Article Games and Culture 2014, Vol. 9(2) 122-147 ª The Author(s) 2014 Drafting an Army: Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1555412013513349 The Playful Pastime gac.sagepub.com of Warhammer 40,000 Marcus Carter1, Martin Gibbs1 and Mitchell Harrop1 Abstract Multiple recent works have emphasized the contribution that nondigital game scholarship can make to the study of games and gameplay. Warhammer 40,000 is the market dominator of the nondigital tabletop wargame genre. In this article, we perform a ludological analysis of the process of preparing, or drafting, an army for a competitive Warhammer 40,000 tournament. We find that there are four inter- related categories of resources that influence this fundamentally playful process. Our results indicate that this process of preparation constitutes a core component of the appeal of Warhammer 40,000. This emphasizes the importance of under- standing the diverse activities that go into gameplay that often exceed the computer game ‘‘client’’ or board of play. We suggest the category of engagement pastime to encapsulate these extended, ongoing elements of Warhammer 40,000’s appeal, which we define as a collection of interlinked and associated activities that serve to occupy one’s time and thoughts pleasantly. Keywords nondigital games, Warhammer 40,000, pastime, tournaments, hobby, wargaming, ludological analysi 1 Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia Corresponding Author: Marcus Carter, Computing and Information Systems, The University of Melbourne, Doug McDonnel Building, Parkville, Melbourne, Victoria 3051, Australia. Email:
[email protected] Carter et al. 123 Introduction Warhammer 40,000 (W40K) is a tabletop wargame played by two or more individ- uals using 1-inch models.