Tabletop Teacher

Just a quick post to make up for a week of missing my deadlines. Turns out I was right about a certain sneak preview of a model... Here's the sneak preview: Here's the picture I put with it: Here's the model, from the newest box set for Age of Sigmar. I joked about the model being a plough. I even suggested that there was going to be a new table top farming game. GW haven't gone that far, but it's nice to see they don't take everything too seriously, and there's still space on their models for silliness! Until next time! Thanks for reading. If you liked what you saw, and you want to help out, please leave a comment. Sharing this with your friends, and following me on Twitter , Facebook or Google+ would also be hugely appreciated. If you have anything you want me to look at, let me know in the comments below. I'll probably be able to write an article about that topic within a day! If you want to support me directly,...

Here's a test I run on every single one of my first encounters with a new group of players, both in DnD and the various 40K RPGs you can get. It never fails to dictate the flow of an adventure, and is a really accurate measure of how people want to play. Ambushed by goblins, the party scrape through by slaying every single one of the little monsters. They've taken some damage, but their blood is pumping, they've found a good rhythm, and despite having only been a team for ten minutes, are working like a well oiled machine! Victory is in sight, as the rogue deftly swings around the last goblin, an arrow knocked by the back row fighter and the axe-ma at the front charging his way. It's the goblin's turn, and he... Now let's stop there, and go right back to the beginning. Yesterday I had a student come up to me asking about the Dungeons and Dragons posters I had put up around the school. It's not unusual, and in fact rather common. Ev...

Please spare a moment of your time to think about the soldiers who aren't made of plastic, and for whom a failed save roll is much more bitter. Remembrance Day is a UK event where we remember fallen and still active soldiers who have gone out to fight in our place. It's important for us as war gamers to not forget the reality of combat, so that we never bury the seriousness of a squaddie's sacrifice under abstract dice rolls and clinical ruling. This is especially true if you work with kids, like I do. We run the risk of glamorising war with each flick of the paint brush, and often go out of our way to make killing tools look good. That's not to say we shouldn't enjoy our hobby, that would be daft. We just need to occasionally remind ourselves, and the young people we engage with, that we only play a game. With that said, I'm not going to leave this post as a sermonising lecture, and instead give you a quick painting tutorial. If you...

Assault army with only a handful of hard hitting assault units. A fast moving force, built around a slow moving infantry core. A unique army, with less unique options than their vanilla counter parts. A deep strike shock force, with no real punch to it's Deep Striking units. Blood Angels are in a bad spot right now. Doom and gloom aside, the BAngels have a lot going for them. The unique units they do have are fairly good, if not the best. They do have options beyond the vanilla Space Marine units, even if the Space Marine units are arguably better. Their troop type is a straight upgrade on the regular Tactical Squad. The BAngels have always somewhat suffered from a bit of schizophrenia. Unlike the Space Wolves and Dark Angels who can justify their unique combat doctrines through their fluff, the BAngels need to compromise between their unique flavour and generally being codex adherent. As such, although many have been sold on the Blood Angels as being the best clo...

"oh god, delete" - First response to this project. With feedback like that, you'd think I'd stop. I think I can see why though, as the original title of the project was a bunch of weighted labels and didn't really reflect the intent of the project. What I'm aiming to do here is point out the underlying ideas and philosophies of 40K, to create more depth to the (frankly shallow) debate on Feminism and Social Politics of our game. To do so for a table top game about elves with guns sounds like the very definition of time wasting. As my students in the boarding house would say, "Sir, why you dragging it, it's not that deep." But it's a hobby we all spend far too much time thinking and playing in anyway, so why not? It also might seem like a funny spot to start with on a series of Feminisim and diversity in 40K, but I'm going to begin with the Eldar as a race. Most people jump into talking about the Space Marines or the Astra Militaru...

Do you know what to do with your models once they hit table top? You may know general strategies, but the actual placement and movements of models is not always clear. Would you like to know more? An intellectual and successful general like yourself probably would! I've written (perhaps far too much!) on how to build an army for patrol detachments . I've based this off my experience in teaching student neophytes how to play 40K in my school club, and believe me when I say I've seen most of the (literal!) school boy errors out there. A lot of guides on how to use models focus on specific units. Having done that myself, I know how easy it is to fall into the trap of thinking you know how your army works based on a thorough understanding of the unit itself. But knowing the strengths ad weaknesses of a particular unit won't help you to understand where to put them on a battlefield. So let me give you some general guidelines. Time for the caveat... all si...

Are you wondering what makes a Space Wolf different from a Space Marine? Do you need another reason to justify gathering the Sons of Russ under your banner? Do you want another way to give character to your army apart from just wolfing your wolf? Then read on, young thane, and make your ancestors proud. Space Wolves are a very characterful army, that have a unique personality when compared to the other Space Marines chapters. They use the Codex as toilet paper, not because they find it to be bad advice but rather that they don't want to be told what to do by someone who isn't a Wolf.  Unfortunately a lot of writers and players treat the Wolves as a strange blend of frothing beserkers and werewolves, with the addition of Wulfen units not helping them. In the past, typical wisdom had every Wolf in a drop pod, getting point blank range with the enemy on the first turn. With the changes in 8th Edition, this is no longer as viable, and other armies do Deep Strike Dep...