Warhammer 40,000 is chock full of bad guys, with almost every faction committing atrocities on a daily basis. There’s the main protagonist, the Imperium of Man, which is literally the most brutal and inhumane regime in existence. The Chaos Space Marines have been locked in a 10,000 year war, using the powers of the Dark Gods to fuel their armies. And of course there’s the dimwitted, sexy Dark Eldar who are torturing and pillaging their way across the galaxy. But there’s one particular type of villain that’s missing from the setting, and a recent one Warhammer Age of Sigmar release puts that in stark contrast: I demand that Games Workshop add Skaven to 40K, you cowards.
The Skaven have long been present in Warhammer fantasy settings, including Age of Sigmaran alternative fantasy setting introduced in 2015. The new Warhammer Age of Sigmar Skaventide box set — which went on pre-order on June 29 — pits the Skaven, a ravenous horde of rat people who scratch at every door and dimension in the hopes of finding something to amuse themselves with, against the noble Stormcast Eternals. Age of Sigmar has some great villains, like the father of necromancy and eternal hater Nagash, but few are as beloved as the Skaven. They are even the antagonist in the popular Vermintide games developed by Fatshark. You can’t really avoid the Skaven, and the only thing that helps is that they are so busy fighting each other that they sometimes forget their mission of total destruction.
The Skaven are bipedal creatures that swarm en masse, which is dangerous enough, but the fact that they have a pretty good grasp on technology only makes matters worse. In the original Warhammer Fantasy Battlesthe human empires largely denied the existence of Skaven. (There are no rats living in Altdorf, waiting to rise up and overthrow humanity. That is ridiculous; you just have to see things. Don’t ask any more questions about the giant rats that walk like people.) They worship a Chaos entity called the Great Horned Rat, who is not a literal rat, but the metaphysical manifestation of all things rat-like.
The Great Horned Rat has a hairy finger in many different pies, but his main goal is simply to keep the rest of his horde organized and focused. In the lore of Age of Sigmara magical apocalypse has transformed the traditional fantasy realm of Warhammer Fantasy Battlesand the setting is more of a multiverse. There are eight mortal realms, and then layers of subrealms and alternate realities. One of those is the home of the Skaven, Blight City. The Skaven have organized themselves into 13 clans and have chewed holes in each of the eight realms. Each Skaven thinks they are the best rat there is, which makes for a lot of backstabbing, betrayal, and bickering.
The Skaven are known for their use of warpstone, an extremely powerful crystal formed from pure Chaos energy, to power technology that’s wildly unpredictable—but also great for assassination. Sure, a few dozen rats can explode into a fine mist if you line up a certain McGuffin just right, but that’s a small price to pay for an extremely powerful autocannon or a far-reaching communications device.
But why would we want a faction of sentient rats in the grim darkness of the far future? Well, we mentioned the warpstone. But also? The Great Horned Rat is a pretty big deal. Traditionally, Warhammer settings have four Chaos Gods: the violent Khorne, the cunning Tzeentch, the delicious Slaanesh, and the plague-loving Nurgle. In Age of SigmarThe Great Horned Rat is also at the table, a feat many have attempted but none have succeeded in. So why not fully elevate the Skaven to the sci-fi big leagues?
As a faction, the Skaven are in an interesting position due to their inherent duality. On the one hand, they’re a bunch of silly little guys running around and doing antics. On the other, they’re terrifying creatures who want nothing more than to skin you and then gnaw on your bones. An episode of Hammer and Bolter, normally available as part of the subscription service Warhammer Plus, was recently made available on YouTube. It shows how hunting down the Skaven is a difficult task.
What makes matters worse are recent developments in the tradition of Age of Sigmar have brought the Skaven on the offensive. They are no longer content with pillaging and raiding from afar. Archaon the Everchosen, one of the main antagonists of Age of Sigmarworked with the Great Horned Rat to teleport the subrealm of Blight City into reality. Much of Blight City appeared in the realm of Aqshy, one of the mortal realms, in an event called the Vermindoom.
For context, imagine you see rat holes chewing through the foundation of your house. You’d probably be pretty worried, set up traps, and call an exterminator. Now imagine the rats have smashed through the drywall and taken over the master bedroom. It won’t be long before you’ve barricaded yourself in the basement, hoping the rat men will settle for raiding your refrigerator for cheese.
It may come as no surprise that the Skaven are so popular that fans regularly demand that they appear in Warhammer 40,000. I’m going to join them in saying: please, in the distant sci-fi future of 40K, let the Rat Army appear as more than just a rare cameo. It’s what we deserve. Some of the antagonists are nuanced, and we’re meant to see ourselves in their own moral failings. Others are giant, stinking rats with a huge cannon, and that’s great. They don’t even need spaceships – rats are notorious for hitching rides on craft, after all. Why not a Space Hulk?
I’d personally be willing to kneel before our new sci-fi rat overlords, as long as Games Workshop can whittle down a decent 2000 point army to a reasonable number of miniatures.