Try Warhammer Magazine: What We Know (and How to Start Warhammer)

Someone at the dinner table asks what Warhammer actually is. You open your mouth, and forty minutes later you are explaining the Horus Heresy with a gravy boat standing in for a Titan. Their eyes have glazed. Yours are shining. Nobody has learnt anything.

Games Workshop has clearly been to that dinner. In its Sunday Preview for 15 November 2026 it announced Try Warhammer, a brand-new 80-page magazine built to be the first thing you hand a curious newcomer. Here is what we know, what we don't yet, and how to get from 'what is Warhammer?' to rolling dice without remortgaging the house. If you just want to see the hobby up close, our full Warhammer range is a good place to have a nose.

What is the Try Warhammer magazine?

In Games Workshop's own words, Try Warhammer is a new 80-page magazine and 'the perfect introduction to Warhammer'. It is filled with lore, hobby advice and big, glossy images, and it covers the two flagship settings:

• Warhammer 40,000: the grim, gothic sci-fi one. Space Marines, Orks, Necrons and a galaxy where nothing has gone right for ten thousand years.
• Warhammer Age of Sigmar: the high-fantasy one. Gods, storms, Stormcast Eternals and an awful lot of Skaven.

Think of it as the friendly tour guide that White Dwarf never quite was. White Dwarf is brilliant, but it is written for people who already know their Primaris from their Firstborn. Try Warhammer is pitched at the person who doesn't know there is a difference, and doesn't yet care.

What we don't know yet

The announcement was a short paragraph in a busy preview (it shared the stage with the Tomb Kings of Khemri and a Night Goblin pitch invasion), so a few big questions are still open:

• Price: not announced.
• Release date: not announced.
• Models in the bag: GW mentions lore, hobby advice and images. It does not mention miniatures, paints or rules, so don't assume there's a free Space Marine taped to the front.
• Where it is sold: not confirmed, nor whether it's a one-off or a regular series.

We'll update this page as soon as Games Workshop confirms the details. Until then, treat any listing quoting a price or a free model with healthy scepticism.

How it compares with GW's other beginner options

Try Warhammer isn't the first 'start here' product, so it helps to know where it sits:

• Getting Started With Age of Sigmar: a beginner magazine that comes with a couple of push-fit miniatures, so you can build something on day one. See Getting Started With Age of Sigmar.
• Introductory Sets: the cheapest boxed way to play, with miniatures, paints and a rules booklet. Both the Warhammer 40,000 Introductory Set and the Age of Sigmar Introductory Set sit here.
• Getting Started boxes: a full starter army plus paints, like Getting Started with Space Marines and Getting Started with Orks.
• White Dwarf: the monthly magazine for people already hooked. Lovely, but not where you start. Back issues live in our White Dwarf collection.

So Try Warhammer looks like the step before all of these: read it, decide which setting grabs you, then buy plastic. That's a sensible order, and frankly a cheaper one than buying an army because the box art looked cool. (We've all done it. We're not judging. Much.)

40k or Age of Sigmar: which should you try first?

This is the question the magazine is really there to help you answer. The short version:

• Pick 40k if: you like sci-fi, tanks, big guns and a setting so bleak it loops back round to funny.
• Pick Age of Sigmar if: you like fantasy, monsters, magic and armies that look like a heavy metal album cover.
• Still stuck? Pick the models you most want to paint. You'll spend far more hours with a brush than with a rulebook.

If you want to see what other people pick, we crunched our own sales figures in the most popular Warhammer factions. It's a handy shortlist when every army looks good.

Your first steps into Warhammer (with or without the magazine)

Step 1: Read up for free (or nearly free)

• Grab Try Warhammer when it lands, or browse our Warhammer hub to get a feel for the factions.

Step 2: Pick a setting, then a starter box

• For 40k, our guide to what you actually need to start Warhammer 40k walks through every option for 11th Edition.
• For Age of Sigmar, our Age of Sigmar starter sets guide tells you which box is worth it.

Step 3: Get the basics for painting

• You don't need fifty pots. Start with the essentials from the Warhammer Colour paint range, and read our painting tips for beginners before your first coat.
• Painting a 40k army? The 10 paints your army actually needs saves you buying colours you'll never open.

Step 4: Play a game

• Plan a small army with MOAB, our free 40k army builder, or come along to the shop in Barry and play with people who've already made every beginner mistake for you. Details are on our Visit Us page.

Is Try Warhammer worth picking up?

For a complete newcomer, almost certainly. Eighty pages of lore and hobby advice is a lot of 'what is this?' answered in one go, and it's a far gentler start than a 60-page rules download. For anyone already painting, it's likely a nice read rather than a must-have, unless you're buying it to hand to a mate you're trying to recruit. Which, let's be honest, is exactly what most of us will do.

Once the price and date are confirmed we'll give it a proper value-for-money verdict here.

Final Thought: Try Warhammer is GW admitting the hobby has a steep first step and building a ramp. Read the magazine, pick the setting that makes you grin, buy one starter box, and paint it before you buy the next. That last bit is the hard part. No magazine can help you there.

Further reading: What Do You Actually Need to Start Warhammer 40k? and Age of Sigmar Starter Sets: Which Box Should You Buy?