Leagues of Votann: Warhammer 40K Lore Guide

Deep in the galactic core, where stars crowd so close together that the night sky burns and radiation scours every world, there lives a people the Imperium barely knows. They are short, stocky and immensely tough. They mine dead worlds and asteroid fields for riches beyond counting, trade with anyone whose coin is good and never, ever forget an insult. They are the Kin, the warriors and prospectors of the Leagues of Votann, and they are guided by the ancient thinking machines they revere as their Ancestors.

The Leagues of Votann are the newest major army in Warhammer 40,000, but their roots go back to the very beginning of the setting. They are the modern heirs of the Squats, one of the original Rogue Trader factions, reimagined as a proud, mercantile and technologically sophisticated civilization. This guide covers the Kin and their origins, the Votann Ancestor Cores, the Leagues themselves, their famous Grudges, their armies and the long real-world history behind them. For the wider picture, see our complete overview of the Warhammer 40K factions.

Leagues of Votann at a Glance

The Kin: Children of the Long March

The Kin trace their origins to a time of myth, long before the Imperium existed. According to their own traditions, great mining fleets departed their ancestral homeworld during an age of advanced technology and traveled into the galactic core in search of its riches. This journey is remembered as the Long March. The fleets never returned. Isolated in the core, amid lethal radiation, crushing gravity and dense, dangerous star clusters, their descendants adapted and endured.

Over millennia, the Kin became something distinct from baseline humanity. They are compact and powerfully built, with remarkable resilience to radiation, toxins and injuries that would kill a human. Their bodies are bred under the oversight of their Ancestor Cores, and their culture is shaped by generations spent prospecting the most hostile places in the galaxy. The Kin share a distant history with Mankind, but they feel little kinship with the Imperium and have fought grueling wars against Imperial armies in the past.

The Kin are close-mouthed with outsiders. They are reluctant to reveal the true extent of their civilization in the core, and most Imperial citizens have never heard of them. That is changing in the current era, as the Great Rift's upheaval drags the Kin into wider conflicts and brings ancient enemies to their borders. Characteristically, the Kin refuse to give the Great Rift a grand name, believing that would only lend it superstitious power.

The Votann: Ancestor Cores

At the heart of Kin civilization are the Votann, also called Ancestor Cores. These are vast, venerable artificial intelligences that the Kin believe were created in that lost age of myth and sent into the void aboard the first mining fleets, to provide the Kin with all the wisdom and aid they would ever need. In Kin tradition, the Votann and the First Ancestors have blurred together, and the Kin use the two ideas almost interchangeably.

The Votann guide every aspect of Kin society, from genetics and strategy to trade. When a Kin dies, their mind and experiences are offered up to their Ancestor Core, in the belief that they will enrich it and help future generations. This places enormous pressure on every Kin to live a full and worthy life, and it is one of the reasons Kin warbands travel far beyond the core: experience gathered in foreign wars is a gift to bring home to the Ancestors. The harshest punishment the Kin know is exile, which means never rejoining one's Votann at all.

The Votann are also the Kin's greatest vulnerability. Every Ancestor Core is irreplaceable, and they are protected by fortress vaults, force fields, elite guardians and mobile flagships. There are hints that the cores are slowly declining, perhaps overwhelmed by millennia of duplicated data from a growing civilization. And to the Imperium, a thinking machine is an "Abominable Intelligence", one of the gravest heresies imaginable. Should the Adeptus Mechanicus ever learn the full truth about the Votann, the result would be either a holy war of extermination or an all-consuming hunt to seize their secrets.

Kindreds, Holds and Leagues

Kin society is built in layers. The basic unit is the Kindred, a group somewhere between an extended clan and a genetically related nation, which can number from a few dozen Kin to many millions. Each Kindred is ruled by a Hearthspake and occupies a Hold, a word the Kin use for anything from a mining outpost to a fortified world. Cutting across the Kindreds are the Guilds, bodies of Kin who share a particular role or trade.

Kindreds that possessed Ancestor Cores formed the first Leagues, originally as military alliances to protect their Votann. Over time these grew into star-spanning confederations comparable to nations, each claiming the heraldry of one of the ancient Long March mining fleets. Among the best-known Leagues:

• The Greater Thurian League: one of the original and largest Leagues, a military, mercantile and industrial powerhouse known for being especially mercenary and for epitomizing what it means to be Kin.
• The Trans-Hyperian Alliance: explorers and voyagers driven by an almost puritanical zeal to enrich their Votann, whether through discovery or conquest.
• The Kronus Hegemony: a more recently founded, overtly warlike League notorious for mechanized onslaughts and for declaring Grudges at the slightest provocation.
• The Ymyr Conglomerate: custodians of some of the most resource-rich territories in the core, and therefore forever at war with raiders who covet their wealth.
• The Urani-Surtr Regulates: stoic, self-reliant and long-suffering Kin who disdain waste and are famous for enduring against impossible odds.

