Legendary Warhammer John Blanche Retires, Transforms into a Female Marine

Although he didn’t introduce me to Warhammer (that honor goes to Peter Jackson and the Perry brothers for Games Workshop’s Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game), art director John Blanche drew me in. My sole purpose in engaging in weekend-long conflicts and amassing massive armies was to humiliate my pals. If not my mother, then at least Games Workshop thought I was the perfect teenage collector because all I wanted was more stuff. I bought it, covered it with superglue, applied three colors in haphazardly placed areas, and min-maxed my way to success.

After learning about beer, I took a break from the hobby for a while, but when I started college and met John Blanche, I became interested again. My teenage passion had exposed me to Blanche’s work, but I normally ignored all of his double-page drawings of wars and Emperors in order to get to the instructions on how to assemble my army. Still, it says something about his famous style that even with my early ignorance, as soon as I got back into the fold, I knew it. Even more telling is the fact that he gave me the idea to start assembling a Dark Mechanicus army right away.

But enough about me. Many who are several decades older than me were raised on Blanche’s paintings and miniatures, and they were all influenced by his distinctive use of oils and inks. You’ll recognize his artwork from rulebook covers and some of the most recognizable scenes in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, even if you’ve never heard of him. He probably had the most influence on the grimdark 40k subgenre and created the foundation for a large portion of contemporary painting.


Blanche’s retirement is significant. The Blanchitsu school of miniature painting, which he founded, and blogs like Gothic Punk, which chronicle and preserve his work—much of which was only ever published in print in White Dwarf magazines—will perpetuate his legacy. Furthermore, how is he using his retirement? He’s painting and transforming women into marines.

The marine in question is a part of the crowdfunded game Trench Crusade, which combines grimdark aesthetics with WWI fighting. Blanche has, of course, added a few GW details, like as the plainly visible pouches, to transform the miniature into his distinctive look. After that, he painted it using his recognizable ink-based technique.


Though the mini is not a GW product nor an alternate Space Marine, the fact that he opted to build and paint a female marine as his first non-GW model has generated a lot of controversy. The reason for this is that, according to the literature, everyone who aspires to become a Space Marine must undergo difficult and traumatic biological processes that ultimately turn them genderless. However, right-wing hobby “purists” claim that all Space Marines are men. You’re right if you believe this sounds a lot like many trans experiences, but purists obviously have very weak reading comprehension skills, thus this means that all Space Marines are men.


I’m not sure how this culture war argument got to John Blanche’s non-Space Marine, non-Games Workshop background. But it has, and now the legendary Warhammer is enmeshed in a protracted argument that rejects reality and places his imaginative, artistic, and ultimately fictitious miniatures on the front lines of a cultural conflict he is no doubt tired of. John Blanche is a creative genius who, at a time when his company was producing a pitiful amount of pigments, worked magic with oils and paints. Even if his work is still relevant now, it was truly remarkable when it was first completed, therefore he should be allowed to retire in peace. It’s the least we can do if our silence is the only thing needed.