Tabletop Teacher

On holiday now, which means I can play games with someone who's already finished their GCSEs! Blood Bowl for now, but later today we plan to play test the new edition 40K. Stay tuned! Human's technically won on points, but forfeited the game to the Orks as there were only three of them left on the field. WAAAAGGHHH!! 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!

Since Rise of the Primarch dropped, the Games Workshop marketing team has decided to take a wise breath before dropping any more bombs on the Warhammer World. It's been a very busy month for them, with new Stormcasts and what effectively amounts to three new mega factions in 40K, so we all need to take a bit of a breather. That said, we've had a few new rumbles of model releases coming out, so let's dive in! Latest Rumour Engine This is probably the next step in the chain alluding to Genestealer cults arising on Terra, as the spidery outlines and teeth look distinctly alien/tyranid to me. However, we shouldn't ignore the Age of Sigmar possibility, as that skull, whilst having no eyes, could also be a rat skull. Despite Skaven heavily featuring in the lore of Age of Sigmar (their little gnaw holes creating the rat version of the webway) they haven't had a great deal of new stuff... and by that I mean any new stuff, aside from a Blood Bowl team...

Image from Warhammer Community This happened . That is all you need to know. I genuinely could leave the post there. But it's been a very busy week, and I'll do my best to summarise everything that's popped up. Latest Rumour Engine Take a look at this ... And now this... One of the first Rumour Engine pictures I'm really hoping the Duardin are due for a revival in Age of Sigmar. And what I'm secretly hoping for is them to come back as steam punk mecha robot riders. It's a futile wish, but a man can dream... Warhammer 40K Rise of the Primarch  It went on pre-order this weekend. Head over to secure your copy now. Big things are occuring, and you'll want to keep in the know. I'm on the fence on whether or not the books themselves are worth their price tag, but you can't deny how literally game changing they are. Fracture of Biel-Tan FAQ The very definition of one step forward, two steps back, then quickl...

Hello and welcome to this week in Warhammer on the 25th February 2017. Quite a few bits and pieces, and whilst it's not a roller coaster of a week in terms of news there are still some significant stories. Rumour Engine This is a similar looking part to a Stormcast cloak clasp. The issue with going down that line of thinking is the chipping on the central piece, as well further up the model. The servants of Sigmar tend to always be at their best, so they can be somewhat ruled out. My guess would be some kind of Chaos model from either 40K or Age of Sigmar. We'll see... there's not much to link this to last weeks image.  Warhammer 40K Theatrical Trailer for Fall of Cadia 3 With a bit extra information to be found on the Warhammer Community page, we have this new trailer for Rise of the Primarch. This is probably the biggest bi of news this week, so take a look! Rumour: Cypher kills the Emperor Faeit 212 have run a story with some ru...

Awesome new title card So with a daily post schedule, it's next to impossible to keep up with all the news I follow, and want to chat about. So, barring breaking news, I'm starting this new weekly column about all the latest news in Warhammer. This way I can claim pretentious notions of journalism whilst still being a dime-a-dozen hobby blogger. Let's start off with a bit of general news before going into specific bits. Rumour engine latest With the tag line "this looks a bit grim", it could be any number of things. Speculation starts with something from the Death faction of Age of Sigmar, but only a cursory look at 40K will show you just how much the skull icon is used across all of Games Workshop products.  That said, as it looks a lot like a grave stone, I'm going to suggest it hints at some new Death faction miniature. Warhammer 40K Last chance for Fantasy Flight 40K games This post on the Twitters from FF games gives us a har...

Good morning all, and welcome to the New Year! And now a new solid project for myself, the club, and the blog. First of all is a brand new army for myself. Path to Glory: New Dawn A little while ago I did a numerical analysis of the Eldar Jetbike unit. Well I had a good reason to. I'm going to start collecting Eldar... oddly enough starting with the Start Collecting! Eldar box. You may be thinking that I'm just a power gamer at this point, having proved through maths and analysis that the scatter bike is too powerful for it's cost. In my defense, the reason I did the analysis in the first place was because I had already bought the kits, and wanted to justify the cost to myself (and to a lesser degree, my wife). As the school budget, Patreon and Paypal links below suggest, I don't exactly have a lot of disposable income for this hobby. This Eldar project had been a pipe dream of mine since the year before last year, and was actually the first codex I bou...

