Feast of Blades Banner Update! lase one

Nearly finished Feast of Blades banner!  

Here you go folks!  The banner will be shipping out tomorrow. My colleague will bring in her machine to sew down the image to the banner and away it goes!  I have a few small details to add of course. I will add a couple of purity seals, and some details to the bottom like the date, and a skull or something.  I still don't know if this is part of the prize for the winner, or if Chandler will be keeping it as a record of each Feast and adding the names of the winners to the scroll of victory. Either way, it will serve it's purpose well.  

Next up, Space Wolves Chapter Banner.

Also, my Blood Angels Chapter Banner, that appeared in last months White Dwarf and won me last years banner competition at Gamesday is going up for sale.  I will be putting it up auction style. For an idea of how much I am hoping to get for it, I charge 300+ for my other banners, and this one far surpasses them in quality, is my very own banner, and appeared in White Dwarf!  Email me if you would like to make a private offer.  Jawaballs at hotmail!  

Campaign game report - Adeptus Minneapolis

Doc Railgun makes an appearance! Always happy to have your stuff Doc. :) Jawaballs

+++ Transmission Begins +++
Recently, I played a game in my game club's monthly campaign - 1850 points, Orks vs Blood Angels.

Orks -
2 squads of biker boyz, a squad of nobz on bikes, Wazzdakka, Lootas in a Battlewagon with a KIllkannon.

Blood Angels -
A jump Librarian
4 x 5 Assault Marines with a melta and power fist and a Sanguinary Priest, each squad in a Razorback with TL Lascannons
a Librarian Dreadnought w/ a heavy flamer
a Vindicator with a Siege Shield and a storm bolter and extra armor
2 Baal Predators with heavy bolter sponsons
an autocannon Predator with lascannon sponsons
(I had an extra 50 points due to the campaign situation)

It was a Dawn of War deployment with 1 objective each.

The Orks won initiative, but chose to defer.
Turn 1 -
The Angels all stayed in reserve.
The Orks put down a biker squad, the biker boyz, and Wazzdakka. They all turbo-boosted as they moved, even though the BAs would not come in that turn. The second boyz squad came in, and the Battlewagon.

Turn 2 -
3 of the 4 Assault squads came in, 1 Baal, the jump Librarian, the Vindicator, and the Librarian Dreadnought.
The Baal outflanked on the Ork's right, 2 of the Razorbacks moved on 12" also on their right. The Vindicator moved on 12" directly into cover, the Dreadnought followed it on along with the last Razorback. The jump Librarian came in via Deepstrike just behind the Battlewagon.
All the Razorback lascannons fired on the Battlewagon hoping to keep the Deffrolla from running over all the Marines' vehicles, but all missed or did no damage. The Vindicator fired its cannon and killed several biker boyz. The Baal opened up on the same set of boyz and also killed several.

The Lootas inside the 'wagon blew the assault cannon turret from the Baal, one squad of bikers moved to fire on and assault it after but not otherwise hurting it. A second squad turned to cut down the Librarian in a hail of dakka and the nob bikerz revved toward the Vindicator and Dreadnought.

Turn 3 -
The rest of the BA reserves came in - the second Baal on the Orks left, the autocannon Predator and the last Razorback came in on the BA right near the objective in their deployment zone. The first Baal and a Razorback moved forward to tank shock the nearest biker squad, chasing it off the board. The Vindicator and Dreadnought stayed put, trying to draw the Nobz towards them away from the objective. A Razorback lascannon managed a lucky shot and destroyed the Battlewagon while the Vindicator ignored the Nobz while finishing off the Lootas hunkered down in the Battlewagon wreckage. The remaining Razorback lascannons and the Predator's weapons fired at the second boyz squad, killing a few.

The bikers and nobz zoomed forward again, hoping to get to grips with the BA vehicles where they would be vulnerable, but the biker nobz were loathe to assault into cover with the Dreadnought so close and able to countercharge. Instead, Wazzdakka shot and killed the Vindicator, making a crater of it. The bikers did manage to immobilize a Razorback.

Turn 4 -
A squad of Marines disembarked on their own far right near their objective, their transport rolling forward to make it more difficult for the nob bikers to get to their objective, as did the Predator. The two Razorbacks in the middle moved forward as well and the vehicles on the BA left rolled towards the remaining biker boyz along with a now-disembarked Assault squad. Rather than assault the nobs, the Dreadnought moved toward the boyz as well. Most of the firepower on the BA left and center whittled down the bikers and the Dreadnought assaulted them with the Assault squad. Though several of the Marines died, the Dreadnought was able to run down the biker squad after their failed their morale check. It was able to consolidate towards the wreckage of the Vindicator nearby to prepare for the coming Nob assault. All the remaining Blood Angel firepower rained down on the nobz, but their cybork parts or cover saves protected them all.

