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.
