Representations of gender in Warhammer 40,000

Abstract

This thesis explores the representations of gender in the miniature tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000. Warhammer 40,000 is the world's most popular miniature wargame, and has spawned a sprawling transmedia franchise including novels, digital games, films, and even music. Despite being the world’s most popular miniature wargame, Warhammer 40,000 has received little academic study. Through a combination of visual, narratological, and ludic analysis, this thesis explores the representations of gender as they manifest in the game’s models, the transmedia franchise’s narrative fiction, and the gameplay mechanics of the wargame itself. This study finds that while many of the representational aspects of the game and franchise align with the typical sexualized and erased representations of gender within digital and analog games, the particularities of the miniature wargame medium provide nuances to representation which are not afforded by other games mediums.