The future of Warhammer Conference

[Mike]

Hi everyone,

Following some conversation in the group chat, I thought I'd start a thread here to discuss what we might do with the Conference after this year's event.

Some members have suggested we perhaps move to a 2-year cycle (so run a conference every two years, rather than every year). What do you think about that?

We are also looking at potentially doing some smaller events as well, outside of Germany. Perhaps even a few online-only events with assigned academic speakers. What do you all think? Is this something you might be interested in attending?

[Joachim]

Thanks a lot for opening this thread Mike. I remember the discussion we had last year in Heidelberg, on the very last day of the conference. Many ideas were exchanged, I think it’s good to have this forum as a way of having a structured, written record. Verba volant, scripta manent, as they say in High Gothic.

I think it may be worth reflecting on what we want to achieve, what stands in our way, and how to overcome it. Also, we need to realise what we have already achieved, what means we have at our disposal already now. I made this list based on the conversation in Heidelberg and what I could gather from the Whatsapp group.

1 Objectives:

1.1 Establish:

1.1.1 Warhammer studies as a serious academic field
1.1.2 Warhammer Conference as a serious event in the academic landscape
1.1.3 Warhammer Conference as a hub/home/object of interest for the intellectually inclined among Warhammer fans

1.2 Expand/increase:

1.2.1 The amount of disciplines present at Warhammer Conference
1.2.2 Amount of speakers at Warhammer Conference (?)
1.2.3 Quality/comfort of the Conference itself (better sound systems, hobby sessions, networking opportunities, etc.)

2 Obstacles:

2.1 No money (I understand this has changed this year, I’m just not fully aware of the conditions yet)
2.2 Abstracts handed in at the last moment, making planning very difficult
2.3 Potential obstacle: too few abstracts handed in (this has actually not happened as of 23/06/2026, that’s why I would only consider it a -potential- obstacle for now)
2.4 No formal structure, makes organisation difficult, lion’s share of the work and mental load on the shoulders of one person (Mike)

3 Solutions/Tools:

3.1 Increase visibility through media (specialised press, social media, etc.)
3.2 Build up a network within academia
3.3 Build up a network among Warhammer fans
3.4 Get (more) funding
3.5 Switch to a two-year cycle
3.6 Sub-groups that would organise meetings/gatherings on various locations and on different topics
3.7 Establish a more fixed/permanent structure
3.7.1 Found a German Eingetragener Verein (registered association)
3.7.2 No formal structure, but a wider Organising Committee with regular meetings and fixed objectives.

4 Current Ressources/Assets

4.1 Two years of experience, organising WH Conf, from scratch
4.2 A community counting hundreds of academics and fans who gave or attended talks
4.3 Lively WhatsApp chat as discussion platform
4.4 Youtube Channel with all out talks, 2.22K subscribers, 110 videos, 46K views
4.5 Academic Archive with dozens of references regarding Warhammer Studies
4.6 This newly established forum for more structured discussions
4.7 Logo: essential for long-term identity
4.8 Newly established official hobby section
4.9 Contacts and support in Heidelberg and Frankfurt
4.10 Several people who contributed in various forms to WH Conf (the founding members, the current organisers, the team that organised the hobby night for this year, yours truly with the press work)
4.11 The unbendable will and extraordinary organisational skills of Archmagos-Inquisitor Michaelis Ryder, who keeps this wondrous machine running, but who, at the end of the day, is a mere mortal like the rest of us, and needs a break every now and then



Comments regarding Solutions/Tools:

I have tried to implement a media strategy, which worked well ahead and in the aftermath of WH Conf 2025, but interest within the press seems to be slacking, I suppose that as a recurring event, the simple fact that we exist no longer is “news”. I suppose the final programme may still be attractive (especially with guest speakers), but the general trend seems to be clear. If we were to announce something huge (WH Conf in Nottingham, Kevin Rountree as guest speaker or something of the sort, we’d be making headlines in the specialised press, but otherwise it’s going to remain complicated).

We could expand to social media; not necessarily anything in the Meta empire, but something like Mastodon could be worth a shot. I know little about social media/community management, but would be very willing to learn for the occasion. Should we decide to go that way, I volunteer.

The most important point in my opinion is the structure. As far as I can tell, it’s all been fairly ad-hoc until now. That is not a problem in itself, the only issue is that this has resulted in a huge load for Mike. I suggest we create something of a board, somehow, we can discuss the exact form this would take. In this light, I do find the proposal of a German Verein interesting.

