The world's first academic conference dedicated to all things Warhammer
Oi! Why is it that when more boyz get in a mob, they become more killy? Or, to put the question in a more academic parlance, what is the connection between crowds and power? Elias Canetti’s Crowds and Power (Masse und Macht, 1960) presents an enduring theory of mass behaviour, examining how crowds form, move, …
This presentation explores the ironic tensions between the Emperor of Mankind and Lion El’Johnson’s respective aversions to deification and their eventual embodiment of divine roles within the Warhammer universe. Drawing on the events of *Son of the Forest* , as well as other texts, we examine how the Emperor performs the role of a “Divine …
This talk is a diachronic analysis of the Mechanicus. We will examine recent and historical cultural attitudes relevant to the Adeptus Mechanicus, in accordance with our practice of using Warhammer 40k itself as a framework to explore critical theory and historical concepts, rather than exploring Warhammer 40k through these frameworks, a reversal of the lens …
The Imperium of Mankind perpetuates itself through the mechanical reproduction of a vast number of social fantasies, the most universal being belief in the omniscience of the God-Emperor. To be an Imperial subject, one must, often under pain of death, publicly profess an obvious falsehood: that humanity is led by an all-powerful protector, whose will …
The Immaterium or Warp in Warhammer 40,000 functions as a chaotic, psychic realm that embodies both cosmic threat and metaphysical possibility. By looking at various external philosophical and religious sources, this paper seeks to approach 40k’s Immaterium as a liminal metaphysical space – and its internal lore applications of a collective unconscious realm shaped by …
The Warhammer universe, in its totality, has exploded in popularity in the twenty-first century, crossing the boundary from niche tabletop wargame to vast multimedia franchise, spanning novels, video games, and television. Yet with this increasing cultural cachet comes a significant question – why, in this particular historical moment, has this famously “grimdark” setting gained significant …
High Gothic, Battlefleet Gothic, the Gothic War – one will eventually come across the term “Gothic” in one way or another when engaging with the world of Warhammer 40k. But as an aspiring art historian and 40k lore enthusiast, I have always wondered: How Gothic is the architecture of the Imperium of Man really? How …
“In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war”. This underlying premise to the entirety of the Warhammer 40’000 universe begs a fundamental question: how are the resources for this never-ending conflict produced and distributed? Of course, each species and organization has found its unique solution to this challenge: some operate a …
The Warhammer 40,000 (W40K) universe is a grimdark dystopian projection of science fantasy. In this far future, humanity is in a state of perpetual war against external threats, but also in an internal political struggle between two diametrically opposed factions structured around the axis of authoritarianism/self-organization. W40K is also a community-based game. Players are presented …
There are, to date, close to four hundred books in the Black Library catalogue set in the Warhammer 40,000 setting. The vast majority of these books remain valid canon, as do the bulk of supplemental material, faction codexes, rule books, video games, and the models themselves. Unlike many other fictional settings, Warhammer 40,000 has the …
Warhammer miniatures have the distinction of being able to transcend from mere objects to meaningful “things” by their multifaceted nature. Supported by their rich contextual background, they are objects of meticulous craft, enablers of complex gameplay, and manifestations of rich intangible characters and enduring identities. As physical artefacts, they are products of effort and expressions …
Terrain kits play a crucial role in shaping the spatial experience and narrative atmosphere of Warhammer 40,000 and its sister games. The setting’s distinctive aesthetics, intimidating gothic megastructures fused with brutal, inhumane technological functionality, is widely recognized as one of its defining features (Wenskus 2021). This architectural style is translated to the tabletop through a …
In 1990, the board game Space Crusade was published by MB in collaboration with Games Workshop. It is the science fiction spin-off of the much more popular game HeroQuest (1989). Although still significantly underdeveloped, the game’s narrative borrowings from Warhammer 40,000 are clearly recognizable. For example, there are already Marines, Chaos (Marines), Orks, and Genestealers. …
This paper explores the Horus Heresy (HH) series – comprising 64 novels and over 10 million words – as a foundational myth within the Warhammer 40,000 universe, using tools from corpus linguistics and the historical approach of Critical Discourse Analysis, particularly following Ruth Wodak’s framework.While the Warhammer 40,000 setting (W40K) presents a vast and diverse …
The pre-imperial human settlers who colonized the galaxy during the Dark Age of Technology initially spoke a variety of Low Gothic. During the Age of Strife, however, their colonies were cut off from Old Earth for millennia. As a result, the standard version of Low Gothic spoken on Old Earth/Holy Terra and the many local …