Tabletop Teacher

Black library has opened up it's murky and labyrinthine gates in the webway to aspiring new talent. They are taking on submissions and pitches for new stories, and rather than complete jobs, so this could be your chance to become an Aspiring Champion of Literature. Pop on over to Warhammer Community for the details, but if you have the will to tread the literary Path to Glory then these are your first steps: 1. Your story must use Games Workshop’s Intellectual property and be based in any of the Warhammer 40,000, Warhammer Age of Sigmar, Blood Bowl or Necromunda settings. It must also adhere to one or more of the above themes but you may interpret this in any way you see fit. We’re looking for a broad range of stories and characters that capture Black Library’s unique mood and tone. To fit with Black Library’s range, your story should not include graphic descriptions of gratuitous violence, sex or explicit bad language.  2. Pitch us your idea by sending a one-paragraph su...

When you like the idea of Stormcast Eternals, but still want to be a special snowflake: Half-orruk Stormcast Eternal battling mixed race Khorne Bloodbound... do you even Diversity bro? Just a test piece to see if I like the colour scheme. I'm happy with the concept, but the gold and green are a bit meh. I think I might reverse the colours to more of a Salamander Space Marine scheme. In terms of fluff, well, Age of Sigmar gives us many opportunities to break lore in the name of Your Dudes. My new Stormcast chambers could be made entirely of orc heroes who have been Reforged. They could have been infected by WAAAGGHH!! magic. They could even have more sinister undertones of being part of a genuine half-orruk race of humans who live in the Beast Realm. Mostly I like the idea of subverting the paladin theme the Stormcast have, and having an excuse to shout WAAGGHH!! on the tabletop again. Until next time! Thanks for reading. If you liked what you saw, and you want to...

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...

A little idea for using the Genestealer Cultist rules. If I could find enough Skaven rat tails and heads I'd be converting the new Genestealer Neophyte hybrid models as a Skaven infiltration force. It's often been said that the Skitarii and Mechanicus have been their analogue in the 40K setting. Now we know who are really representing the theme and operating procedure of the Skaven. Anyway, just a quick pic before I round off the surprising truth about Scatter Jetbikes tomorrow. Until next time... 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!

Another quick one before I collapse into a coma after a truly awful day. I was thinking about Stormcast Eternals, and how their open ended origin fluff supposedly allows for great variation in armies. The idea is that Sigmar picks out heroes FROM BEYOND TIME AND SPAAAACE to be part of his war hosts. He bangs up their souls in Sigmarite, thrusts the weight of the world's future on them, and kicks them out the door in a lightning bolt with the expectation that they'll just have to find their own way home. Sigmar's kind of a jerk that way. Anyway, with such a broad origin space to pick from, why are all the current Stormcast factions so vanilla? Where are the viking clones? The vampires? The mongols and machine obsessed? Yes I'm referencing known Space Marine chapters, but that's my point. A White Scar, whilst using the same codex, is not the same as a Salamander. They've not been around long, but in the Age of Internet, the first person to put out t...

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!

Yeah, it's very early to speculate. We don't have any concrete evidence that there will be an 8th Edition, and by concrete I mean official statement from Games Workshop. There are rumours of course, and compelling evidence, but nothing firm yet. However, using my crystal ball far more effective logic and reasoning, I think I can somewhat predict the future of monstrous creatures in 40K. As the rumours fly about, we keep hearing that we're going to get some mechanics of Age of Sigmar, and I think I know which ones. Right now, Monstrous creatures are very powerful compared to other units. This is right and proper, otherwise we wouldn't give them the name Monstrous, and they would just be creatures. Or robots in the case of Eldar and Tau. The biggest advantage of Monstrous Creatures is the fact they do not lose power over the course of the game. Typical units (Firewarriors, Terminators etc.) will lose influence and ability the more the game progresses. Even...

Tabletop Teacher is one month old today! Hooray! Let's do some analysis. So far I've published 52 articles, of varying length, for an average of 1.7 articles a day. Not bad, considering I thought I'd slow down to 3 posts a week. For the time being I'm going to keep this up. I have an awful lot to say about 40K and table top gaming, and there's always something new to discuss. I actually was inspired to blog by EVE Online, where I started to record my exploits as a solo pilot. Back then Jester's Trek was the king of blogs, churning out at least one quality post a day, earning him the nick name Robo-blogger. I used to wonder how he could keep that up and still do his day job... now I think I know how. For the right topic all you need is an excuse to write. In terms of views, we're now on a total of 734, which is small compared to any blog, but seems massive to me. That's an average of 14 views per post, and 24 views per day. That's jus...

I was in my local Games Workshop store last weekend, discussing the club shenanigans with the shop manager. For those who consider Games Workshop to be a faceless monolithic money-grubbing organisation, I suggest you pop down to your local shop more often. You'll soon discover the majority of employees are neck bearded nerds like yourself, and drop the internet cynicism that pervades the web ways. I get on well with the manager, and am fairly certain he's going to have a good time this Christmas judging by my student's Christmas Wish-lists. Even though it's only November they have written their 'Dear Santa' letters, with Santa crossed out and the manager's name in place. It's an odd time to be running the club, as greed spills over and students are picking my brains for advice on what models to buy. Whilst dreams of shiny new Space Wolves in 4+ cover under the Christmas Tree are being woven, Dark Angel's from various Starter kits remain onl...

As I wandered through the school canteen at tea time (boarding school, so teacher doesn't get off duty until all the kids go to bed), a member of Senior Leadership (educational jargon for Boss) comes up to me and gives me some good news. They want me to extend club times to Saturday mornings. As a formal activity. For a few hours. Replacing the existing Saturday activity that was open for students at that time. Which sounds bad on the surface of it, but then he says the magic words: "We'll give you some budget for it..." Gleee! Now bear in mind I've been running Saturday sessions informally ever since I've started the club. I think this is basically a ploy for more marketing ammunition for the school, but I'm not going to turn down extra money. It also means I actually have more gated time for my own hobby. And I'll be getting paid for my time too. Good work if you can get it! Details have yet to be hammered out, but it looks as though...