Independently of the exact form, I think it would be important for the board to meet (most likely online) every now and then. Compulsory, dull meetings can ruin the best of organisations, so I would not schedule them often, but say every three months or so, or at the request of one of the board members. Board members could also just hang out and play Darktide or SM2 or whatnot together every now and then. The point is that board members would get to genuinely know each other, and be informed of the progress the other ones have made. Nothing’s more frustrating than having the feeling one is alone facing a huge task.


Conclusion

I hope I have not bored you all senselessly with this long post. Those are just a few points that came to mind. The point is that we can discuss it all here on the forum. I used an ordered list in order to make commenting easier. I greatly look forward to your opinion!

[Aasa Timonen]

I think Joachim's post established the issues and solutions really well!

I'm not sure about the two-year cycle myself, there are some conferences that do it (Nordic DIGRA for example) but we are working with newly emerging field still at this point, I think activity in the scene is good for its growth. Though we also have the Games Workshop Research & Play event in Manchester, which is a shorter academic event but which also grew last year from its original starting point. So we have two events, one big and one small, so one could see the other staying as annual and the other going to the two-year cycles. But I think I ultimately prefer both as annual events.

My perspective is also always shaped by being early career researcher who is doing their doctoral thesis and almost all other work around Warhammer, so for me this conference and GWRP are the main platforms for showcasing work!

[Alexander W. Hofing]

Thanks for the great post Joachim - that's a fantastic summary of where we're at right now.

I'm leery myself of a two-year conference schedule - I feel that keeping a regular once-a-year main event will be important for the long-term viability of the conference itself. I know some smaller regional academic conferences do one-day events or even have room for all potential submissions to present - I'm not certain what the current situation looks like, but I don't necessarily think we're in serious trouble so long as we can justify even one full day of conference papers. The previous conference was honestly massive compared, at least, to some of my discipline's major conferences around here, and I feel it also inspires a good deal more "loyalty" (academics showing up for more than just their own papers) than some of the other conferences I've attended.

I think some contraction is to be expected, and avoiding a sophomore slump is itself an achievement. I will say that last year there were great efforts to promote the conference - I forget exactly how I discovered it but I think it was an article somewhere in my news feed which inspired me to look into it and, with some encouragement, submit an abstract.

As for promotion and getting more submissions, I do think the "last-minute" effect is very real, and I'm guilty of it myself, considering I'm writing this right now instead of finishing my own abstract. It might be worth considering narrowing the submission window, but I think this would have to coincide with some of my other suggestions below. Which leads me to...

Promotion

So far there's been great work done on this end from an "official" standpoint, but outlining what our objectives for promotion are will help us move forward in the future. As I see it, there are two main problems to solve:

1. Attracting and keeping academics and scholars to ensure a steady flow of high-quality conference paper submissions.
2. Getting eyes on the conference more generally.

These require different approaches. If #1 is more of the issue at the moment, then I think it bears discussion as to how we can potentially solve it.

One of the bottlenecks that we can probably all agree on is that Dr. Ryder has far too many direct responsibilities (which he handles admirably!). Having a slightly anarchic bent, I like the ad-hoc democratic structure of this conference in theory - we're all scholars and we can all handle ourselves, I think, without too much organizational oversight, at least for the moment. That being said, I second the need for some kind of organizing committee, even if this is just a "group within a group". Ideally, this group would control a centralized social media presence and outreach for the conference through bespoke Warhammer Conference accounts (which we already have for YouTube), to take the pressure off of Dr. Ryder's personal accounts. I think a centralized "official" e-mail account with attached listserv will be especially helpful.

This might help with direct outreach, one potential solution to problem #1. If we want to attract high-quality submissions, I think directly reaching out to some of our previous presenters might be worth a shot. People are extremely busy, it's true, but this conference tends to be somewhat less demanding to present at, especially with the online option, and even just some basic outreach might help solidify participation and build a sense of community with some scholars who may not be part of the WhatsApp group/forum. We could even take it a step further and go through some previous submissions which barely made the cut last year and encourage some of those authors to resubmit. This would merely require compiling a list of those scholars who presented in the first year but not the second, and those who were not selected to present. I would be glad to perform this task as I do have the time, and if necessary I could do this before the fast-approaching deadline for the former half, and, with the right data, for the latter half of the list.

