Warhammer 40K maker Games Workshop development halted by unlikely creature

Warhammer 40K maker Games Workshop usually make terrifying creatures and aliens to stop players in their tracks, but now the company faces a real life threat: a pipistrelle bat.

Games Workshop have found a single bat on the site of a planned car park at its Nottingham headquarters in the UK. 

The company has said that it’s looking after the small 1.6 inch (4cm) creature, though didn’’t reveal its future plans for it.

The pipistrelle is the smallest bat in the UK, weighing only 0.17oz (5g), though it’s capable of eating around 3,000 insects at night. 

The small creature is protected in the UK by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, passed to safeguard wildlife.

While the march of the Imperium has temporarily halted while the bat is rehomed, it’s still doing very well. The company revealed an annual report that profits in the year to 1 June rose 29% to just under $350m (£263m).

The company explained two ongoing issues, the first being tariffs being imposed on imports to the USA – a major market – and “the cute looking pipistrelle bat that is delaying our work on our new temporary car park.”

It said that just under $2.8m (£2.1m) had been spent on land to be developed as a temporary car park with the potential to use it for production at a later date.

The cost of this delay caused by the bat is unknown, along with the extent of the delay.

Games Workshop own both the science fiction Warhammer 40K and fantasy Warhammer franchises, a tabletop game where players build armies out of miniatures..

It has since expanded into other forms of media like books, video games, and an upcoming adaptation with superfan Henry Cavill on Prime Video.