The nobz swerved to their right, hoping to preserve a draw by holding their own objective, while Wazzdakka split off to shoot at the Baal moving to try to shoot them in the rear, managing to kill it with his kustom weapon. The nobz shot at and assaulted the few disembarked Marines, but only one died.

Turn 5 -
An Assault squad disembarked from a Razorback in the center, hoping to assault Wazzdakka, the other Razorback moving all out to get between the nobz and their objective. The Dreadnought charged the Nobz after the Marines were finished shooting at the orks. Several nobz fell, along with Wazzdakka. 3 Marines died in the Assault (leaving only the power fist-wielding sergeant alive), but the Marines also killed 3 Nobz, leaving only 4.

The assault continued on the Ork turn, they managed to kill the last Marine but the dreadnought killed 2 of them. The Orks gamely fought on.

Turn 5 -
The disembarked Blood Angels assaulted the last few Nobz, between them and the dreadnought finishing them off in the ensuing melee.

------------
What did I learn?
Reserving everything allowed me to keep the fast bikers guessing where to go. The high speed Angel tanks were able to tank shock to good effect as well as threatening both objectives while keeping to an advantageous position to fire from. The Vindicator drew the interest I hoped it would and even got off a couple of useful shots. I didn't think this army would do well against all those bikers, but my firepower knocked down their numbers to set up the tank shock to chase the lower LD orks from the board.

It was (as usual) a fun game against a great opponent.

+++Transmission Ends +++

Off for Valentines Day Massacre! Loot Markers.

Objective markers are a part of making your army stand out when trying to score painting points.  So, I have for you here four that I made!  Going with my Emo Vamp motiff I went with a sacrificial alter with virgin ready to meet her maker, and also another Virgin, the JawaGirlfriend waiting for her turn.  I went with a standard loot pile, drawing on inspiration from the codex after the fall of of Tycho. This banner is his backback banner!  Also I included a melta pistol, Blood Angels Helm, loot chest and on the other side a Power Fist.  Finally, comes the Angel of Death himself!  I found him on Reaper Miniatures website along with the candles and other loot bits.  Along with the angel I threw in a cute pumpkin and imp.  All around they add a nice whimsical and dreary element to my display that I hope will push me into the top!

Jawaballs

Rediscovering Angels #8: Sanguinary Priests

Hey there folks, how's it going?  It's Xaereth here from Delusions of Grandeur again, with more talk on how to use Blood Angels in the most efficient way possible.  Today I want to talk about a staple in many Blood Angel lists out there:  Sanguinary Priests.

Vampire Mephiston!

Here you go. Almost done.  I need to figure out what I am going to do with the bear cloak, paint the sword and pick out some more extreme highlights, but here he is for the most part!  Blood Angels Vampire Mephiston!

More Vamp Blood Angels WIP!

Here are my Space Vamp Blood Angels  Mephiston and Reclusiarch WIP!  I decided to go with bone color on Vlad...er Mephiston's armor decoration.  As it stands now, I did Bestial, Snake Bite, 50/50 snake bite/bleached bone, 25/75 snake bite/bleached bone, one more layer with even more bleached bone, then a final hit with pure bleached bone. I'm going to give it a wash with either sepia or mud, then touch it all again with bleached bone, then finally white.  The chaplain bone is right before the bleached bone stage.  

For mephiston's face it will be similar to the chaplain, I used Shadow Grey, then lightly touched in a few layers of Space Wolf Grey, then hit it with some Elf Flesh.  He is nearly complete, I just need to wash over the metal parts, and do final highlights with Fortress grey and a few other touch ups.

The question here is, how do I do Mephiston's robes???  On the GW site they did Vlad's cloak with red gore.  I already have enough red.  I'm thinking I might try some blue!  I will finish his skin first, and hair and plasma gun.,  What do you guys think?

Jawaballs

Emo Vamp Blood Angels Continued.

