emperor. The hard ones want the year Games Workshop was founded, how many hearts a Space Marine has, which 1956 film inspired the daemons, who created the Chaos Gods and what the Land Raider is based on. Built for hobby-shop quiz nights and anyone whose pile of shame has its own postcode. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on the game, its makers and its spin-offs, and each question carries the sentence that backs it up.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In what year was the first edition of Warhammer 40,000 published?
1987
It was subtitled Rogue Trader.
Q 02Games Workshop, the maker of Warhammer 40,000, is headquartered in which English city?
Nottingham
All UK operations moved to the Lenton headquarters in 1997.
Q 0340k was conceived as the sci-fi counterpart to which earlier Games Workshop game?
Warhammer Fantasy Battle
The fantasy game came out in 1983.
Q 04Which word for a subgenre of speculative fiction derives from the game's tagline?
Grimdark
The line is 'In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war'.
Q 05Which Games Workshop division publishes the setting's novels?
Black Library
It began in 1997 with the short-story magazine Inferno! and moved to novels in 1999.
Q 06Games Workshop was founded in 1975 by Ian Livingstone, Steve Jackson and whom?
John Peake
It started out making wooden boards for backgammon and Go before distributing Dungeons & Dragons in the UK.
Q 07Games Workshop's newsletter Owl and Weasel was replaced in 1977 by which magazine?
White Dwarf
It is still going today.
Q 08Games Workshop joined which stock index in December 2024?
The FTSE 100
The company relocated to Lenton, Nottingham in 1997.
Q 09Which figure-making company did Games Workshop help fund in 1978?
Citadel
It was based in Newark-on-Trent.
Q 10Who designed the original Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader?
Rick Priestley
He later founded Warlord Games and co-created Bolt Action.
Q 11The game's creator cites Dune, Paradise Lost, 2000 AD and which horror writer as major influences?
H. P. Lovecraft
The Emperor himself owes something to Leto II from God Emperor of Dune.
Q 12Who first added the Chaos Gods to the Warhammer setting?
Bryan Ansell
Priestley then reworked them, thinking Ansell's version too close to Michael Moorcock.
Q 13The idea of daemons as human nightmares given form came from which 1956 film?
Forbidden Planet
The Horus Heresy story itself deliberately parallels the fall of Satan in Paradise Lost.
Q 21How many original Space Marine Legions were there, two of which are 'redacted' from Imperial records?
20
Nine Legions turned to Chaos and followed Horus in the Heresy.
Q 22How many Legions rebelled against the Emperor during the Horus Heresy?
Nine
The civil war of the 30th millennium is the subject of Black Library's biggest series.
Q 23Which Primarch returned to lead the Imperium and launch the Indomitus Crusade?
Roboute Guilliman
The Eye of Terror had split the galaxy in half.
Q 24The Primaris Space Marines were introduced with which edition?
Q 14The Imperium's ban on artificial intelligence was inspired by which novels?
Dune
As in Dune, it followed an ancient war against thinking machines.
Q 15Roughly how many worlds does the Imperium of Man comprise?
1 million
It has existed for over 10,000 years as an authoritarian techno-feudal theocracy.
Q 16What is the name of the psychic beacon generated by the Emperor's mind?
The Astronomican
Starships use it to navigate the Warp; he has been on life support for ten millennia.
Q 17What is the source of magic in the 40k universe?
The Warp
Individuals with a strong link to it are called psykers, and the Imperium rounds them up.
Q 18What is the Space Marines' formal name?
Adeptus Astartes
The Imperial Guard are the Astra Militarum and the Sisters of Battle the Adepta Sororitas.
Q 19How many hearts does a fully developed Space Marine have?
Two
They also have three lungs and an extra kidney, all grown from implanted gene-seed.
Q 20What is implanted in a recruit to turn them into a Space Marine?
Gene-seed
New gene-seed grows in Marines' own bodies and is harvested surgically for the next generation.
Eighth (2017)
They are taller than the older Firstborn Marines and wear Mark X armour.
Q 25The Space Marines' Land Raider tank is based on which real vehicles?
British Great War tanks
The rhomboid hull and side sponsons give it away.
Q 26What is entombed inside a Dreadnought walker?
A mortally wounded Marine
It is a cyborg walker, not a robot, and the occupant is in there permanently.
Q 27Terminator armour first appeared in 1989 in which spin-off board game?
Space Hulk
Marines fight genestealers in narrow corridors.
Q 28Which Imperial Guard regiment is based on World War One Germany?
The Death Korps of Krieg
Cadia is the other famous regiment.
Q 29Which faction is often described as the female equivalent of Space Marines?
The Sisters of Battle
Their formal name is the Adepta Sororitas.
Q 30Orks were primarily inspired by what?
Football hooligans
They have Cockney accents and start wars purely for the fun of it.