Many other Leagues exist, from the master craftsmen of the Jotun-Erydani Combine to the heavily fortified Typhon-Styx Protectorate, and some ancient Leagues have dwindled or vanished entirely. Even the Kin no longer know the full extent of their Leagues.

Grudges: The Kin Never Forget

The Kin are pragmatic, fair-dealing and loyal to their word. They are also utterly unforgiving. A serious wrong done to a Kindred or a League becomes a formal Grudge, and a Grudge is pursued until it is settled, whatever the cost and however long it takes. Kin commanders are trained to assess the battlefield calmly, identify the foes who pose the greatest threat or have caused the greatest offense, and bring the full weight of their firepower down on them.

The most famous example is the Five Hundred Years' War. When the Orks of Warlord Morbok's Waaagh! overran the hold of the Oriâkh's Irongate Kindred and tore apart the Ancestor Core within, the Kin swore the most widespread Grudge in their recorded history. They waged war on Morbok's empire for more than five centuries, until the last Ork was slain and the insult answered.

Not every tale ends in vengeance. When a tendril of Hive Fleet Leviathan descended on the small Emberg-Aegnir Bloc, its Kin fought to the last to protect their Votann. The Tyranids devoured them all, yet ignored the Ancestor Core itself, leaving it buried and alone on a dead world. The grief of all those lost minds flowed into the machine and drove it insane. The Kin still tell the story of this "Mad Core" and steer well clear of its wavering beacon.

The Kinhost at War

A Kin army is called a Kinhost. For the greatest wars it is overseen by a Kindred's Votannic Council; for smaller conflicts it is led by heroes such as Kâhls, Iron-masters and Grimnyr. Warbands that travel the galaxy as soldiers of fortune are often organized as Oathbands, bound by their sworn contracts. The Kinhost is built around a few key roles:

• Kâhls: the Kin's war leaders, veteran commanders who direct the battle with calm precision. Among them is the famous Ûthar the Destined, a Kâhl of legendary renown.
• Theyns: officers who lead squads of warriors in the field.
• Grimnyr: Kin able to commune with the Votann, also called Living Ancestors, who channel the Ancestors' power and are universally respected.
• Brôkhyr Iron-masters: master engineers of the Brôkhyr guild, accompanied by robotic assistants, who keep the Kinhost's machines fighting.
• Hearthkyn Warriors: the core of every Kinhost, well-armored infantry carrying ion and bolt weaponry and a range of specialist gear.
• Einhyr Hearthguard and Champions: elite veterans in heavy exo-armor, the guardians of Kâhls and Votann alike.
• Cthonian Beserks: miners used to the most brutal deep-core excavations, who wade into battle wielding heavy mining equipment turned into brutal weapons.
• Brôkhyr Thunderkyn: heavy weapons teams in sturdy armor, carrying devastating conversion beamers and other heavy guns.
• Hernkyn Pioneers: fast outriders who scout ahead on grav-bikes.

Behind the infantry roll the Kin's vehicles: the Sagitaur light transport and the massive Hekaton Land Fortress, a mobile bastion bristling with guns. Kin weapons blend ancient designs with technologies the Imperium has largely lost, from volkite and magna-rail weapons to ion and conversion-beam technology.

The Ironkin

Fighting alongside the Kin are the Ironkin: artificial intelligences housed in mechanical bodies, dedicated to aiding their flesh-and-blood brethren. To the Kin, the Ironkin are not tools but equal and valued members of their society. To the Imperium, they would be a horror on par with the Votann themselves. Many work as robotic helpers beside Kin engineers, and they embody the difference between the two civilizations: where Mankind fears thinking machines, the Kin trust them with their lives.

From Squats to Votann: A Real-World History

The Leagues of Votann carry a lot of history for a faction that only arrived in 2022. In the earliest days of Warhammer 40,000, in the Rogue Trader era of the late 1980s and the second edition that followed, the setting included the Squats: stocky abhuman miners from the galactic core, heavily inspired by the dwarves of fantasy fiction. They had bikers, ancestor lords, giant war machines and a devoted fanbase.