I do think one of the best tools for outreach will always be word-of-mouth from us - I know I've been promoting the conference wherever I can, but I do realize that it can be difficult. I've historically had issues with being taken "seriously" as an academic so, the medium being the message in the words of the late great Marshall McLuhan, I'm not certain that my promotion of the conference does anything to enhance its credibility. That aside, I've found it valuable to approach potentially-interested or Warhammer-adjacent academics and students - miniatures and modelling clubs at universities seem to express some interest, and approaching graduate student unions might also be worthwhile. If you know anyone personally whose work would slot nicely into the conference, it's worth approaching them. The other option, which a centralized e-mail would aid in accomplishing, is compiling a list of potential contacts or "maybes" that we could then reach out to in an official capacity.

Now, to point #2...

I've loathed social media basically since its inception and I find Twitter and its abhorrent spawn to be a scourge upon humanity - that being said, the world we live in necessitates its use, to some degree. I am blind to the ways of Facebook, Reddit, Twitter and all of its various fragments, but most of us have presences on some or all of those. I know I promote the conference on LinkedIn, effectively my only social media presence apart from a nascent YouTube channel (which reminds me, I'll start a thread for contact-sharing somewhere), and I think we can all pitch in to ensure that the Warhammer Conference has some visibility on the various platforms. We already have a fantastic YouTube channel, but I'd leave it to others to determine if an official presence on the aforementioned platforms would be worthwhile beyond ad-hoc promotion from the lot of us.

I admit some skepticism as to quantity, in respect to spectators, being a quality unto itself. Perhaps it's latent misanthropy but I'd rather have the right kind of eyes on the conference, especially in its early years, rather than a massive audience with all the attendant horrors that would bring in our brave new world. If the objective is to create a venue for scholarly discussion, exchange, and general community, I think that there's been fantastic work on this front already, and I credit this conference with single-handedly revitalizing my interest in academia and getting my work out there. I think, for now, promotional efforts should be surgical and targeted, rather than casting as wide of a net as possible.

Anyways, apologies, that post was longer than I planned. Hopefully there's something useful in all that.

[Markus]

I too think Joachims post is a great template that we can use to form a solution.

I think trying to have somewhat of an umbrella-structure that organizes, but also connects, recruits and distributes workload would help greatly to keep the ball rolling. For many aspects, an Organisation to be an focus point for comminucation would help reachout and "credibility" as not only an Event planned by People, but more of a commited group planning events.
I hope you understand what I try to say with this, it is sweltering here and parts of my brain are already well-done.

As I have said "in private" to Joachim and Mike during our planning of the painting-event,I am deeply entrenched in german "Vereinsrecht", since we kinda had a relaunch of the 260-people strong club I am head of, this year. Founding an e.V. could be a first step and I would gladly take the part of organizing the necessary paperwork and such. We need 7 people that are homebased in germany, and I could draft a very loose but sufficient "statute"(Satzung) that would describe the base function and structure of the organisation. That could also help with generating funds, since the german structure of funding is very "vereins"-based.

I also like the idea of re-eveluating papers from the last conferences and giving chances to people that were left out.

Also I think breaking up the format into not only "Talk->Discussion" with a a special guest, but maybe a kind of panel discussion where we have persectives from different disciplines regarding some of the overarching themes. 2-3 People and one to host and steer the discussion, one big theme and differenc scientific perspectives.

[Mike]

Hi everyone,

Firstly, I'd like to thank you all for your really well written responses. I really value the community we are building here, and it's so nice to see that this small nerdy-event that Thomas and I co-founded has reached people from all parts of the world who are all so invested in making it an ongoing success.

Some initial reflections from myself...

Background to WHC, and continued growth
Though it may not be evident just yet, this third year of WHC marks a year of significant growth for us as a Conference, even if the submission numbers don't yet match the (incredible) level of last year.

When we set up WHC, it was initially just a fun idea by myself and Thomas Arnold to see if we could try and show the world that our ideas for using Warhammer as part of academic study could gain some interest -- to demonstrate the viability of some sort of academic publication about Warhammer as a topic.

I think it's fair to say we have certainly done that!

Alongside Thomas, we were joined by Michael and Philipp who both helped with the organiastion from the Germany side of things. Unfortunately, they weren't available to join us for year two, but we were aptly assisted by Chris Dows -- former BL author, and passionate genre advocate who leads the Creative Writing programme at the University of Lincoln. For publicity, we were very pleased to work with Joachim, who volunteered his services, and whose excellent work helped us gain some visibility with various online outlets.

