bingewatches

Every once in a while Games Workshop, the multi-billion-dollar monolith dubbed by at least one competitor as “the most disruptive of all tabletop companies,” does something surprisingly introspective. Sometimes it’s a comic book partnership that exposes the intrinsic frailty of its main characters. Other times it’s a surprisingly clear and firm stance against racism. This past weekend it was about putting characters on the table that should have been there from the beginning. For its troubles the British company was rewarded with a sell-out set online.

The set in question is Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team – Blood and Zeal, a collection of 19 new miniatures and some reprinted terrain. Designed for the skirmish miniatures game Kill Team, it’s an expansion set for existing players. But it’s also the rare instance of Games Workshop pulling back the curtain on its own universe and filling in some blanks.

Human society in the world of 40K isn’t just the product of a hyper-militarized totalitarian state, and that means it’s not all Space Marines and Martian cyborgs. It’s also home to a powerful theocracy that venerates the Emperor of Mankind as a literal god. That means about half of the plastic folks inside the Blood and Zeal box are furious zealots, utterly corrupted by their belief in a false god, and who carry on their shoulders the fate and well-being of huge swathes of the civilian population in the 41st millennia. The other miniatures follow Chaos.

The Ecclesiarchy, as the theocratic arm of the Empire has come to be known, is perhaps the single most insidious feature in the world of 40K. It worships a man who said explicitly “please do not worship me” to multiple people, many, many times. And yet the fiction is clear in detailing how some people in this world realized that there was power to be gained by creating the Cult of the Emperor — a cult that is quite valuable as a tool of control, a bludgeon to beat the common folk into submission with. The Ecclesiarchy isn’t the source of humanity’s worst impulses, including but not limited to xenophobia, vigilante violence, and mob action. But it’s absolutely not working against it either. The violence and the fear that imbues every corner of the Imperium isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. And now we have some miniatures to put a face to that fact.

These are literally the most servile, most brain-rotted fanatics in the universe. Fitting, then, that they be bundled in a box with the forces of Chaos. Reading through the fiction that comes inside that box, it’s clear that there are billions more members of the Ecclesiarchy than there are Space Marines. There may actually be more religious extremists in this particular sector of the far-future galaxy than there are Imperial Guardsmen. And they all suck.

At the same time, they are characterized as the social glue that literally holds the Imperium of Mankind together. Without their blood and zeal, without their devotion and their hatred, humanity would literally collapse in on itself and fall victim to the depredations of Chaos — or the Tyranids, or the Orks, or any number of other factions that are dead set on deleting humankind from the map of the galaxy. So it’s important, in a way, that we finally have some faces to go with the names.

And yet while Blood and Zeal fills a practical niche by fleshing out the universe’s storytelling and adding content for Kill Team, it also fills out a niche in the larger hobby as well. These are figures that should be visible in every aspect of tabletop 40K — Kill Team, of course, but also Necromunda, the full-fat wargame Warhammer 40,000, and also tabletop role-playing games like Imperium Maledictum.

I hate them. And I’m also glad that they exist as physical objects. I recommend picking them up, if only so you can finally look them all in their beady little eyes.

Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team – Blood and Zeal is sold out online, but you can expect to find it available at your local game store beginning April 5. The product was reviewed using retail product provided by Games Workshop. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships, but not with Games Workshop. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.