Faction Index

Warhammer 40,000 has no shortage of factions, and the archive covers most of them in depth. This index sorts them into the Imperium, Chaos and the xenos, with a short summary of each and links to our own posts on the subject. For a structured path through the multi-part series, try the Reading Order, or the timeline for the history.

The Imperium

Space Marines (Adeptus Astartes)

Genetically enhanced, heavily conditioned warriors who act as the Imperium's elite shock troops. They are organised into semi-independent Chapters, each with its own home, culture and traditions.

Adeptus Custodes

A small, secretive order of towering golden-armoured warriors who serve as the Emperor's personal guard. They are rarely seen away from Terra.

Adepta Sororitas

The armed order of the Imperial faith, whose warriors carry flame and bolter into battle for the Ecclesiarchy. Their zeal is as much a weapon as their wargear.

Adeptus Mechanicus

The tech-priests of Mars, who worship a Machine God and guard the technical knowledge the Imperium runs on. Their bodies are part flesh and part machine, and they trade secrets as carefully as weapons.

Astra Militarum (Imperial Guard)

Billions of ordinary soldiers from countless worlds who hold the line with numbers, artillery and armour. They take terrible losses and keep fighting anyway.

Inquisition and Officio Assassinorum

Shadowy investigators with the authority to act against heresy, corruption and alien influence, even among the Imperium's own rulers. The assassin temples handle the quieter, deadlier jobs.

Imperial Knights

Giant walking war machines crewed by the noble houses of feudal worlds. A single Knight can stand taller than the tanks around it.

Chaos

The Chaos Gods

Four powers formed from mortal feeling in the warp, each offering gifts at a ruinous price: war, change, decay and excess. Their followers mostly believe they are the ones in control.

Daemons and Daemon Engines

The warp-born servants of the Chaos Gods, from minor horrors to the princes who earned immortality. Daemon engines fuse machine and daemon into something that should not run.

The Black Legion

The largest renegade force in the galaxy, gathered around its warmaster Abaddon. It launches Black Crusades aimed at the Imperium's heart.

The Traitor Legions

The Space Marine Legions that followed Horus in the Heresy, each warped in its own way by what it chose to serve. Their grudges are ten thousand years old.

The Eye of Terror and the Warp

The great rupture in real space where Chaos holds sway, and the unstable realm of the warp that surrounds every star-faring civilisation.

Xenos

Aeldari

An ancient, psychically gifted people whose empire collapsed through its own excess. The survivors cling to craftworlds, wander as corsairs or live as outcasts.

Drukhari

Raiders from the hidden city of Commorragh who take captives for sport and survival. They are cruel by design and elegant while they do it.

Necrons

Ancient metal warriors waking from tomb worlds after an immense sleep. They want their old territory back and see the younger species as squatters.

Orks

A loud, brutal and cheerfully violent race that lives for the fight and spreads across the stars on its own. Where there is a big enough warboss, there is a Waaagh.

T'au Empire

A young, technologically sophisticated power that expands by persuasion as much as by force, guided by a creed called the Greater Good. It leans on allied species to make up for its limits.

Tyranids

A swarm from beyond the galaxy that consumes whole planets to feed its hive fleets. It adapts to each enemy it meets, and only grows.

Leagues of Votann

Tough, clan-minded kin from the galactic core who bargain as hard as they fight. They arrived on the scene recently and are still working out their place in it.

Author

Cassia Vell

Cassia Vell covers the armies of the galaxy: Space Marine Chapters and Traitor Legions, the Aeldari, Necrons, Tyranids, Orks and T’au, plus the tanks and war machines of the Astra Militarum. The focus is on what makes each faction tick: doctrine, culture, wargear and the old grudges that drive them.

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Cassia Vell