Tabletop Teacher

It's been a while since I've had a chance to talk about the school club, and what goes on in it. School has (finally) settled down after mock exams and Christmas holidays, and despite a few Physics trips I've actually managed to get back to routine. It won't last. Half term is around the corner, and then actual exam panic for the Year 11s will set in. But for now everything is running normally, which means rampaging kids and their Space Wolves. What is clear though, is the immense disparity between students' toy soldier budgets. Whereas one boy is happily putting together 'club miniatures' funded by the school (well, actually me... Patreon link below), one boy has had parents drop around £300 on him over Christmas. What is happening with him is known as the Wallet Warrior, where he will simply buy the best stuff, or in this case, the most stuff to get an advantage over his buddies. Although in 40K the points system should be good enough to keep thi...

I lost... damn. But what a model to lose to! The knight behind my Walker was the winning model. Those two walkers were the brightest models on the field. I was going for offensively orange, and I think I pulled it off. The next competition is a duel, and I simply don't have the budget for that. Hopefully I can find some other event to be a part of for the coming month of February. 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 really love what I do here, you can make a one off donation at my  PayPal , or become a true hero to table top education and make a regular donation to my  Patreon . Every Little helps!

A few times a week I'm reminded of just how much a hobby this is, as opposed to a lifetime pursuit. Today is a particularly stinging example of where gaming is on my priority list. It's Sunday. This, for most, is a day of rest and relaxation after a strenuous day at the coal face of whatever 9-5 job you have. I was supposed to be at a special birthday game, a one-off Dungeons and Dragons session for a friend of mine. I had a character rolled up weeks ago (a Seraphon inspired War Cleric), and was really looking forward to my first game in nearly months. I am currently at work. It's an exeat weekend at my boarding school, which means we kick the students out for the weekend to give the various house staff a break. Think about that for a second. When your job is running a boarding house for students, you literally do not get time off until term is done. However, we have a couple of students who are coming back from a football tournament early, and thus need someon...

Paid post is up on Patreon , and it's a scenario of epic silliness! Sometimes you don't want to have narrative campaigns. Sometimes you don't want to worry about objectives. Sometimes you don't want to watch your beautifully painted, 6-month-painting-project deathstar unit get deployed badly and end up spending the game only featuring in the movement phase. Enter this little bit of silly fun! This scenario attempts to emulate a pokemon battle, where you call individual units to the game, and tactically call them back. Game runs until all units feint... er, I mean are wiped out. Although I've created it for 40K, it's a scenario that can easily be used by Age of Sigmar players. The only thing you'll need to read up on is the Deep Strike scatter rule from 40K, but otherwise deployment and combat are the same as your usual gaming system. Scenario:  Warhammer 40k (sang to the tune of "Pokemon") I wanna be the very best, And beat oppo...

So with this reveal today, we can put to bed the vague notion that this picture: ... in any way indicated a possible Eldar Exodite model. Ah well. It's a good miniature, but I have to question Games Workshop in their choice of continuing to put out models for the Stormcast Eternals when they still only have a few new armies to lead the way in Age of Sigmar. Just a minor criticism, but I've been holding back on really getting into AoS because I haven't been sure what's going to be available in the future. I don't see much point in buying up aelves or duardin if the possibility of them being redundant is still hovering around. I'm probably over-thinking that. 15 hour day both in front of students and then pressing the flesh at parents evening. Not thinking straight. Paid post tomorrow! 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 , Fac...

The more I look at this image, the more Slaaneshi it looks. Here's a few picture of a Forge World demon for comparison. On it's own it's just a coincidence. And why wouldn't they look similar? They are essentially both creations of the Eldar psyche. One's just a bit more House and the other more death metal (actually I don't know if that's an apt comparison... I'm musically inept). But then I stumbled across an article which made me think again. The following is something that Larry Vela over at Bell of Lost Souls discovered . Rather than re-write his article, go have a look (and bookmark Bell of Lost Souls while you're at it!). The relevant bit is below: " Cegorach , the Laughing God, reportedly is the only intact Eldar god to escape the fall of the Eldar, and has been planning his ‘final act’ since the Fall of the Eldar. ‘On the last day Cegorach will gather all the dead of his peoples and give them to the mustering Lord o...

