Warhammer and Warhammer 40k

[Irony's Acolyte]

They aren't really within the same universe. Originally 40k was Warhammer Fantasy in space, but it evolved away from it.

There are some things that they have in common. The Greenskin races are in both, humanity (obviously), the four Chaos gods are all present in both, and the Old Ones are also mentioned in the background for the Lizardmen and the Necrons.

There are some odd theories I got that might mean that they are connected. Sigmar is a total beast in Warhammer. Perhaps he might be a Primarch? He seems to be similar to the other Primarchs before they were found by Imperial forces.

If I may explain an odd theory I have, the Great Maw from the Ogre Kingdoms has caught my interest. A giant green meteor falls out of the sky and devours its way through the Warhammer world. The interesting thing I find about it is that it was said that before the Great Maw meteor hit, it was growing green and had a massive mouth on it. After it hit, the ogres began to feel a hunger like never before. They are now driven to consume anything and everything for their ever-hungry god. Switch to the 40k universe. The Necrons are lead by the C'tan, star gods of immense power that hunger for the souls of anything living. Right now it is said that only 4 remain. Two are described in the Necron Codex: The Nightbringer and The Deceiver. The third is heavily hinted at being the Void Dragon and is worshiped by the Mechanicum on Mars. This leaves one more unknown. My theory: the Great Maw is this final C'tan. It fell from the sky one night obliterating a huge area of land. It has caused an unnatural hunger to prevail throughout the Orges and its always hungry. It's just my theory though.

The one thing that kinda separates the two universes is that the 40k-verse is our timeline 39,000 years in the future. So unless the Warhammer world is a yet undiscovered planet, it isn't part of the 40k-verse.

Edit: Although they might be connected by the warp. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that the Chaos Gods are manipulating two (or maybe more!) universes.

 

[Nouw]

Because of the chaos gods possibly. Perhaps a different dimension or something.

 

[Daffy F]

I always thought the idea was they're the same universe, but 40K is set in the year 40,000.

Nope, there's a pretty well defined timeline of the Imperium. It is very, very unlikely that Warhammer Fantasy is "past" and 40K is "future". Mainly because 40K's past is, well... our own.

Oh. Damn

 

[A-D.]

Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40.000 are seperate Entities but in a way are basicly linked. For example, for a long Time in Warhammer Fantasy there were 3 Chaos Gods and not more, because the fourth was born millenia later, in the 40k Universe. The general Chaos Gods are the same and the Races share superficial Features, there are Greenskins, but no Orks, "Dark Elves" are sort of like the Dark Eldar more or less, Humans are split between order and chaos (Space Marines and Chaos Space Marines respectively) so yes, they share a certain root as a base but are seperate of each other. Basicly Warhammer Fantasy is a possible Scenario to point out what would happen if you pushed 40K into a smaller Area of War, namely one Planet. Or that it is set in a parallel Universe that basicly exists at the exact same Time but is less technologically advanced and there is some "overspill" of Races which are similar but entirely different.

Basicly speaking, 40K, being that it came out later, is technically a Copy of Fantasy set into a much further advanced Universe, the Races were renamed and changed accordingly and they still share a certain basis on both sides. So there are "overlaps" of Lore where you could point to either Game and it would make sense, i.e. the existence of 3 Chaos Gods in Fantasy because the 4th was born much later.

 

[Spacewolf]

the Warhammer world used to be a world in the Eye of terror, the Great maw was possibly a tyranid and sigmar was likly to be a primarch since then they have been retconned into 2 seperate entities

 

[Bocaj2000]

I've always assumed that WH40k was set 40k years after the setting of WH.

maybe not; that makes way too much sense

 

[kouriichi]

I belive theyer different universes of the same history, based on the time when chaos came out of the warp.

I.E. Warhammer fantasy is a universe when the chaos gods reviled themselfs long ago, back before the middle ages.

While 40k is where the chaos gods waited to spill over until a more recent, or future time, such as 2012.

Heres to wishing it will happen!

 

[alrekr]

In one novel set in the 40k universe some space marines went to a planet which was the warhammer world or time traveled or sometihng via the warp and ended up in the warhammer world and became the gods of the empire etc..., while chaos had also started to seep into the world. Though not sure if this is Games workshop cannon anymore as they like to change canno a lot, like removing squats (space dwarfs). I nearly got kicked out of games workshop store for mentioning squats.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Conceptually, yes, they originally were the same universe, but they evolved away from that when somebody said something about Slaanesh being so young in the 40k universe.

 

[bobknowsall]

I originally believed that 40k was just Warhammer in the future, but I don't think it is now. I believe Warhammer is your typical medievel fantasy realm, whereas 40k is supposed to be the future of our current RL timeline.

Yeah, there's not really a definite answer. They contain references to each other, especially when it comes to "enchanted" weapons in WHFB.

 

[Horus Lupercal]

it is my belief that they are seperate universes as stated above, But (again, as stated above) they are connected through the warp, in the Liber chaotica (a warhammer fantasy book detailing the chaos gods) the writer sees the 40k universe and describes chaos marines, and even connects the old ones from 40k to the old ones in the fantasy setting.