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How to dive into Warhammer 40k after you beat Space Marine 2

If you've just discovered the Warhammer 40k universe in Space Marine 2 and want more, this guide has the best entry points to go deeper.

How to get into Warhammer 40k after Space Marine 2 - an image of a red-limned sinister figure wielding a crackling blade facing off against a blue armored warrior with an iron halo framed by angelic wings

You’ve beaten Space Marine 2, played every Operation, found every dataslate, and you’re still hungry for more Warhammer 40k lore – but where should you begin? The 40k franchise has been going for over forty years with hundreds of books, dozens of games, not to mention the world’s most popular miniature wargame. Don’t worry – this guide has all the information you need.

If you finished Space Marine 2 wanting a very top level overview of the universe and the hobby as a whole, check out our guide explaining ‘What is Warhammer 40k?’ Wargamer’s library of Warhammer 40k faction guides will also be useful, as they have lore overviews for everything from Space Marines to Tyranids.

But we strongly recommend you go straight to the source with our picks of the best games, books, and other media that will take you deeper into the grimdark world of Warhammer 40k.

This is the best way to get into Warhammer 40k after beating Space Marine 2:

Screenshot from Warhammer 40k Darktide, a great 40k game to play after Space Marine 2

Great Warhammer 40k games to play next

All of these games appear on our guide to the best Warhammer 40k games, but we’ve singled them out because they’ll drop you right into the universe with great stories or impeccable world building.

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Chaos Gate Daemonhunters

Chaos Gate Daemonhunters is a turn-based strategy game, and a stonking good one, earning a place on our list of the best games like XCOM. Controlling elite Grey Knights space marines, you fight back the vile forces of the Chaos plague God, Nurgle. It may feel like a power fantasy initially, but the danger you face escalates fast and keeps on rising…

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Mechanicus

Mechanicus is another turn-based game with a brilliantly written story and a soundtrack so good we sometimes listen to it on repeat for hours without realising it. It’s a great introduction to the post-human tech-priests of the Adeptus Mechanicus and the ancient, alien Necrons. Their tombs might be a bit familiar to those who have completed the final Space Marine 2 missions

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Darktide

Darktide is a four player co-op FPS set on a hive world overrun by Chaos cultists. It’s light on direct narrative, but the ambience is incredible. The level design, chatter between your companions, and even the descriptions of items will immerse you in the 40k universe and what it’s like to exist there. It’s also a corking shooter in its own right, and the soundtrack is a blood pumper.

What is Warhammer 40k - artwork by Games Workshop and Wizards of the Coast of Abaddon the Despoiler, a mighty chaos warlord wearing black power armour, wielding a lethal claw and a daemonic blade

The best Warhammer 40k books to start with

While our guide to the best Warhammer 40k books is full of bangers, the selection we’ve picked below is going to be more accessible for total beginners. GW doesn’t keep all of its novels in print, but these are all available as Audible audiobooks as well as on Kindle.

What to read after Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2: Dante

Dante

What does it take to become a Space Marine, and what are their lives like when they’re not at war? Dante follows a very significant character in the Blood Angels chapter, and is technically part of a much longer series, but it’s a really good introduction to the harshness of life in the 41st millennium, and the strangeness of the Space Marines.

What to read after Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2: the Devastation of Baal

The Devastation of Baal

The next book in the same series as Dante, The Devastation of Baal goes in depth on the mass Tyranid invasion of the Blood Angels home world. It’s a siege defense that will absolutely resonate if you’ve been crushing it in Operations mode, and puts the invasion of Kadaku into proportion: the war on Kadaku barely rates as a skirmish compared to the war on Baal!

What to read after Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2: Night Lords

The Night Lords trilogy

The Night Lords trilogy by Aaron Dembski-Bowden shows you what it’s like to be a Chaos Space Marine renegade. This was one of the first books to do this successfully, following a kidnapped Imperial navigator who learns about the culture of her captors at the same time as the readers. The Night Lord Talos and his band of misfit warriors are particularly enjoyable monsters, each one afflicted, cursed, and damned in his own interesting way.

What to read after Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2: Bloodlines

Warhammer Crime: Bloodlines

Bloodlines is a classic noir detective novel that happens to be set on an Imperial hive world. Because the average imperial citizen knows so little about the wider galaxy, you don’t need any lore to get on board with the story – it’s just a good solid detective story in a very bleak sci-fi world. It also has one of the coolest power-weapons in the setting – power knuckle dusters.

What to read after Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2: Marneus Calgar

Marneus Calgar

Want to know more about the origins of Marneus Calgar, the Ultramarines Chapter Master? This short Marvel comic, written by Kieron Gillen and illustrated by gore-master Jacen Burrows, is action packed, witty, and as explosively violent as Space Marine 2.

What to read after Warhammer 40k Space Marine 2: Horus Rising

The Horus Heresy series

If you want to go in at the deep end, the huge Horus Heresy series explores the most important event in the Imperium’s tragic history, the civil war in the year 30,000 that almost destroyed mankind. This is a truly massive series with many strands: our Horus Heresy book order guide is intended to help you navigate it.

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Original Warhammer TV animations

Aside from the upcoming Space Marine 2 Amazon Prime animation, Games Workshop makes original Warhammer 40k short animated films. These are only available via its Warhammer Plus subscription service.

If you’re a newcomer to the franchise, we don’t recommend you subscribe for more than one month. The original animations are a very small part of the subscription, and you have to really want everything you get in it to make a full year subscription worthwhile.

You may have heard about a Warhammer 40k Henry Cavill film deal. That’s still in the works: we’ll know in December whether it’s going to proceed beyond initial discussions.

Models from the Warhammer 40k miniature wargame - something you could play after completing Space Marine 2

Try Warhammer 40k the miniature wargame

The Warhammer 40k rulebook is a massive tome, but most of it isn’t rules – it’s an encyclopaedia of the Warhammer 40k universe, packed with lore, amazing illustrations, and photographs of beautifully painted miniatures.

If you like one faction in particular, each faction has its own Warhammer 40k Codex book, which has game rules and faction lore. Because people tend to play the latest version of the game, you can find Codexes from previous editions pretty cheaply second hand.

If you do fancy giving the game a try, we have a guide to the different Warhammer 40k starter sets which will help you pick the correct one. We also have guides to painting miniatures, including one focused just on how to paint Space Marines – after a tense Operation, it’s actually a great way to unwind!