Now, in this third year, we are also joined by Martin Dechant and Max Friehs, who were both in attendance last year, and who have been working with me to secure some funding to support our efforts. On the website you will see I have kind of put them under the heading of 'grimdark narratives', as they (plus me) are working on setting up some research around Warhammer and mental health. We will announce more details about this over time. Many thanks also to Markus who worked with QuestHub, to get us a hobby venue. And a VERY big thank you to Sascha Vogel for helping us secure our new venue for this year, FIAS. Sascha has been really very helpful indeed, and we are truly thankful to be able to host in FIAS, as otherwise we might not have a home for our conference this year!

A small note on location
It is worth noting at this stage, that there is no particular reason why we picked Germany to host the first three conferences. The decision was mainly a logistical and financial one. Thomas is based in Heidelberg, and I am based in Lancaster (UK). Here in the UK, our universities often charge us to host conferences. We wanted to keep the event free, so naturally we chose to host our first event(s) in Germany. The only reason I say this is because there is no requirement at all to keep the conference in Germany. In fact, I quite like the idea of it moving about. It might help us attract new and more diverse audiences. However, it will mean some of our German friends have to travel

Next steps

Going forward, I do really like the idea of having some sort of official 'group' or 'council' of volunteers who can help keep things running going forward. Especially in terms of promotion, and doing some of the 'work on the ground'. I have already set up some forum space for an organising committee, so maybe it is something we could open to vote? Perhaps if we could come up with some 'positions' for people to fill?

In terms of social media, I agree, we could benefit from some social media presence. The problem we have though is how to keep an account active and engaging over the course of the year. As you will see from our YouTube channel, we do tend to attract a lot of interest around the time of the conference, but for the rest of the year, not so much. The issue is also one of reach. We can't just be talking to ourselves. If we want to continue to grow over the years, we will need to reach *new* audiences, who aren't just the same people who are currently in the WhatsApp group, or who are members of this forum.

Key issues going forward
From my own perspective, these are some of the key issues that we need to address, and keep at the forefront of our thinking going forward:

• 1. How to retain (and build!) our academic credibility.

• 2. How to build our profile in academic circles.

• 3. What format should the conference take going forward?

Following on from this, I have a few personal 'red lines' that I would like to hold true to. You may agree/disagree with me, but this is my own thinking on the matter:

• 1. Academic credibility is key. We can't allow ourselves just to turn into another fan group on the internet. We should also be a space for the free and open debate of ideas, as per the foundational tenets of (true) liberal democracy.

• 2. I believe the conference should be accessible to everyone. In fact, I think this is one of the reasons why we've had the success that we have so far. To this end, I believe we should keep the conference FREE to attend if at all possible.

With this in mind, as I write this, I wonder if perhaps we need to form some sort of constitution? What do you think? If we were to make one, what else should we add?

[Joachim]

Thanks Mike! For my part, I agree with both red lines. Without academic credibility, we would lose our raison d'être. And accessibility is paramount to sustainability.

I very much like the idea of a constitution. Since you also suggested electing the members of the council, we could submit both to a vote during the Conference? Would it be possible to allocate some time for that on Sunday afternoon, like we did last year? Or would you suggest proceeding already, and doing it online?

No matter which direction we chose, we can already each have a think on what positions would make sense, and what articles to put in the constitution.

I believe Markus here has the greatest expertise in organisation constitutions and by-laws. I suppose a general statement of intention/goals is important, offices, elections, votes, etc, but what else ought to be in such a text?

[Markus]

I have drafted a baseline for a legally coherent "Satzung" under German law. Translating german law wording sometimes was weird, I hope you are able to interpret everything the right way.

This only includes anything that is necessary by law to have a legally effective Association (e.V. = eingetragener Verein) that is able to work internationally. We could have members, and even Board Members from other countries, if at least one Board Member is from Germany (to work as a legal connector).

Anything regarding academic standards and conduct can also be included. Everyone should be able to comment in the document.

The Name can also be discussed. It is advised to not take anything copyrighted in the EU such as "Warhammer", to avoid conflict. If we are officially recognized by GW this would be possible. Grimdark is not a copyrighted term, and when we first discussed the idea ,the name came up, so I used it as a placeholder.

English Translation
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gl7 ... sp=sharing

German Text
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iio ... sp=sharing