Material games are bigger than ever, be that in retail, media or academia. The latter field has paid particular attention to the way in which the “story engines” (Arnaudo 2018) behind games like Warhammer 40,000 combine textual elements (like codices and novels) with ludic elements (like datasheets and stratagems) to immerse players in unique storytelling experiences.
This focus on ludo-textual symbiosis overlooks, however, an equally important contributing factor to Warhammer 40,000’s story engine: the material itself. The balsa wood, epoxy putty and plasticard that hobbyists use to augment their metal, plastic and resin miniatures are not only a means to an end, but actively contribute to character-creation and world-building. Taking a cue from the broad field of media ecology and its application within literary studies, I suggest that, in Warhammer 40,000, the medium is (a pivotal part of) the message. I propose that the ludo-textual approach to storytelling in material game studies must be complemented by a materio-textual perspective when analysing the storytelling affordances of miniature wargaming.
To illustrate this proposition, my talk will analyse a selection of popular YouTube videos in which hobbyists build their fan-made lore upon specific affordances of the material with which they build/augment their game pieces. This procedure will yield insights into the reciprocal synergy between material and narrative. For instance, the randomness of expanding foam used to construct game-pieces in such videos becomes narratively tied to the sprawling chaos of Nurgle and the jouissance of ontological horror he conveys, while the precision of crafting brutalist shapes from plasticard captures the bleak utilitarianism of Cadian artillery and the empire of man’s quest for anthropocentric order. When studying miniature wargaming, so the argument of my talk, the ludo-textual approach of material game studies has so far not been materialist enough.
Author bio
Max Jokschus works as a research assistant for urban literary and cultural studies at the Otto-von-Guericke-Universität, Magdeburg, Germany. His dissertation, titled Devils in the Data: The (Post-)Internet in the Contemporary Horror Film, is currently in preparation for publication.