Today I want to talk about how I made my Emo Vamp Blood Angels.  Pictured below is the unpainted first tester model I converted from a Warhammer Fantasy Chaos Warrior, Night Lords Chaos Space Marine head from GW, and Blood Angels arms.  At first glance you would think this is an easy one right? Well not so fast! First of all, my conversion skills are minimal since I have always been completely happy with the models available to me. But in order to get maximum painting points at GTs, I need to have heavily converted models.  So I relent.  

Looking at the second picture, you can see where I encountered problems. Unlike easy conversions, like swapping out IG bodies for something from the Fantasy line, and simply putting on Lasguns, these here models come in a near state of completion. The shoulders, elbows, cloaks, every thing but forearms and heads, are all part of the mold.  That means that if I want to add Chain Swords and Bolt Pistols, I need to do some cutting!

First things first. I need to scrape off all the Chaos symbols.  Luckily there are some models in the kit that have very few.  It is a matter of cutting off the arrow points, stars, and other chaosy parts.  

But the picture above shows the real problem. These circles are where the forearms of the chaos models are glued into place. This is great for the chaos regiment because you need to have 20 or so in a tight formation. These circles keep the models pose and well, regimented!  I wanted to try to "action up" the pose a bit.

So I used clippers to cut out the circle, and my blade to shave em down, and also trimmed the arms to fit at nice angles.  The shoulder of the Chaos model provides a decent sized Space Marine shoulder pad, so I was able to cut the marine arms just below the shoulders and above the elbow pads, and fit them into the available spot with relative ease from there. But it was not without casualty! My Emo Vamp claimed his first bloody victim.  A lapse in attention and a slip of the knife had my blade swiping through my finger tip like Luke's Lightsaber through a catwalk handrail. 

(These pictures are actually from a few different models I am converting. You will notice that the painted model has a skull on his chest while the one I was cutting just a pointy design.  

In the finished picture I painted them very dark red, with some extreme orange highlights, but more importantly, I venture into battle damage!  Using the technique from the recent Blood Angels White Dwarf I layed in some Blazing Orange blobs, then painted them with 50/50 black and codex grey shapes, then took it one step further by touching them with mithril to show pure metal showing through the deepest spots.  This will be the final touch that I work into all of my tanks, to bring them all together.

My furioso Dread gets his battle damage make over, and a new base while a Blood Angels Scout hides his head in shame at never being allowed in a Jawaballs army.  (By the way I have a squad of 5 painted BA sniper scouts for sale if any one wants!)

There you have it! Tomorrow I will be posting up pics of my painted Mephiston, Chaplain and Priest.  Enjoy!

Jawaballs

Here is a quicky update on a WIP Sanguinary Priest.

Legion of the damned sergeant with a blood angels right arm from the Death Company box set, and a tactical marine hand replacing the sergeants plasma pistol. The grail is from Space Hulk.  It is mostly done, I need to paint the base of course, and spend some time on the back pack highlights and the lume pods, and of course the cup, but I don't think I will touch the armor again except to add some Satin Varnish and maybe a final extreme highlight in a few spots on the red.  

You know whats frustrating! I have been trying hard to always shave off all the flash lines, and I thought I got them all here, but I just noticed while looking at this high res picture that I missed one on his right leg, and some on the lights.  Grr! 

Now to paint Mephiston!

Jawaballs

New commission work and Emo Space Vamp Blood Angels!

Ahhh yes, Vacation time. I am off this week! Unfortunately I lost a day of Jawa time yesterday because the wife and Jawababy were home.  All you daddies out there would agree, you just can't get any thing done when the wife and baby are in the house.  But not today!  Baby is in daycare and wife is at work.  Word!

So I am taking the opportunity to get caught up on some projects I have had in the works.  I currently have three commissions in progress.  One has been a back burner commission that I have had hanging around for a few months. The customer fell into some financial trouble after making his down payment and after I did half the work. No need to get into details, but I agreed to cancel the models I did not start yet, but am charging him for me to finish the ones I did. (He mailed me the models which I don't normally do.)  So this project has been lingering about for some time, waiting for him to sort things out.

Every so often I get a commission request from a youngblood who simply cannot afford it no matter what I charge. After exchanging some emails with a 12 year old from Australia, giving him painting tips, critiquing his work, etc. he asked me if he could hire me to paint three Imperial Fist and how much it would cost.  Without boring you with further details, he only had 10 bucks US.  So, giving into my soft spot for kids, I agreed to take the job. I had him mail me his box of 3 marines, plus the 10 bucks to cover shipping, and took on his three Imperial Fists.  

