Tabletop Teacher

I’m trying to stick to a lower but consistent blog schedule, usually taking Tuesday, Thursday and the weekend off. However, I’m always eager to respond to reader requests and Spoonlamp had this question: "I know you've been concentrating on Killteam lately,  but any thoughts on scalable anti-armour for Blood Angels? Hellblasters v Dev squad? Redemptor Dread v Pred?" It’s a good question, and the answer is largely the same for any Space Marine force. As of now Hellblasters are your best bet for anti-armour, but that comes with a few conditions. In general with Blood Angels your best options are going to be melta-gun Assault Marines or any close combat unit with a power fist. However, we'll look at the traditional anti-armour options with this post. Hellblaster Hellblasters with their plasma incinerators offer the best balance between offence and defence for a Blood Angel player. They’re twice as tough as Devastators (quite literally… double the Wounds), an...

Chinese New Year is this week, and my wife and I are busy getting ready for it (new clothes, roasted pork, roasted duck, lucky money packets etc.). As you can imagine from the total lack of new posts, hobby time is extremely limited, but I have two or three nice things set aside for this week. My All Female Astra Militarum Regiment have been performing a little too well against my School Club members, to the point where they're genuinely afraid of facing them in School Alliance match-ups. With terror of teacher's army of skill in 40K achieved, I'm going back to some other armies, to soften any games they have against me in the future. So I chose Eldar Craftworlds. Some of you are already laughing. Whilst I'm hammering out another list to inspire (fear) and challenge my student neophyte players, I already have some small modelling challenges of my own to sort out. Put simply, I want some Rangers to form my Troops choices. It's fairly understandable as to w...

After a few games of sheer joy where my strategy and army composition worked perfectly, I'm going to upset my students and gaming buddies by making it even better! Well, hopefully. What follows is an update from this starter list , now I've managed to get some more units. Close up of Maggie and her Laser Lasses The full constructed army so far... The Tempestus Scions work phenomenally well in each game. They manage to find the softest targets in each match up, despite not having their full complement of squads... so far only the command squad and Tempestor Prime have been constructed. The dent they make in a battle line is incredible, an they're surprisingly hard to kill. The Tempestor is now named Sabrina Gale. These girls are waiting for some new heads, but I'll talk about them in a later blog post. The Tank Commander performs tremendously well too, not only acting as the world's greatest bullet magnet, but putting out supreme fire power in each g...

As promised, here is the sample for the story. For a summary of the plot, go here. This part of the story takes place immediately after the confrontation between the protagonist, a Fallen Dark Angel looking to live out his existence in isolation on a back water planet, and a Thousand Son Sorcerer who is about to sacrifice a village of humans on the planet to enact a psychic ritual.  "All is dust..." whispered the Rubricae. "Yes," murmured Nathal back. He stepped over the corpse of the Sorcerer, the bolt hole of his judgment still smoking in the helmet of the former astarte. Some substance, black, sticky and no longer blood, oozed from the wound, hissing as it hit the ground.  The Rubricae folded gently at the knees, almost like he was powering down. It came to a rest on a boulder, sitting upright with it's back straight, the armour fully supported by ancient servos and mechanisms. He tried to hold his weapon up, but it fumbled, crashing to he groun...

A quick series of work in progress pictures for my all female Astra Militarum/ Imperial Guard regiment. The first up is the officer. This one was fairly easy; A head swap, which didn't even require much in the way of making space for it. The head is from the Escher gang kit, and the body is the Commissar from the Start Collecting Militarum Tempestus kit. The bolter is a spare from the Space Wolf pack kit, but honestly any old bolter would do. I went for the Wolf one to maximise potential rage at the officers back story! The back story for this matronly officer (who I'm calling Maggie for now), is based from a fairly typical female heroine story structure. This structure is young girl goes off into the wilderness, and finds some bestial, uncivilised but competent and strong guy. Over time she civilises him, turns him into a virtuous member of society, and they live happily ever after. Beauty and the Beast essentially, but you can see the same pattern in Twili...

One of the best bits of advice for story writing is to create a plan before going into the detail. Annoyingly the next bit of advice is to write the whole first draft before fixing it with a plan. Whilst I'd prefer the comfort of a empirically verified model on how best to write this (all hail the Scientific Method), with the conditions of the Black library competition being what they are I thought I'd give you all a summary and plan for feedback. Prepare your slings and arrows of criticism. There's a reason for it. If by some miracle I beat professional writers, you will be the ones reading the story, so it's be best to know there's an audience for what I've got before I get published. In the more likely case of me not winning, the story can be continued on this blog. In which case you'll be the sole audience for it. Might as well ask for what you want! Without further preamble, here's the pitch, with story sample to come later: I can't f...

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...

On the first day of Christmas, Games Workshop gave to me; Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch. On the second day of Christmas, Games Workshop gave to me; Two Primaris Lieutenants,  and Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch. On the third day of Christmas, Games Workshop gave to me; Three Inceptors, Two Lieutenants, and Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch. On the fourth day of Christmas, Games Workshop gave to me; Four Command Squad Vets, Three Inceptors, Two Lieutenants, and Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch. On the fifth day of Christmas, Games Workshop gave to me; Fiiiive Space Marines! Four Command Squad Vets, Three Inceptors, Two Lieutenants, and Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch. On the sixth day of Christmas, Games Workshop gave to me; Six Crisis Suits, Fiiiive Spaace Marines! Four Command Squad Vets, Three Inceptors, Two Lieutenants, and Ahriman on a Disc of Tzeentch. On the seventh day of Christmas, Games Workshop gave...