Every Monday and Thursday from three to six in room 302, Shane Mobley is helping a new generation get into Warhammer 40k. Warhammer 40k is a tabletop miniature skirmish game that involves lots of dice, some rulers, and a little strategy. But it is much more than that, the game is played with miniatures that you can paint and terrain you can make. As well as interesting lore that coincides with the game.

 “Essentially you’ll have your group of miniatures, the other person that is playing against you will have their group of miniatures and you have a goal and within the rules of the game you are just trying to accomplish that goal before the opponent,” Mobley said.

 In hopes of making Warhammer more accessible to people so they don’t have to try and deal with the financial barrier that comes with playing the game, Mobley has helped start and sponsor the school’s new Warhammer club.

“You are certainly not obligated to stay that long. If you want to come in and paint a couple models go home. That’s totally fine,” Mobley said. “If you want to, if you can only make it one of those days, that’s fine. If you’re only there periodically. That’s fine. So the cool part is it lets students get into the hobby without having to overcome that financial barrier.” 

Mobley started the Warhammer club earlier this semester when he had a question of the day in one of his classes about if you could start a club what would it be. Since Mobley was already experienced in the hobby, he and a student decided to start one.

“I’ve been collecting these models for upwards of 10 years now. I have a very large collection. And I’m happy to let students use them,” Mobley said. 

Mobley did not start playing Warhammer until he was in college, but he has been collecting figures used in games similar to Warhammer for a while. He started playing Warhammer because he found painting the figures to be calming and relieve stress

“I’ve really enjoyed the gameplay as well but I’ve always been a board game player, a tabletop game player. Before I did any of this, I was a Dungeons and Dragons player,” Mobley said. “I liked to do the other Lord of the Rings game, which was the other game that I was talking about that I got into originally. So I knew I would like Warhammer, but really, it’s the story and the painting that brought me to the game.” 

The time frame of the games can run anywhere between 45 minutes to two hours. But as people get more experienced at the game the time for a game will go down. On the club page on the school website they have resources that will help beginners learn how to play the game.

“We can do practice games, I can sit there and kind of work through it with somebody,” Mobley said. “You can have the chance to watch other players playing the game if you want to come in and not jump right in.”