Granted, these are not my usual Jawa quality, but I still think they came out nice. If I were to do a "budget" level of commission, this is what you would get!  

Finally I am getting to another small commission I just finished up.  These four models are Blood Angels sergeants that the customer wanted painted up to my usual standard.  I charged him my usual price of 40.00 each for Sergeants, but ended up giving him much more than my standard.  He wanted my older extreme highlight style, brighter models. It was refreshing to paint them the old way! My new way blends the models from dark to bright red, and takes a year, even with Army Painter Dragon Red.  These guys were primed black, painted with mechrite red, painted with blood red, highlighted with blazing and firery, then washed with Baal Red.  

My lighting needs work on the pics.  I just got a light tent and am experimenting with the settings on my camera. If any one has any advice for using a Canon 30D as far as how to make the setting perfect for shooting with a light tent, I would be happy to listen!

By the way, the Feast of Blades banner will be going out next week. It is currently at school and I need my colleague to bring in her sewing machine so we can sew the image onto the banner.  I will post up pics of that process next week. Next banner? Space Wolves Chapter Banner. That one should be fun!

This brings me to my current own project. I could not really play with this until I finished these sergeants. As I spoke of before, I am turning my Blood Angels into Emo Gothic Space Vamp Blood Angels. I have been working away, converting WFB chaos models into assault marines, and converting other models into my Independent Characters. 

This new army is staring the likes of a Warriors of Chaos badass, playing the role of a Blood Angels Reclusiarch! I used the head from a Vampire Counts winged vampire lord or some such. 

Playing the role of Sanguinary Priest with Chainsword and Blood Chalice is a Legion of the Damned Sergeant!

And never to be left out, staring in his debut army, Vlad Von Carstein as Mephiston! Complete with a plasma pistol he borrowed from some lowly assault marine.That was a bitch to get on right! I think the model is a perfect Mephiston. The pose is menacing and heroic, the Force Weapon looks much more killy and usable in combat, he is extremely vamped out, and he even has a psychic hood!

Here is a picture of my first finished Emo Vamp Blood Angel.

I will put up pics of these in progress tomorrow. For now, enjoy!

Jawaballs

BloodQuest: Introduction

Hello fellow 40kers!

My name is MadMaverick. I have been playing Warhammer 40k since 3rd edition; with a hiatus starting with the advent of 4th edition, and then triumphant return to 5th edition (when I say triumphant, I mean I bought AoBR and won my first game). Since 3rd edition, A LOT has changed! A good example is back in third, I had tactical squads in my Blood Angels army, HA! Overall I believe the game has changed for the better, 40k, although fictional, has taken in some really realistic situations and applied them in their game rules. The rules, still convoluted, have been greatly streamlined too! I think back in 3rd edition it took me about 10 or so games to even master the core rules, while in 5th edition I have buddies learning most of it in 3 (maybe I am/was a bit slow?).

Back on topic, I love Warhammer 40k, I am not so much a fan of the fantasy, while the models are cool; nothing beats the brutality and tactics of 40k! With that said I enjoy all aspects of the 40k universe; from the novels, comics, fluff, models, video games, and even the movie (let us not speak its’ name). I have always enjoyed my immersion in the universe as a whole, even during my tabletop hiatus.

Now I am back! I have been playing 5th edition ever since a buddy and I picked up the AoBR set at a local store back in April. He took the Orks, I took the SM, and together we set about on a journey that has led us to many glorious bloody battles! After a few months, we built our own custom tables and terrain; the 40k bug had bit me again!

Blood Angels have always held a special place in my heart since 3rd edition. It really came down to one model, Commander Dante. He was honestly the most B.A.M.F. I had ever seen. Once I started to read his fluff, he had to be mine, and so my path to the “Space Vampires” was drawn.

For 5th edition, I have chosen to focus on the JP aspect of BA. My personal Blood Angels army is highly mobile, utilizing JPs for almost every unit. I am a big fan of CC, even to the point where I will throw the security of a game just to get some fresh blood on my chainsword, it’s bad! With that being said, I am going to focus most of my articles around that style of play, mobile and lethal. Mech BA is great for some, but I like the DoA style of BA and have chosen to focus on that.

My current experiences with 40k are with smaller point games (500-1500), I am not a competitive player at all, and have only attended tournaments in a spectator capacity. I do love list building though, I love crunching the numbers and then hypothesizing/testing the effectiveness of builds, it has always been a passion! I also enjoy the art of painting, but to me it is more of a relaxation than a requirement. I paint as well as I can, so don’t expect anything fantastic as Mr. Jawaballs.

