Well it is that time of week again where we talk about your questions and I provide you the answers, which we also talk about! Last week, we fielded 3 questions about Magic the Gathering, and this week, we have one big question that I got very excited about answering! But before we get to that, a few reminders about how you can have your questions submitted and answered live in this column (And by live I mean usually about a week after you ask them):
Are you interested in having your questions answered in this column? Well, have I got news for you: You can indeed do that, by following the directions below:
Marcy@goonhammer.com
With the subject “Miss Marcy: ”
You are also able to leave comments on the article, as well as use the Discord bot command if you happen to be a member, meaning you now have THREE ways to give me your questions to answer!
And now, on to the questions!
Dear Miss Marcy,
I want to thank you for providing space for people struggling through their LGSes and navigating the often-choppy and perilous Warp in which we are all thrust by withered old honkeys with more money than heart.
With that said: A friend of mine has bought a Kill Team and is interested in the game, as am I; this is partly as a side dish to 40K interest in my case, but could you recommend ‘learn to play’ resources? Written materials would be preferred, though I know video content is king thanks to the previously-referenced honkeys. While one or both of us would surely acquire the actual core rulebook at some point, rulebooks are notable in their often-poor transmission of “how do you play the fucking game,” I find.
Supplementary question: Do you have any experience or advice for elevating a ‘game night’ dinner? I’m not thinking of a full fourteen-course diplomatic banquet here, but it seems like we can do better than “pizza” or “Chinese/Thai delivery,” and it might even tie in with the actual events of the game module, if we’re really reaching.
–Kill Team and Spill, Anyone?
Dear Kill Team and Spill,
For your first question, I will admit that it does indeed get harder and harder to find written explanations and walkthroughs of games, and in some part that is likely due to the problem of hedging too close to being simply restating the rules in different words. We did run a Getting Started article back in 2023, and do have extensive Kill Team coverage, but the best suggestion I can give you are, indeed, videos: the Can You Roll a Crit team put out KT videos all the time here on Goonhammer, and they are great places to get some information and answer questions.
That said, I have a few suggestions: I think using the lite rules and some basics is the best thing you can probably do. Perhaps one of the hurdles with Kill Team is the fact that the game is not as simple or fast as it seems like it should be on paper, and that is actually reflected in how dense the rules are. What I’d probably suggest is running starter games that focus on a few, specific, simplified aspects. Don’t change or alter rules, but focus on specific things like moving, shooting, and cover, for example. After those seem to be understood, introduce more specific rules like advanced load outs, abilities, and more complicated list building.
As for your second question! I do have a lot of suggestions, actually, because I love entertaining and thinking up menus and the like. I also love to encourage people to cook, because cooking for yourself and others is rewarding and often not as hard as it seems like it is going to be. The first step and thoughts are that since you are making food for game night, there’s nothing wrong with going for either foods that are easy to hold/drink and won’t create a large mess, and foods that require everyone to take a break and sit down to eat them. Whichever one you want to go for is fine; my board game group used to break gaming night into Game 1, Dinner, Game 2-4, depending on how complex they were.
Theming is a little harder without a better sense of, well, theme, but here are three ideas:
Elevated French Bread Pizza: I love this one and often use it as a quick go to on nights where I’ve been working and want a little extra time to work over cooking. An oven, broiler, toaster oven, air fryer, or even grill can be used for this (and honestly a stovetop with some creativity); the trick is getting a loaf of french bread (or any sort of ‘artisanal’ bread from a grocery store other than ‘take and bake stuff), cut it in half lengthwise to make the ‘pizza’ halves, and then start by topping it. If you have the time, a cheese grater can help you make this even more special because grated cheese melts better than pre-shredded.
I usually use mozzarella (low moisture) and cheddar, and the first ‘trick’ is that I put the cheese on the bread, put it in the oven, and let it cook till the cheese has melted. Then, I’ll remove it and add sauce. You can again get as creative as you like here; I tend to make sauce and freeze it, so I’ll use that, you can literally just use canned crushed San Marzano tomatoes, or even premade pizza sauces (but they have a lot of sugar usually here in the states to compensate for how often canned tomatoes are under ripe). Add some seasoning, top it with anything else you want (pepperonis, raw sausage bits, veggies) and add a little more cheese and toss it back in the oven, and you’ll have something that feels homemade, easy, and very satisfying!
Bernhardt: Seconding all of this. All I have to add is that I think ciabatta bread specifically is formidable here, especially if you use a convection element on your oven/toaster oven to make sure everything stays crispy.
If you’d like to go for a more ‘sit down’ option, here’s a few other suggestions:
Fettucini alfredo is often luxurious and satisfying and feels like a lot, but it’s actually fairly easy. Aside from the pasta itself, you’ll just need 8 oz of Parmesan cheese, which you can buy grated or grate yourself (I often just toss it into a food processor/chopper I have). I’ll add an egg yolk to a cup of heavy cream, whisk that together, heat it in a pan, and slowly add the cheese, before adding in anything else (chicken, spinach, etc.) and then finally the pasta and serving it. It’s often a crowd pleaser just from how decadent it feels but if I’m not cooking a protein to add to it, it actually takes less than 30 minutes! I even make a variation where I use sausage and spinach with rigatoni over traditional fettucini.
If you’re not looking for pasta, another quick favorite of mine is a variation of Oyakodon, a rice, chicken, egg, and onion based dish from Japan. The ‘labor’ here is making rice, which you can always do way ahead of time and keep warm (especially in a rice cooker), and the sauce for the dish itself. The sauce is deceptively easy: soy sauce, rice wine vinegar, chicken bouillon, sugar, and water. Generally I go in ratios: 2 cup of water, 1/4 cup soy sauce, 1/4 vinegar, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 tablespoon bouillon, and scale it up either for more people or for taste (I tend to add a bit more soy sauce). What makes this dish easy is you can use ground chicken, raw chicken breast, chicken thigh, or even precooked chicken that you cut up/dice up. The actual ‘cooking’ here is a white onion, cut and chopped into bite sized pieces, which I let sweat in the pan for a few minutes, then either cook the chicken or warm the cooked chicken back up, add the sauce, and let it boil and reduce for about 10 minutes. The next step is to get a small pan fit for cooking eggs in! You’ll usually want 2 eggs per person (so, maybe this is now an expensive dish…), which you’ll want to crack and whisk lightly. Add the eggs to the pan, ladle in the sauce and chicken mixture, and cook till your preferred egg consistency. Serve over rice and you’ve got something hearty, warm, and seemingly again very decadent and ‘difficult’ that really only takes about 40 minutes to prepare. Since you can scale it, it’s easy to make for more or less people, and you can also make the sauce and preserve it by freezing it and then thawing it out whenever you want to make it.
I hope these help! If you have more specific questions for food ideas or how to entertain, toss me another question and give me more specifics! We can certainly ensure that you get to have some of the best food anyone’s ever probably had in the vicinity of a gaming table for sure!
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