The year is ending, and Games Workshop has one more piece of sage advice which Duncan from Warhammer TV sums up best: Otherwise you may end up with this: Happy New Year guys!! 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 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 was all right. Okay, it probably had the biggest political upheavals in recent memory, but lets be honest here... you don't come here for the political doom and gloom you can get from the major news outlets. You come here for the plastic soldiers. And it's been a pretty solid year for plastic soldiers. A slew of new box sets, Blood Bowl coming back, the Deathwatch series going strong, and Warhammer Quest getting an update. New models a plenty, capping off the year with a Daemon Primarch (despite some disappointing rules for his minions). The FAQ bits came out this year, showing Games Workshop was starting to take customer complaints and feedback seriously. Warhammer Community got launched as a way for people to actually find out information about new releases. In the Dungeons and Dragons world, we've got a bunch of new Unearthed Arcana, including a fix for the un-inspiring Ranger class. Volo's Guide to Monsters was released with a bundle of new playable...

I was having a conversation on the Twitters with a fellow gaming teacher ( Mike Davies ), and it sparked a little conundrum in my head: When is the best time to run your wargaming club? Most clubs I've seen run sessions during the week, and oddly enough mostly on Thursdays. Family life tends to mean that the weekends are usually out. Trying to explain to your other half you can't take the little ones to their football match because you want to push toy soldiers around for a few hours is not a conversation that ends well. Weekdays tend to be when people are free, but usually not Friday. That's the day that tends to be saved for the social events that don't involve the clatter of dice, and usually feature more alcohol. School clubs are a bit more challenging to find a good slot for, particularly if the school you work in doesn't have an extra curricular activity program. Your usual times are going to be after school. Some may tempt you into thinking a war...

As it is the Christmas Holidays, it's probably a good time to remind people of just what I'm writing this blog for. It might not be hugely obvious, as there hasn't been any club activity since the end of last term. I am a teacher, and I run the school's war gaming club. Right now that means Warhammer 40,000, Age of Sigmar, Blood Bowl, Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition, and occasionally X-Wing: Miniatures Game. I am also the Alpha Nerd of the school, with all the dubious honour that title entails. Many young neophytes tremble at the magnificence of my neck beard! My poor Chalk Orks about to get it from a Riptide... Well, actually not really. I trim the neck fuzz regularly to keep the outward appearance of a professional teacher, and fool people into thinking I'm not the kind of person who regularly day dreams about dragons. I do, however, spend a great deal of time on the club. I mainly spend my time reminding the students to thin their paints, but I...

Merry Christmas everyone! Nothing important to say, apart to share a bit from my buddies' Dungeons and Dragons downtime WhatsApp conversation. As a quick tip to DMs, if you can't manage regular sessions, then continuing the adventure through an instant messenger service is a great way to keep people in touch with the game. Elric, the half-elf sorceror, pauses rifling through the now dead demon gnoll to wish the rest of the party a Merry Christmas. He uses Prestidigitation to make scatter some small sparkling snowflakes around the gnoll corpse.  The dwarf appears from a pile of gnolls on the walls, tankard already in hand, singing a festive ditty in the manner of Shane MacGowan from the Pogues.  The half-ord paladin grunts. The bard heads to the nearest tavern, returning with flagons of mead for everyone. The urchin pulls some pigs in blankets from his greasy hair, and begrudgingly offers them around. The warlock takes the mead and pigs in blankets, and le...