Well this was quite a long introduction, I will make sure to possibly just summarize everything, everyone loves bullets right? That may be the way to go in the future. Anyway I leave you gents with a 500 Pt BA JP List (*GASP* ONLY 500 PTS!?!??!). I hope some of you starting with JP BA may find it helpful!

JP BA - 496 Pts.
- 1 Libby w/ JP
- 1 Sang. Priest w/ JP, Meltabombs
- 6 man Assault w/ PF, Melta
- 6 man Assault w/ PW, Flamer

Feel free to send me a message here or on DakkaDakka (where I frequent as MadMaverick76). I am more than happy to help with list building at any point level, just remember my knowledge is better below 2k points, but I am always willing to help.

For Sanguinius! For the Emperor!

Valentines Day Massacre is a go!

Hey folks!  I don't know if this pint glass is part of the swag for The Valentines Day Massacre next weekend in Media, PA, but that is about all the incentive I need. I'm in. :)

Mike from Showcase Comics in Media, PA is running the show supported The BigGunz-NE who are a very active and enthusiastic club in the PA area.  But what is The Valentines Day Massacre?  Well it's a GT for gods sake!  5 games, 1850 points.  I just contacted Mike and found out that he still has about 9 spots open for the event. I snatched up one of them.  Take a look at the info site HERE. One notable rule is that "counts as" armies are not allowed. Looks like we won't be seeing any Imperial Fist Blood Angels or Black Legion Space Wolves!  Be sure you read all the posted rules before deciding to attend the event. No one likes a whiner, especially one who whines about pre-announced rules he agreed to follow by buying the ticket. I can say that Mike is a stand up guy who is eager to help any one who needs it. I spoke to him during Hard Boys about the business of owning a gaming store and he was more than happy to share any thing he knew.  My dealings with the BigGunz have always been positive and respectful.  The combination of a good TO, friendly support, and a nice location makes for what will turn out to be a fun event.

Here are some more pics that Mike sent me.

So if you are free next weekend, and want to get some great gaming in, give Mike a call and tell him I sent you!  Here is his contact info:  Tournament Organizer:  Mike Clark, (Email: Mikenjudyc@aol.com , Phone: 610-891-9229)

Jawaballs

The World's Biggest Apocalypse Game!

Hey folks!

I have a special treat for you here today. Alec Peters offered me some fantastic content from his neck of the woods. It seems he likes big games of 40k. Since apocalypse is something I rarely get involved with, I figured this would be a great opportunity to bring you something different. Check out these fantastic pictures!  Yes, that said 67K points of IG.  Holy Guacamole! Lets look in the future for Alec to add more coverage of what appear to be some huge Apocalypse events in LA.  Great Stuff!  Are we gonna see a battle report on this record setting game Alec?

Jawaballs

The Big Game set-up at the L.A. GW Battle Bunker

Hey all,  I'm Alec Peters from Apocalypse40K.com, and a new contributor to Jawaballs excellent blog. A dedicated Imperial player, I pretty much only play Apocalypse and run SoCal Apocalypse, one of the biggest Apocalypse clubs, based out of the Los Angeles Games Workshop Battle Bunker. 

On January 22nd, we held The Big Game, which we billed as the largest Apocalypse game ever, and it was!  Over 860,000 points made their way to the Games Workshop Los Angeles Battle Bunker, and over 2.3 million points were played in 22 locations world wide in 5 countries!

In Los Angeles, the game kicked off at 11am and ended at 11:30pm.  There were two tables, one for painted models and one for unpainted.  But saying there were two tables is a bit misleading.  The "painted" table was actually 18 tables put together in a massive 4-legged "M" shape.  The unpainted models were relegated to 3 8' tables put together. 

Now, this was the first time this event was held at the bunker, but it will be an annual event.  Originally the event was to be a challenge match between the apocalypse group at a local game shop and SoCal Apocalypse.  But when that group backed out, the idea of breaking the world record for the biggest Apocalypse game and battle was hatched.

Then, we started getting other GW Battle Bunkers and other stores around the world involved.  In the end we had 22 locations in 5 countries:  The US, UK, Greece, Norway and Australia!  All the games were played by the same scoring rules and so the objective points were all combined to have one big winner!

There are Apocalypse World Records?

