We are pleased to announce that our second annual Games Workshop Research Day is taking place on Saturday 11th October 2025!
For its second outing the event will run all day from 9:30 until 20:30 and has three parts. The morning will be dedicated to talks about Games Workshop’s games, the afternoon will be a ‘playable exhibition’ in which we pair gaming with presentations, and the day will conclude with a social evening of sporting mayhem as we come together to watch Blood Bowl played live.
Join us at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation in Manchester for a day of talks and gaming. This event is free and is open to everyone. Places are limited. Please book your ticket by clicking the link below:
Schedule
9:30-9:45 Registration
9:45-11.15 Session 1: Miniatures
Sam Tobin: ‘Miniature Matters: Failcast, Plastic Crack, and ‘Every Metal’’
Tom Railton: ‘Neurodivergent Making: Kitbashed temporalities and weirdly leanings’
Adam Edwards: ‘Ancient Dignity: Abstraction, irreverence and the legacy of the launch rules of Age of Sigmar’
Ian Williams: ‘Chapterhouse Revisited: Intellectual Property, 3D Printing, and the Platformization of Analog Play’
11:15–11:30 Break
11:30–13:00 Session 2: Worlds and Histories
Ioannis Costas Batlle, ‘Mythbusters, icebergs, and why you learn more from Warhammer than you realise’
James Holloway and Gianluca Raccagni, ‘‘Larger, wilder, and far more dangerous’: Medieval and Medievalist Imagery in the Warhammer games’
Tomas Rawlings, ‘Chaos in the Warhammer Setting’
Patrick Prax and Ray Whitcher, ‘‘More more warp death!’ Skaven and Warpstone as Environmental and Economic Critique’
13:00-13:45 Lunch break
13:45-14:45 ‘Games Workshop’s Player Communities’ - roundtable discussion
15:00-17:30 Playable Exhibition
Join us to play and discuss Games Workshop’s games at our playable exhibition, including Heathforge Games (Blood Brawl) and artworks by Tom Railton, as well as the following posters:
Phil Booth, ‘“Kill them all and God will know His own”: Combatting Heresy in Medieval Europe and the Grim Dark Future’ (plus playable exhibition)
Shaun Stevenson, ‘Stoicism and Strategy: Practicing Ancient Philosophy Through the Tabletop Game of Blood Bowl’ (plus playable exhibition)
Ray Whitcher, ‘Purge the Fandom’
18:00-20:30 – Blood Bowl live!
In collaboration with The Waterbowl, Manchester’s oldest and best Blood Bowl league, we’ll end the day by watching a Blood Bowl match, with commentary from RickWreckless and filmed by Geek Pride’s Matt Geary.
This activity is funded by AHEAD, the public engagement programme of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Manchester Metropolitan University.