When third edition launched in 1998, the Squats were quietly removed from the game. Later background material suggested that their homeworlds had been overrun by the Tyranids, a fate that became a long-running joke among players, and the faction became one of the hobby's most famous "lost armies". Squat-style characters lived on in spin-off games such as Necromunda, but the Squat army was gone.

In 2022, Games Workshop brought them back as the Leagues of Votann, with an entirely new range, new lore and a deliberate shift in tone. The old Squats leaned on comedy and beer-swilling stereotypes. The Kin are a serious, distinctive civilization with vat-grown biology, AI ancestor worship and a hard-nosed mercantile culture, while keeping the beards, the grudges and the stubbornness that made the originals so beloved. The lore also makes clear that the Kin are not simply the Squats renamed: the old Squats are best treated as spiritual forebears, and their story belongs to older editions.

Themes: Dwarves, Capitalists and Machines

The Leagues of Votann occupy a fascinating space in the setting. They are the classic fantasy dwarf reinvented for science fiction, with ancestor worship, oaths and grudges, but they are also a very modern faction: corporate, contract-driven and comfortable with artificial intelligence in a way no human power in 40K could ever be. Their pragmatism contrasts sharply with the Imperium's zealotry, and their ancient machines make them a mirror to the T'au Empire, another culture unafraid of advanced technology.

They are not heroes, either. The Kin will fight for whoever pays, and their loyalty runs first and always to their Kindred and their Votann. If outsiders threaten those interests, yesterday's clients can quickly become tomorrow's Grudge.

How the Leagues of Votann Play on the Tabletop

On the tabletop the Leagues of Votann are a durable, methodical mid-range army. Their infantry is tough and well-armed, their vehicles are resilient and their characters are built to direct fire precisely where it is needed. The army's identity revolves around marking enemies for retribution, reflecting the Grudge, and then grinding those targets down with relentless, focused firepower.

They are not the fastest army, and their range is smaller than that of older factions, but they reward steady, deliberate play: holding ground, choosing priorities carefully and punishing every enemy who dares to strike first. They suit players who love dwarves, heavy armor and the satisfaction of settling a score.

Leagues of Votann FAQ

Are the Leagues of Votann the Squats?

Not exactly. The Leagues of Votann are the modern spiritual successors of the Squats, the stocky abhuman miners of early Warhammer 40,000 who were removed from the game in 1998. The Kin share their look and some themes, but they have entirely new lore, biology and culture.

What is a Votann?

A Votann, or Ancestor Core, is an ancient artificial intelligence that guides a League. The Kin believe the Votann were created in a lost age and sent with the first mining fleets. They are revered as Ancestors, and dead Kin offer their minds and experiences to them.

Are the Kin human?

The Kin descend from human mining fleets that settled the galactic core long ago, but they have become a distinct people, compact, extremely resilient and bred under the oversight of their Ancestor Cores. They feel little kinship with the Imperium of Man.

What is a Grudge in the Leagues of Votann?

A Grudge is a formal debt of vengeance that a Kindred or League swears against an enemy who has wronged it. Grudges are pursued until they are settled, sometimes for centuries, as in the Five Hundred Years' War against the Orks who destroyed an Ancestor Core.

What are the main Leagues of Votann?

The best-known Leagues are the Greater Thurian League, the Trans-Hyperian Alliance, the Kronus Hegemony, the Ymyr Conglomerate and the Urani-Surtr Regulates. Many others exist across the galactic core, including the Jotun-Erydani Combine and the Typhon-Styx Protectorate.

Why doesn't the Imperium attack the Votann?

Mostly because it barely knows they exist. The Kin live deep in the galactic core and are secretive about their civilization. If the Imperium understood that the Kin are guided by thinking machines and fight alongside Ironkin, it would almost certainly regard them as heretics of the worst kind.

Continue Exploring

• Warhammer 40K Factions: Complete Guide to All 29 Armies — every army, its lore and how it plays
• The Orks — the greenskins behind the Kin's greatest Grudge.
• The Adeptus Mechanicus — the Imperium's tech-priests, who would see the Votann as the ultimate heresy.
• The T'au Empire — another young, technology-driven power on the edge of the Imperium.
• The Tyranids — the swarm that devoured the Emberg-Aegnir Bloc and left behind the Mad Core.

For the rest of the setting, browse every guide in the Warhammer 40K lore hub, and borrow ideas for Kin names from our dwarf name generator. To chronicle your own Kindred and its Grudges, Anima is free and runs in your browser with no account: a wiki, a timeline, and campaigns with a live DM screen.