Another week, another spectacular series of events, including both the second Goonhammer Open (this time a major in the UK) and the SoCal Open supermajor. Past that, we had an incredible three additional majors across Europe and the US, and a hefty crop of GTs. So massive was the weekend, in fact, that even with the new format shrinking GTs down to just undefeated lists for the full writeups, this column needs to be split in two (especially as I'm still recovering from being head judge at a major all weekend). Today...

You’ve got your army, you even added up the points to play a matched play game but you aren’t really sure how Core Battalions work. Do you need to take them? Should you? How many units should go into one? We’ll probably answer these questions and more, so read on if Core Battalions confuse you a bit (or a lot). For the context of this article I’ll be talking about Matched Play games and the General’s Handbook 2021. The new edition of Age of Sigmar removed Warscroll Battalions from the...

Tribal commander archetypes are fairly common, though if you're in a more casual group there's a bit of an issue where several of them are really quite good.  Elves and pirates easily make the cut off for any kind of real deck you like; Zombies, Vampires, Wizards are all quite powerful, and humans help define the modern format, Ninjas are so strong they slide into cEDH territory and Najeela, the Blade Blossom does the same for warriors. For old time's sake I'd love to play Rebels, but there'd need to be an Orzhov rebel commander, if printed today I'm sure Lin Sivvi, Defiant Hero would have B: target rebel gains menace until the end of the turn or something like that, and it would be perfect. Handicapping your deck building by going hardcore on one of the bad tribes though can lead to more interesting or fun games if you're having trouble matching up power levels at your LGS.  I've been looking for ways to match things up, the other night when my Atraxa planeswalker deck took infinite turns after resolving Tamiyo's Emblem people sort of gave me some side-eye, even though there was a suspended worldfire hanging over our...

I've been in the hobby for five years now and I'm currently going through some growing pains with my gaming space. A lot of ideas and concepts that made sense in the initial stages are starting to fall apart, and I'm on the brink of having to completely rethink the way I organize everything. This particular hobby space is less about what an incredible experience a late stage Warhammer collection can look like, and more a discussion about some practical problems and solutions I've experienced as I'm moving out of the early stage of collection. This is the current painting setup. The location, in the living room and directly facing a window, has been ideal - lots of natural light, an excellent view of the garden when I raise my head from painting and plenty of space to move around. A lot of people have dedicated rooms to paint in but I actually find that painting in a common area has a lot of positives too. My spouse crochets and this arrangement lets us have conversations while we both work on our respective hobbies.  A painting desk also just plain looks good. It's a place of colour and energy and an...

"Contemptor" Kevin Stillman's write-up of his experiences at the Games Workshop US Open tournament continues this week as he recaps his Saturday games. If you missed his previous update, you can find it here. D. Saturday Up at 6:00 am to work out before being on my feet for several hours. My breakfast that morning was half a donut from Hertz Donut, a donuttery next to the hotel. Delicious donuts, but each one you eat probably takes a month off your life. But it was time to game! First game - vs. Custodes (Jetbike list) The Mission: Sweep and Clear The first game against Custodes was an intense struggle because my army did not have an answer for a bunch of T6, objective-holding units with a 5+ invulnerable save. I was able to get ROD off without too much trouble, but even trying to play objectives I just wasn't going to be able to do very much. Second game - Custodes, but this time with Telemons The Mission: Vital Intelligence This one was a heartbreaker, since I lost this one by about three points to a very friendly opponent. I completed ROD and Engage on All Fronts. However, I realized on Turn 3 that I had forgotten...