Come on 6th!

First of all, am I the only one who is happy as a pig in shit about 6th ed?  40k has become so stale for me personally that I just can't wait!  Fritz, Smurf and I have lots of stuff planned to celebrate the launch of 6 with the return of my regular live show and loads of new content breaking down that book cover to cover.

Sorry I have been so quiet of late, just nothing to write about.  More soon.

I do happen to have some left over stuff to unload.

x2 GK Termies
x2 GK Dreadknights
x2 SM Razorbacks
x1 Necron Ghost Ark
x2 BA Sanguinary Guard
x1 Flesh Hounds of Khorne
x1 Lizardman Stegadon

Get em now for 20% off the current GW retail.

All new, though I will probably open the box and just ship the sprues to save on shipping.

Email me if interested!

Jawaballs

Battle Report: Jawaballs vs Fritz!

Last week Fritz and I got in a couple games so I could practice for a tournament. Here you go!



Youtube video format. Sorry no time to write this up.

Jawaballs

Going Live in an hour!

IN my last post I put March, meant today. :)  We are going live in one hour.  http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jawaballs-live


Jawaballs Live! Saturday May 19

I know, it's been a while, but Fritz is coming over tomorrow and we plan on doing some Jawaballs Live!  We are going to be play testing my drop pod list for Sunday's tournament and if I can make it work I plan on doing some Ustream footage! HERE IS THE CHANNEL.  Look for us around 3pm EST until whenever!  I will be testing the link tonight from my laptop. Feel free to look for me!

Jawaballs

FTW Games here we come!

So Fritz and I are on our way down to visit Rob Baer and his gaming store FTW Games! Rob is the owner of his brick and mortar store, as well as Spikey Bits! We will be there the weekend of June 1.

Can even a mother really love this face?

Depending on who you talk to, Rob is a pretty stand up guy. I have always enjoyed hanging out with him and consider him a friend. But then again I am a sucker for the misunderstood. Say what you will, the guy has done a lot for the 40k community. And when he invited Fritz and I down I was happy to go! We are going down to help celebrate his store's second birth day and have a damn good time.  I don't know all the details, but I think Goatboy is going to be there as well!  We will be doing demonstrations during the day, then there is a tournament starting in the afternoon and running til we pass out.  Lucky for me Fritz is a non drinker, as I bet I will not be in condition to drive home on Sunday once I break out the scotch!

I will be doing some hand painting demonstrations, "Painting Scrolls, Skulls and Angel Wings by Jawaballs"

Simply bring your tank, and I will show you how to decorate it with nice effect!  I think that Fritz is planning on doing some tactical demonstrations. Who knows what his devious mind is cooking up.

So come meet some good people from the online gaming crew, and get a chance to throw down against the likes of Jawaballs, Goatboy and Fritz!  I will probably be playing my new dreadnought drop pod army, or my award winning, but not quite competitive Hero Hammer assault marine army.

Ok guys see you down at FTW Games!

Oh, and here is a banner I am doing for FTW Games.  I traded the banner for some store credit with Rob and got myself a boatload of drop pods and stuff. :) It's to go along with his suit of Death Company armor that he has. I will get more pics of this one up shortly.



Jawaballs


Big banner order out the door!

I finally finished the banner order for Dropzone Games, a new store opening in Maryland very soon. More details to come on that asap, but for now, here are the banners! I want to say that I am VERY proud of these. I put a lot of heart into making these as perfect as I could.

This was the first of the set that I made. I wanted to keep it simple and efficient. 

That was good, because the next two nearly broke me. :)  This banner was hands down the most difficult one I have done to date.  The boys at Dropzone were very particular about what they wanted, with all rights. They were making a big investment, and of course, the customer is always right.  I struggled for weeks on how I was going to do the cross pattern in the back, until finally I decided to make a stencil. So I got out my xacto and some stiff card stock and went to work with a ruler.

I cut a single row of crosses, and used Liquitex spray acrylic to spray the crosses onto the fabric.  My stencil started breaking down by the end, but it worked. With that done, I was able to do the main image. 

The next challenge was to get the large block of latin copy to fit on the pages of the book and of course paint each of the letters by hand. Normally with this sort of thing I just do gibberish letters. 

The scrolls at the bottom were a little different. They wanted some copy based on Arabic, so I made up some script to fill the pages using a style of lettering that resembled it.


It was the best banner I had done to date, then I did the next one.