The War Walker I'm painting up for the Brushido painting competition at my local shop is nearly done. I was intending to put on some black lines and symbols on it, but after getting the armour to shine so nicely, I thought I'd let the orange speak for itself. It's Troll Slayer Orange on a white base, highlighted with Tau Light Ochre, then Yriel Yellow, and finished up to Ceramite White. The Tau Light Ochre and Yriel Yellow is dry brushed on, with the Ceramite White painted on at extreme highlights. Just need to finish off the base and tidy up some bits and pieces. (I hate the guns by the way. Completely messed up the black highlights.) 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'...

Now this is evidence ! Look at that gun toting beardy lad! So, lets match it up to the pistol from before: Not a huge amount of correlation though. Without seeing the barrel of the pistol we can't draw much in the way of stylistic similarities. However, the bolting on this looks similar to the above picture. So yay! Proper dwarves back in Age of Sigmar! Hopefully. Also, see those elven looking types in the background? Looks very much like a Corsair and a Swordmaster to me! 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 really love what I do here, you can make a one off donation at my  PayPal , or become a true...

Oh my... did I pick a good time to start Eldar! So we have our answer to the following question of what this Eldar symbol means: Now, as some people had guessed already, we know it's the symbol of Ynnead, the Eldar God of the Dead. The story of how to create Ynnead is one that will have to be told, and the best place to start is the Death Masque box set fluff. After looking at the new Avatar of Ynnead model, I went to look at the traditional Avatar of Khaine. The tick at the bottom is right there, so we can probably now label that as the deity/avatar tick. The whole rune is actually rather reminiscent of the one on the tabard below, so I wonder if that would just be the rune for avatars in general. We may never know, unless an Avatar of Isha/Kurnous/Vaul is released. From Games Workshop The new models are amazing! There's only one I'm not too keen on, but it's a stylistic dislike rather than a question of quality. Starting with the one  don'...

This is a model from way back when I got the school's first bit of communal kit. It's the Librarian from the Dark Vengeance starter box set, and was actually a bit of a rescue job. A well meaning student lathered the whole thing in thick white paint, and it took some time to peel (yes... peel) it all off to start again. Librarian, force choking some traitor marines. There are some bits of this I like. The glowing hand and the dark skinned face came out well. There are other bits I hate... such as the flashing left on the leg! Librarian pose in front of burning gate scenery All this was painted with just the standard set of paints you can get in the hobby box paint. There's only one additional colour, as I used Lothern Blue for the cloak inlay. Everything else was a case of mixing paints. Hope you enjoyed. 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 frien...

... Okay. So, the above Twitee and I had a little tiff over some differences in opinion. They didn't like it when I suggested that the latest Rumour Engine picture was an example of ineffective marketing . Who they are isn't actually important to the content of this, and since they've seen fit to delete the tweets where we had our little internet scuffle, I pretty sure they've realized just how embarrassing what they were saying was. No need for naming and shaming, and if you're thinking of looking for who this was I urge you not to. As they have taken it upon themselves to delete the tweets, I think I can claim victory. I think that's all I'm going to do in terms of protecting this person though. I'm still human, and did take a great deal of offence at how they treated me, with all the unprovoked attacks on my character. I'd like to remind them, that they came after me, and thus I owe you not a damned thing when it comes to the after...

The next Patron Only Scenario is up on Patreon. This is a very brutal, and bloody scenario, that favours melee heavy lists. That's not to say ranged armies can't do well in it, but it removes the kiting distance that shooting units tend to need. It's a tight map, and is better for smaller lists. However, it can lead to awful blood bath of a battle when used with larger armies! Here's a short clip from the Scenario: Scenario: This is it. You've scouted the enemy out. You've snuck past their defences. And now, you and your men are ready to hit them where them where they live. Even as you slink your way closer to the camp, your infiltrators are listening at their tents and barrack buildings, just waiting for the signal to knife them in their sleep. Your Scouts are already itching to get ahead, some of the more zealous ones all but on top of the perimeter. You have reserves waiting to fall from the sky. A decapitation strike. All going according ...