There sure are!  Siegeworld, a St. Louis-based Apocalypse club, who pioneered very large games, has been keeping records of events of this scale.  Before The Big Game, Siegeworld noted:

The record for the Biggest Apocalypse Game was 382,000 by Siegeworld, St. Louis, MO.    (This is for one table or playing surface, 4 turns and all painted models.)

The record for the Biggest Apocalypse Battle was 520,000 by GMI games, Riverside, CA.   (This is for multiple tables, any turn length, and non-painted models are OK.)

The record for the most miniatures in a single battle was 6,500 by Siegeworld, St. Louis, MO.   

The Records were blown away!

The Big Game, Los Angeles location blew away all these records!

Total painted points on one table: 735,636.    A new record for the world's biggest Apocalypse GAME.

Total points on two tables: 860,446.  A new record for the world's biggest Apocalypse BATTLE.

Total number of miniatures:  17,541.  A new record for most miniatures in a single battle.

Plus we established a new record for the World's Biggest Apocalypse Battle - Multiple Locations. 2,307,224 points!

All players submitted both registration forms and army lists.  So we have back up for these records.  When doing a world record attempt, we think keeping good records and making everyone submit an army list is important.

World Wide Results

Overall, the Imperium defeated the Xenos forces 407 to 331.  So the Universe is safe for democracy!  Well.....safe to be ruled by a guy on a Golden Throne at least :-)

We learned a lot from putting this game on.  It was a huge effort and next year we may move to another location to hit our goal of one million points.  And while we had to use 4' wide tables this time, next year we want to use 6' and 8' wide tables to give more maneuvering room.   But overall, it was quite a spectacle and there were a lot of very happy gamers who had a ton of fun.

And so here are some photos!

Wayne Clark's Imperial Guard army at 67,000 points dominated 3 tables!

An awesome Warlord Titan

I got to play as well!  Here I am on the left with a true gentleman of the game, John Tiehen who's two sons played as well! 

Annibal Sanchez (behind his Chaos Warhound) is one of the nicest guys in the game

Ron Kent, Shawn Green, and multiple Golden Daemon winner Aaron Lovejoy

We had TWO Forgeworld Imperial Fortress Walls on hand!

If you want more details on The Big Game, or want to join in an Apocalypse discussion, join the Apocalypse40K forums at www.apocalypse40K.com.   You can also follow the Apocalypse blog at http://apocalypse40k.blogspot.com/

I will have more Apocalypse articles here on Jawaballsblog soon.  Next up, The Blood Angels Apocalypse Formations!

Alec

Templecon!

Hey Folks! Jawaballs here:

This was originally supposed to be posted up on BOLS but it seems to have been lost in the queue. So I am posting it up here first!  I normally don't like to double post here and on BOLS so if you see it go up there, sorry! Articles like this are sort of time reliant since if you wait too long after the event the buzz already dies down before the article goes up.  Some of this has already been covered such as the stuff about Stanton, but I copied the article in it's entirety for the sake of convenience. Plus, people have been asking for my performance report in the Templecon 1850 tournament. Enjoy! Jawaballs

This weekend (2/4/2011) I had the nice experience of being surprised by a gaming event.  I went out to Warwick, Rhode Island to play in an 1850 40k tournament at Templecon and was completely unprepared for what I saw.  More on the tournament in a bit.

My friend Jim and I walked into the hotel to find what could only be described as a modernized Victorian street fair, complete with busting corsets and Tie Fighter Pilots! Welcome to Steam Punk Jawaballs.  It seems Steam Punk is a style of dress that fusions Victorian style with mechanical workings and neo modern accessories.  One guy was dressed like a British safari expedition leader, but was carrying a laser pistol.  Lots of other people had brass looking goggles with gothic accessories and Victorian dresses.  Pretty cool.  Unfortunately I had little time to experience the entire seen as I arrived later than I wanted to, had to deal with getting checked in and finding out that my reservation was actually made for the night before, had to make a new res at a nearby Holiday Inn, had to go get checked in, and then had to teach my friend Jim how to play 40k.  (Yes I brought a buddy who had never played a full game of 40k to a competitive tournament. Trial by fire.)

What I did see of it was gaming, gaming and more gaming.  They had tournaments for FoW, Magic, Hordes... pretty much every game you could think of. They had huge rooms devoted to table top board games, D&D, etc.  In fact, you could not walk 10 feet without tripping over a group of gamers playing some role playing game or a couple of Steam Punk hotties posing for pictures. If only I had more time and my good camera.