Hand painting straight lines is hard. Especially 90 degree angles. These little crosses took me the better part of a week to get right. But also, they had to line up not only with the main image, but the squares in the checker pattern and the images below. My trusty ruler came through, and I managed to get every thing to line up on the first try.  :) Remember, this banner is 3x7 feet. It is not quite that easy to judge if something six feet away is lined up with an image I just drew. 

If you have ever tried to paint something symmetrical, you can feel my pain. The wreath in the main image, and the one at the bottom were their own little challenges. They needed to look the same on both sides, same curve, same end point. 


I particularly like the star field. I stippled lighter and lighter shades of blue to make the "space". The star arrangement took many attempts. They wanted at least four stars, with the biggest one in the lower left. Maybe the guys at Dropzone can pop in and share some insight! They were also particular about three skulls on the scroll.  


I think my favorite part is the skull. I painted with metallics on brown, something I never tried before, and I like how it came out. Looking at the picture, I could probably have given it another highlight with an even lighter gold, but I am still pleased with it.

So there you go! These are on their way out. Next is Night Lords, Death Company, Blood Angels Chapter banner, and a custom IG one.  

Keep em coming!  

Jawaballs

Selling stuff off!

Hey folks!

Ok trying to raise money again. So I am selling off a bunch of factory sealed goodies this time. Every thing 20% off GW Retail plus shipping world wide.  I'm not posting on Btown because they gots beef with me linking my blog in my sig because I sell stuff. :)

Well selling stuff.

Space Marine Land Raider Crusader
Necron Ghost Ark
x3 Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard
x2 GK Terminators
x2 GK Dread Knights
Chaos Demons Flesh Hounds of Khorne
x2 SM Razorbacks

All of this I have plans for except the necron crap, but I can use the cash at the moment. :(

I do have some more goodies:
1 opened but fully on sprue new model Lizardman Stegadon 30% off GW retail
About 100 unpainted assembled/unassembled/onsprue Vampire Count zombies Offers
OOP SM Standard bearer on sprue metal. 10.00
x2 sets of Space Hulk Genestealers. Offers. What's their going rate?

Ok lets move this stuff!

Jawaballs

Another one out the door!

Here is a custom banner for a client. His chapter is called the Lions of Harlech. This is a customized banner for his army.





After that? Night Lords!  And a Death Company banner for Spikey Bits.


Here is my first sketch. As per his request, there will be a negative space chaos star in the background, illuminated by lightning. The details on the bottom flaps were his request. An 8 for 8th company, a planet with lightning eclipsing the sun, and a little scroll with some copy that I don't know what it means.

I am still trying to get in some games with my drop pod army. Maybe this weekend!

Oh, and for those of you who liked my wife's writing when she was doing her parenthood blog, she has a REBOOT. Go take a look! She is simply focusing on the daily adventure of raising a 2 year old. She is really a great writer with a dry, witty sense of humor. So check her out, follow her blog and leave comments!

Jawaballs

Pickup Games: When do you bow out?

Hey folks,

Ok, so you have all had this situation, or at least know some one who has.  You go to a LGS and end up in a pickup game against a guy you don't know. The game starts up, and usually fairly quick, you end up in a silly debatument over a basic rule. Not quite an argument, but a little more than a debate.

At that point you have to decide, spend the next three hours playing a game with a guy you don't know, who may turn the entire experience into one long rules debate... or bow out.



Rule number one of 40k is to Have Fun.  Both players are responsible for doing their part to make the game enjoyable.  I am certainly guilty of engaging in drag out arguments, but most of the time it is the argument that is more of the sport than the game, and always it is with guys I know and respect.

In tournaments, you have no choice who you play against so certain amounts of beardy behavior can be expected and tolerated. But need it be so in a pick up game in an LGS?

One big factor in this issue is that in tournaments you are being judged on sportsman by your opponent, so you are less likely to encounter issues. And also, most simple things are clearly defined, like how to play terrain. There is usually an accepted FAQ and rules are clearly defined.

 This is not so in a pick up game.  With no penalty for dodgy behavior, guys may go unchecked.

Well one of these situations ran into me tonight. I went out to the LGS in my area to play a game. I posted on the boards that I was looking for an opponent for my new 2k competitive GT Blood Angels list, some one replied, and there you go. We met at the LGS to play.  I have seen this guy there every time I have gone and he was always friendly, if a bit of a rules lawyer.


A good point of note is that I can't be sure if the guys playing against him were having a good time.  The three or four times I've seen him playing it looked like the opponent was just humoring him to get the game done.  At least that was my impression.