Christmas hype? Gone in an instant. Prepare to buzz with glee for the New Year! Warhammer Community getting the scoop on all the 'leaks'out there, giving us some really nice resolution images of the new plastic Sisters of Battle models. And they are beautiful! I'm holding fire on deep analysis of these things to show you all as soon as possible. New Inquisitor! New Mechanicum Archmagos! Those of you following the rumour part of the Warhammer Community website are going to recognize some of the features of that model. It is without a doubt the most Adeptus Mechanicus-style crazy model produced to date! There are two videos too for the new Fall of Cadia campaign, but I'm leaving that for tomorrow. Good times ahead though... Looks like the 40K universe is about to have it's stability smashed with a hammer. Great times to be in the hobby! Thanks for reading. If you liked what you saw, and you want to help out, please visit and donate at my  Pat...

Sorry, I know I said I would talk about Rubric Marines. However, it's the last day of term, and I'm going to the staff party. Proper update tomorrow after I've recovered. Just to give you an idea of how full on a teacher's life is; on my way out of the classroom I was met by some tearful year 7 students. One of their fellow boarders had sat on their minis during packing up to go home. Most people would offer sympathy, then run home. A teacher? Running the Warhammer Club? No chance. I spent the next few hours in mini A and E (or ER for you Americans), patching up wounded Ravenwing Bikers and doing a particularly rocking conversion on a Stormcast Eternal Dracoth with a wonky Tempest Hammer. But hey ho... price you pay for the next few weeks off. Merry Xmas everyone! Thanks for reading. If you liked what you saw, and you want to help out, please visit and donate at my  Patreon . Every Little helps!

Just a little thought today, as I get ready for my school house's Christmas dinner. For those who don't know, here in the UK we have a grand tradition of School Houses. These are pastoral organisations within the school that deal with the softer side of education; looking after emotional well-being and what you'd probably call school spirit. Each student will be placed in a House, usually in the same as their siblings if they have any. This will be a tutor group thing, with Houses having their own assemblies, sports teams and maybe even social events. In a boarding school, Houses are literal houses where students live. The housemaster is essentially the daddy/mummy to the student during term, and is the responsible adult for them. If any of you are thinking, "This sounds like Harry Potter..." then yes. You are correct. But are you surprised? J.K. Rowling didn't invent the system herself you know. For the record, we have four houses in my school too. I...

Still doing reports, and so still writing revise F=ma and Work Done formula for the bajillionth time. For those interested, bajillion is a technical science term for x10^Infinity. So as I bash my head on the keyboard, it's nice to know that some people out there poke fun at their jobs sometimes, recognising the silliness of the things they have to do. And by that I mean the marketing guys at Games Workshop. This is the video from Warhamer TV advertising the new bigger can of Chaos Black spray. They know they need to advertise it. They know it's not as exciting as a new demon Primarch. But they have to try and sell it well anyway. I appreciate any professional that can make fun of themselves sometimes. Particularly when they talk about their vision for a product as mundane as this. Back to reports... Thanks for reading. If you liked what you saw, and you want to help out, please visit and donate at my  Patreon . Every Little helps!

Reports season. Yaaaaay... Just another quick post due to writing over a hundred comments encouraging students to revise over the Christmas Holidays. This is the first match of Blood Bowl played by the club.  The club neophytes loved it, but in our haste to roll dice we didn't really read the rules that well. It was very much like young boys playing football for the first time and getting everything wrong, but grinning every step of the way. Most of the game was spent chasing after the ball with all the players, with the only models hanging back in any kind of formation simply being left behind due to turn overs. Also, due to a misunderstanding of what the phrase 'Follow-up' meant, there were a great many... many fouls. With obvious results... Orks won, 1-0, but were disappointed to leave some of the Human team still on the field. Also a Terminator showed up and started gunning down Linemen. Rules are for wimps. Thanks for reading. If you lik...

Just a quick one, thanks to an incredibly long day at school (yes I work Saturdays as well). But no matter how long a day, it always turns bright when you get that email from school reception saying a parcel has arrived for you... First match coming up soon! Thanks for reading. If you liked what you saw, and you want to help out, please visit and donate at my  Patreon . Every Little helps!