So I apologize to the Templecon guys because had I realized it was such a huge, fantastic event, I would have gone for the entire thing and covered it in style.  I promise that next year I will be there in full force and do a real article on it. For now, enjoy a few pictures from the Templecon site, and look forward to next years coverage!

Steam Punk Karaoke?

Way cool.

So that's what happened to DJ Jazzy Jeff!

Oh well, on with the tournament review.

Templecon had a lot of 40k events. It started with a doubles tournament on Friday, and a huge no force org 2500 point tournament on Friday Night.  Then on Saturday they ran an ETC style team tournament, won by Alex Fenel and his CT club team.  Those dudes are hard core!  Here is a picture of their trophy:

Sweet!

I have to admit I am jealous. That trophy would look fantastic on my shelf!  Notice my destroyed Storm Raven sitting right next to it.  I almost go to play on their team too.  Battle For Salvation was unable to muster a team to go, so maybe next year Alex will extend me an invite!  

On with why I was there.  I went out just to play in the 40k 1850 singles tournament and to drink beer.  The tournament started at 6 and ran well into the night. (I think we got to bed at 3am.)  And yes, beer was drank. 

So about my friend Jim.  This guy is a gamer and model painter, but had never played a full game of 40k.  I got him into it by showing him my stuff from my after school club. He is also a teacher at my school.  I designed a competitive 1850 Space Marine list for him, and he got the models and painted them up.  Sadly I did not get a picture of the army.  But I will be writing an article about it on my blog soon.  

Trial by fire:

I dragged Jim out to this tournament having only been able to show him the basic workings of the game.  Before round one I had a couple hours to brief him on ways to deal with other armies, and how to play the Nova format, which is definitely more advanced than the tiny bit of experience he had with the rule book missions.  I warned him, be prepared for a good solid ass kicking.  And game one certainly was not kind to him.  He played a fellow Blood Angels player Bill, whom I met at Mechanicon and Battle for Salvation. I asked Bill to be kind and he winked and nodded.  An hour later I looked over and Jim was gone down to the bar. Bill had tabled him.  Way to be kind buddy! :)  

But Jim fought on!  Luckily for him the solid beating left him at the bottom of the list, and up against a Tau army played by a guy who was also very new.  Jim discovered the pleasures of close combat against non marine armies, and a single Legion of The Damned sgt. killed no less than 44 fire warriors.  Jim got a win, and went on to play a decent Black Templar player with two full games under his belt, and managed to sculpt out another victory.  I have to say this is nothing less than outstanding!  The man went 2-1 in his first 3 games of 40k ever, all the more surprising since it was done in a competitive atmosphere.  Could it be the teacher?  :)

On with my games:

Game one: Blood Angels vs Dark Eldar

I found myself up against a DE player who seemed to be a 3rd or 4th ed player newly returned to 40k.  Maybe the new codex brought him out of retirement.  He had mostly new models and they were beautiful. (He won best painted.)  He had 4 or 5 raiders, two Talos pain engines, some named character with a 2+ invul, lots of warriors and wychs, some reavers and the shirtless guys in khaki pants with glowing hands.  

What was I running?  Ever attempting to stay ahead of the meta game, I switched up my list heavily. I was anticipating army after army filled with razorbacks, auto/las preds and rifleman dreads.  A trend admittedly fostered in part by yours truly with a big dose of Stelek.  Inspried by a game in which my Land Raider Crusader went wild against an army using mostly auto cannon dreads and no Melta, I decided to go with three land raiders and a Storm raven. I played two god hammers and one crusader. Inside the crusader I had a 10 man assault squad with chap, priest, PW and Melta.  The other two raiders housed naked 5 man squads.  The raven carried Mephiston and a furioso dread with blood talons.  

On with the game!

So my opponent went first and started off by popping one of my god hammers with a lance. But this would be just about all the destruction he would muster the entire game.  The Storm Raven turbo boosted 24 and popped a raider, pinning the guys inside. Next turn I assaulted them with the dread, killing them all, while Mephiston who was short on his own assault, braced for impact. On my opponent's turn he assaulted Meph with his named character, a talos engine and a squad of Incubi after a lot of shooting.  Meph killed the engine and a good number of the incubi but went down.  But the damage was being dealt by my dread, crusader, godhammer and the raven.  The flyer alone accounted for 3 dead raiders and a bunch of dead incubi. My opponent knew what he was doing, but I think failed to fully grasp the subtle nuances of 5th ed and the Nova format.  At the end of the game which ended on turn five I was holding more objectives then he was.  Once his lances were dead the rest of my raiders proved hard to kill indeed.

