Warhammer 40,000 species

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The Warhammer 40,000 game, and consequentially the fictional universe, is made up of many races and species. Many of these species are represented in the actual game through armies and figurines. However, not all of the species that are important to the game and its storyline are available as an army. Instead, these 'extra' species are written about within the codexes, rulebooks and other literature available for the game in order to build up a more elaborate storyline and to explain the current state of the game better. The major ones are:

Contents

0.0.1 The Imperium
0.0.2 Chaos
0.0.3 The Eldar
0.0.4 Other Major Species and Races
0.0.5 Minor Species, Races, and Groups

1 References
2 See also

The Imperium

The Imperium of Man is the empire that contains the majority of humanity. It was created, and is controlled, by the Emperor, an all-powerful, immortal being. The Imperium features four playable armies:

Example of Imperial Guard units

Daemonhunters: forces dedicated to defeating chaotic influences.
Imperial Guard: the main fighting force of the Imperium.
Space Marines: elite superhuman soldiers.
Witch Hunters: forces dedicated to removing any heresy against the Emperor.

The other major factions of the Imperium that are not playable as armies in their own right include:

Adeptus Custodes: The Emperor's Bodyguard.
Adeptus Mechanicus: The tech-priests of Mars.
Imperial Navy: inter-stellar transport within the Imperium.
The Inquisition: the secret religious police force of the Imperium; includes the Daemonhunters and the Witch Hunters amongst others.
Officio Assassinorum: human assassins of the Imperium.
Adeptus Arbites: Unflinching enforcers of Imperial secular law.

Many of these non-playable forces can be represented using existing forces; White Dwarf has in past done features on armies such as a Custodian Guard force created using Space Marine rules and a Mechanicus force based upon Imperial Guard. Others, like the Arbites and the Officio Assassinorum, function as allies for armies that do exist, such as an Ordo Hereticus Inquisitor bringing along a Culexis Assassin.

Chaos

Example of a Chaos Terminator

The forces of Chaos consist of those humans who rebelled against the Emperor during the Horus Heresy, as well as renegades and corsairs who turned in the 10,000 years since then, and their daemonic allies.

Chaos Space Marines: those Space Marines who rebelled during the Heresy.
The Lost and the Damned: humans who worship the gods of Chaos.

The Eldar

The Eldar are an ancient race, who once were the dominant force in the galaxy. However, they fell to corruption from within, and now live as nomads from their previous homeworlds. There are three main factions of Eldar:

Eldar: those Eldar who fled before the Fall on massive ships known as Craftworlds.
Dark Eldar: those Eldar who have embraced the fall, and continue to live a hedonistic life in hiding from the Chaos God Slaanesh.
Exodites: Eldar who fled to the edge of Eldar space before the Fall and began to live a more primitive lifestyle.

Other Major Species and Races

Necrons: an ancient robotic race, who wish to accumulate souls for their C'tan masters.
Orks: a race of green-skinned humanoids who occasionally go on a crusade known as a Waaagh!.
Tau: a race just entering the galactic scene, with an amazingly high degree of technological utilization (though still inferior to other established races in terms of technology available).
*Kroot: bird-like, though generally flightless, warrior allies of the Tau.
Tyranids: a massive horde of creatures attacking the galaxy from without and attempting to devour all other creatures.

Minor Species, Races, and Groups

Along with the major races and species, there are a number of smaller races and species. Not all of these are active within the game, but all play a part in the history and storyline of the game.

Abhumans: descendents of humans, modified in various ways by the environmental conditions on the planets on which they have evolved.
C'tan: the race worshipped by the Necrons.
Demiurg: a race of short humanoids, allied with the Tau.
Drugh: large larval invertebrates with advanced psionic capability.
Gretchin: Gretchin are the Orks' slaves. Small, grasping, green creatures with the overall demeanour of a whipped dog, gretchin are at the wrong end of everything, including the food chain.
Hrud: a rodent-like species.
Jokaero: resemble orangutans. They are famous for their technical brilliance. They are believed to be extinct.
K'Nib: described as "festering clawed fiends", have 10 limbs.
Nicassar: a psychic race allied with the Tau.
Necrontyr: the race that became the Necrons.
Nekulli: little known about the Nekulli race, apart from their Whisperlance technology.
Old Ones: an ancient race who fought the C'tan.
Q'Orl : an insectoid species, whose empire is centred on the swarmworld of Loqiit.
Slann: a reptilian species.
Squats: a race of short humanoids who were destroyed by the Tyranids
Tallerian: dog-like mercenary allies of the Tau
Thyrrus : a squid-like race with colour changing skin.
Umbra : a species of floating spheres with a hard, black carapace.
Vespid: an insectoid race allied with the Tau.
Viskeon: huge muscled humanoid creatures, when part of their body is cut off, a foetus forms from it, feeding off its nutrients to eventually become a fully formed Viskeon.
Xenarch: an isolationalist, warp-worshipping species from the Galactic north.
Zoat: large, strange, centaur-like creatures that were conquered by the Tyranids. The Zoats were used as a slave race for the hive mind and its followers, and many revolts by the zoats (brutally put down by the tyranids)led to the near extinction of their race.