So any way, he sets up his army and pulls out his 1750 Necron list.  I guess he missed the details.  No big, he just added another monolith and wraith.  And we progress to table set up. He suggested we play no terrain... I thought he was joking. Then he suggested again. I laughed and shrugged, then went to the shelf to get an armload.  The WHFB piece with skulls, the sloping chaos piece with the sculpted rock.  Good LOS blocker for center field. The rest of the pieces were some standard LGS stepped stone foam pieces, and your usual ruined corner of building made of 1/2" foam with 1x2" windows cut in the walls on a board base.

Like this but much smaller, just two levels.


Game is Kill points and DoW. He wins roll and gives me 1st turn claiming he will seize initiative.  I declare no deployment cause my stuff is in pods, and he starts deploying.  At this point it occurs to me that we may want to discuss terrain...

So I say "ok lets talk terrain".  :)  "Lets keep it simple, every thing is 4+ cover save if you are on it area terrain. The buildings are ruins as per standard rules."  He agrees.

Then he says "Ok, you better hope you don't land on these." pointing at the ruined walls.

A little confused, I say "It wouldn't matter much, I would just be landing in terrain and not much bad would happen." (If I roll a 1 it gets immobilized which instead destroys the storm bolter.)

He looks at me coyly and wags his finger, "nope, Mishap table!"

Now even further confused, I ask why... those are ruins.  Then he says that you cant land on ruins, or pass through them if there are no doors.  Then he went on to quote deep strike rules, how I mishap if I land on ruins, or on models.

Uh oh.

"So you are saying that you want them to be impassable terrain?" (I didn't feel the need to get into inertial guidance systems yet.)  I then went on to explain that according the rule book it didn't matter if there were actual doors in the ruins. Models could move through it as difficult terrain as normal.

He insisted that they could not, then went on to say that bikes definitely could not. (Or something like that, I cannot remember.)

So I ask if this LGS played things differently from normal rules? He insisted again that the way he was saying it was the way it was supposed to be played. SO, I bust out the rule book and turn to page 14 and quote him the rules that say that models can push through walls and the like regardless of windows, doors etc. It is assumed that they are bashing their way through, or using weapons or explosives to blast a hole. It just took a second, in the early days of 5th ed that particular discussion was had many times at BFS.  At this point of 5th ed, this rule is pretty much the accepted norm, at least in tournaments.

After reading him the rule I paraphrase that what it is saying is that unless we both agree to something else, this is how it is played.  That since he wanted it a different way, and I wanted it by the rules,(We were in disagreement)  it should be played by the book.

He insisted again that my pods could not land on the ruins.  Honestly, I don't even disagree with him for the sake of game play. We have all seen the silly pictures of land raiders balanced on a skinny wall. This causes all sorts of issues. I agree that a pod should not be able to land on the wall if it cannot rest without help. In that case you would just move it a bit more or less to get it to rest. (not mishap) But it was his insistence that models could not move through the wall that bothered me.

At this point I am getting frustrated but keeping a cool smile on my face and a calm tone of voice.

So I explain that we were at a standoff. He wanted it one way, I wanted it another. But being a decent sport, I digress. The fair thing to do would be to roll it off. I offered a 123 my way 456 his and roll the die.

He exclaims... "But this is the house rule!"

My blood drop die rolled off the table and my interest in the game drops through the floor.

Impasse.  Time to decide! So what do you guys do in this situation?

I can just give in and let him have it the way he wants and play the game knowing that I was probably in for more of the same, continue to argue, or bow out of the game.  Plus it really didn't matter, my inertial guidance would have kept me from harm. But that's not the point.

I chose the latter.

As I am picking up my blood die, he says "It's just a game, you can have it your way."

True, it is just a game, I appreciated his admitting that, but I explained that I decided to take a pass on this particular game. I don't think he heard me as he continued deploying his army.  So I zipped up my transport and offered him my hand.  I thanked him for making the trip and apologized for bowing out and asked that there were no hard feelings that maybe we could play at a later time. I really did feel bad for bowing out, but frankly, I wanted to watch Idol with the wife and didn't want to pass it up to play a game and end up not enjoying it.

He said "So you are not going to play?"

Nah, I'm taking a pass, I'm sorry.

He finally got it, and said "Ok have fun!"

So I open this up to you guys. How many of you would have played that game? The guy really wasn't being a jerk. Believe me, there have been many times in tournaments that I wish I could have just walked away from much worse, but could not. But with that in mind, I knew I just didn't have to stay, and could not let myself.

Jawaballs