Game Two:

I got to play a guy named Roger who was thrilled to get a chance to throw down with Jawaballs.  He was playing a big bug army with lots of the big guys, some gargoyles and 30 stealers.  The mission was KP and the deployment was spearhead. I won the roll, took the choicest side that gave him the least amount of cover, and he failed to seize.  

Roger tries to muster his bugs

Land Raider Crusader draws a bead on a big bug.

And there is Sean Nayden in the background. Die Sean Die.

(sorry these are the last of my pics)

With an apology and a smile, I began destroying bugs that were unable to get cover saves and Genestealers who came out of reserve to try to assault Land Raiders.  Mephiston cut them down while big bugs exploded from afar.  After just a couple rounds the game was over.  If Roger tried to advance the bugs they undoubtedly ended up in open terrain eating Las, or being intercepted by Mephiston and the Furioso Dread. I jumped out to an early lead in KP which put the ball entirely in my court, never to even bounce in his. But not all games are about winning and losing. Roger and I had a great time. We joked and bantered, he was in good spirits despite losing bugs in droves, we shared some Captain Morgans and enjoyed ourselves.  Later I bought him a beer.  Had the circumstances been reversed I would still say that these are the kinds of games I go to these tournaments for.  Good laughs, and new friends.  See you next time Roger!

Game Three:

After the severe beating I handed Roger I ended up on the number one table playing for all the mustard. My opponent? Jeff from Battle for Salvation.  He was playing Blood Angels with 2 ravens, filled with DC dreads, astrorath, a chaplain and DC.  He also had two TL Las Razors with naked squads and a squad of scout bikers with melta gun.  Brutal and effective.  He won the roll to go first and lined me up for his alpha strike.  Drat.

But I survived with minimal losses!  He destroyed my Raven on the first shot, and took the ass can off my crusader.  I disembarked my 10 man RAS and moved my dread and meph into position to take down his raven holding a DC dread, astro and 5 DC with PWs.  The bikers took losses and failed leadership, running back from shoting, and I killed the raven, but was unable to assault his boys.  Astro and the DC went after my 10 man squad while he sent the dread after Mephiston. Meph got the jump on the dread and cut it in half, but all 10 of the assault marines would die. I should have left them in the transport.  But thats ok, Meph and my furioso jumped in to save my chaplain for a turn, killed Astro and the DC and cleared up my zone for the time being.  

On his turn he killed my dread with Las fire and moved up his second raven.  Meph was down to two wounds at this point and my chaplain was dead.  Meph took a wound by rolling box cars for his jump pack, and was forced to hide for a round instead of going out to kill.  I started shooting at and killed both of his Razorbacks.  

His second Storm Raven killed one of my god hammers and the other got immobilized.  But I took it down, leaving him with 5 DC and a chaplain. I just remembered that he should have been moving his DC models due to the Rage rule. Oh well!  I don't know if that would have changed any thing other than forcing him to move out his Death Company instead of using them to actually claim a corner. They hid behind the dead raven. (Victory points claimed corners, the unit need not be scoring.) He had some tactical marines from inside the razorbacks hanging around. 

On to the end game:

We were playing for table quarters, and you had to have 100 more victory points in a corner than your opponent. I tried to go kill his dread but Meph rolled box cars again on Str 10 sword and died before even getting into grips.  I claimed two corners and he had three tactical marines totaling 100 victory points in one, and his DC squad and dread in another. Creating a draw. All I had to do was kill one of the 3 marines with my land raider crusader shooting and I would have won the game.  I caused five wounds on the last shots of the game, and he had to make 4 armor and a cover save... he made them all.  Blammo. Draw, with a minor victory going to me because I held a secondary objective.  

It was a bloody, fun and exciting game. The essence of what 40k is all about!  

I ended up taking 4th overall, while my friend Jim got 6th overall and 2nd best sportsman.  Fun tournament and well worth the two hour drive!

So that wraps up Templecon 2011. Next year Fritz and I will definitely be in attendance and I will be taking part in all of the 40k events.  But more importantly, I will be able to take in more of the scene in general, cover some of the Steam Punk events, enjoy some of the presenters and have more of a complete gaming experience.  

Hope you enjoyed reading my article!  Be sure to CHECK OUT MY BLOG for pics of Jim's Ultramarines and more on other projects I have in the works.

Jawaballs