I feel like I've passed a milestone, having had my first Twitter spat on social media! No hard feelings @ Warhammer AoS , we're all just nerds bickering over plastic soldiers (or in this case an accessory to a plastic soldier!). However, it might be that some people think I'm being too harsh on the Games Workshop Marketing team... which is odd considering how much praise I've heaped on them since I started writing. Either way, it's perhaps best I show you what good marketing is, so you can see the difference (with an apparently necessary caveat that you should not take professional marketing advice from a Physics teacher's table top gaming blog).  Paid post will go up tomorrow, with a scenario based on attacking an army's camp. This was uploaded to the Warhammer 40K Facebook page, about a day after the pistol went up on the Rumour Engine. So, why is this any better than the pistol? It drops new information. The line there at the end fo...

I write this somewhat tentatively, as I don't want to really scare the Games Workshop marketing team away from continuing their Rumour Engine program. But the latest picture , in my opinion, is a bit rubbish in terms of speculation hype. This is why: it's a pistol. You can generally assume in the grim dark future of the 41st Millennium that most people have one of these. They're not exactly rare, and there's just one character really famous for using them, Cypher, the possibly-Fallen Dark Angel  RENEGADE SPACE MARINE COMPLETELY UNRELATED TO ANY OF THE UNFORGIVEN, AND WHO PROBABLY DOESN'T EXIST ANYWAY. Even Cypher RENEGADE WHO DOES NOT EXIST can't be a good candidate for this piece, as he'd generally be holding the pistol. What's worse is that this is clearly not even meant to be an integral part of the model. It's a whole holstered pistol. We only ever see that as optional extras, or accessories to put on other models. They usually...

I was kind of hoping to have this constructed by today. Oh well. All the base colours and shading done. Just need to put it together now, and get the highlighting done. The pilots head is missing from this picture, but it's done in blue as well. Although the solid orange is nice, I need to start thinking about flourishes to make this thing stand out. If you have any ideas, please let me know! 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 really love what I do here, you can make a one off donation at my  PayPal , or become a true hero to table top education and make a regular donation to my  Patreon . Every Little helps!

It's Miniature Monday! These are my Deathwatch Space Marines. Not really satisfied with black armour and silver arm, I delved into forgotten lore to dig out the Field Police from Rogue Trader. Image from here That's the foot note chap in the center of the page. Eventually I want to make a full Deathwatch Army based on the idea of Space Marine coppers (Motto: Nos Est Lux), but these two are the only completed members of the first squad. I particularly like how the red/blue lights on the exhausts worked out, and I'm replicating this across dreadnoughts and vehicles... although the goal would be to replace those with LEDs! 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 prob...

Image from here As a neckbeard and alpha nerd who has attained the highest ranks of geekery, showing me an elf riding a dinosaur wielding a knight's lance that shoots laser beams is like dangling sausages in front of a dog. All rational thought disappears, and we both start whining, begging and doing little tricks. But as a scientist and a teacher, I have that annoying voice at the back of my head pulling me back and considering what that would mean. It also tells me to get on with marking books, but I can resist that urge to paint models. Most of the time. So, Eldar Exodites.. worth it? Consider the Eldar Corsairs. In their first incarnation, I don't remember them being anything more than Guardians with lasguns, and maybe a nice character model to lead them. These were the days when Guardians also had lasguns, and there wasn't much to the average corsair other than cool fluff. For a while, the Corsairs kept to the background, until Forgeworld came to thei...

Saturday should be the time I do a battle report, but what with term just starting the club hasn't actually done any significant 40K or even X-Wing since we've been back. One Blood Bowl match happened, but play had to be called when 5 year old son of resident house master fell into the pitch during his game of Rebels vs. Stormtroopers with some other students. Lesson learned: Just because you can make polystyrene blasters out of old packing material, does not mean you should make polystyrene blasters out of old packing material and give it to the resident house master's son. In my defense, I like to think of it as inspiring the nerds of tomorrow. Anyway, since the match was called due to linemen and Black Orks flying across the room I'll talk about the reveal on Warhammer Community yesterday. Duncan of Warhammer TV fame showed a brief tutorial on how to paint a Gyrinx. I had no idea what this was, and had to go digging for information in the Black Library ...