Tabletop Teacher

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...

We've looked at the offensive potential of Eldar Scatter bikes compared to a non-special weapon White Scar biker squad. With the assault potential of White Scar Bikes taken into account, the difference between the two becomes slimmer and slimmer. But now we look at the defensive value of each unit. There are some Psychic powers that can take effect here, but both units will have access to something similar. Jetbikes can receive Shrouding from Warlock Battle runes, whereas White Scars can receive it from Telepathy. Since both can receive the same buff, we can discount it as a controlled variable. Guide used in the offensive shooting analysis could not be discounted because bikers have twin-linked bolt guns, meaning that the similar Divination power would be useless on them. This is a simple analysis, assuming the same number of hits on each unit. We go through various strengths and APs, coming out with an average value for both wounds taken and then wounds after saves....

Following on from yesterday's discussion of overpowered Scatter bikes and their prowess in shooting, we now look at how they compare to White Scar Bikers in assault. As you can guess, the White Scars come out on top: Unit Scatter Jetbikes with Guide White Scars bike at 24 Attacks 6.0 6.0 8.0 8.0 Hits 3.0 3.0 4.0 4.0 Hammer of Wrath         3 1.5 1.5 3.3 3.3 4 1.0 1.0 2.7 2.7 5 0.5 0.5 2.0 2.0 6 0.5 0.5 1.3 1.3 7 0.0 0.0 0.7 0.7 8 0.0 0.0 0.7 0.7 Normal Wounds         3 1.5 1.5 2.7 2.7 4 1.0 1.0 2.0 2.0 5 0.5 0.5 1.3 1.3 6 0.5 0.5 0.7 0.7 7 0.0 0.0 0.7 0.7 8 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 Total Assault       ...

The prevealing wisdom is that Scatter Bikes are completely overpowered, and are one of the major reasons why Eldar players find it difficult to find games.   But can we prove it?   To show how good or bad the Eldar are, we need to find an equivalent unit that can match it. The reasons/rules which make the scatter pack good are as follows:   Bike mobility Objective secured Long range weapon Very far Turbo-boost Jink Assault moves High strength weapon We could probably leave the post there, but I like to go a little further in analysis. The closest match to all this would be a White Scar biker unit. Depending on the formation you take you can achieve either Objective Secured or an assault turn move, they match the mobility in the movement phase, and have a slightly better jink and Move through cover to match the turbo boost of the jet bike. I'm aware that you can't compare the mobility of jet bikes to Space Marine bikers, but it's the closest we'...