WarTV launches Tomorrow!

That's right folks!

Tomorrow you get to see live televised games of Warhammer 40k 6th Edition!



We launch WarTV.tv and you get to see what should be the first live televised games of 6th edition in the world!  Fritz, Smurf and I will be taking Q and A and playing a few games for your viewing pleasure. We will be doing circumstantial demonstrations as well. Questions about how assault works? We will set up an assault for you and demonstrate it!

Fritz and Smurf are going to be starting to organize around 1:00 PM EST. So you may get to log in early and catch some pregame chat!

I personally will be down at the Greenwich Village GW store in NYC entering my Blood Angels in the Armies on Parade competition.  I will hurry home and will be playing the second game of the day.  If you are in the city stop by and say hello!  The voting should be around 2:00 PM.

We will be giving away prizes throughout the day, with the Grand Prize being a Warhammer 40k 6th edition rule book!  In order to be eligible to win prizes, you must be registered on our MAILING LIST.

Sign up on the list, and join the show!  See you tomorrow.

Jawaballs

Jawa-Banners at Wargamescon!


I didn't make it to Wargamescon this year, but part of me did!  Here is a picture of one of my banners, I painted for a client who created his own chapter the Shiner Marines!  Can you guess what it was based on?  I was waiting to show this one off because I wanted him to have the pleasure of unveiling it at the con.  Glad you enjoyed it man!  I hear there were two other jawabanners there. Any one have pics?

I will be heading to Gamesday this summer with my 4th entry in their Banner Competition soon.  Hopefully you will catch up with me there if you care to chat!

Here are some close ups of the WIP.




Don't forget to tune in this weekend for your chance to win a 6th edition rule book!  WarTV! 3:00 EST.

Jawaballs

Win a 6th Edition Rulebook!



Win a 6th Edition Rule Book!



On Friday I announced the launch of WarTV.tv scheduled for this Saturday, June 30 at 3:00 PM EST.  Well make sure you are part of the historic fun!

Join us at WarTV to view what will probably be the first live televised games of 40k 6th edition in the world!  Fritz, myself and Jim the Stout Smurf will be breaking down the rule book and playing games LIVE for your pleasure.

But also what is a live launch without loot!  We will be giving away prizes throughout the show, with the grand prize of the day being a Warhammer 40k 6th edition Rule Book! To win the loot you need to be watching the broadcast and sign up for the MAILING LIST, but all you have to do to be eligible to win the grand prize is enter your name HERE.  We will give away prizes all during the broadcast to viewers who are on the mailing list, and later during the show draw a name from the mailing list for the grand prize.  It will be shipped free of charge to your door.  


Don't miss the show!  


Jawaballs




Announcing WarTV.tv!

It is time.


 For years, Fritz and I have been bringing you gaming content with our own little twists of fun and insight.  During that time, we have been threatening to launch our own broadcast site.  Well, that time is now.

WarTV is here! And so is your chance to win a free 6th Edition Rule Book!



The advent of 6th edition brings with it unprecedented opportunity to grow and evolve. And WarTV will be helping you through the process by bringing it right to your computer in High Definition.

We have done live broadcasts in the past, but never before like this. Join us as we broadcast live at least once a month.  Jim the Stout Smurf is joining us to give a third perspective.

WarTV will bring you what we are known for. Fritz will be delivering his usual tactical expertise while I provide my unique, creative problem solving and painting skills.  Jim, The Stout Smurf, a proficient gamer in his own right, brings his own years of experience to the table. Known for developing the game Gnome Wars, he already has a loyal following from the historical gaming genre. But what he brings to WarTV is the angle of a nooby 40k player applying what Fritz and Jawa teach, and using it to win. (He has beaten me every time we played... shhhh)

We will be doing a monthly show through our USTREAM channel together. Two of us will play a game while a third offers commentary, and fields questions from the chat.  We will play the games from an instructional point of view. Discussing strategy and plans, and seeing how they work.  We will walk you through each game, and you will get a feel for what it is like to see 40k through our eyes!

Many of you have been at tournaments or stores and seen games being played, and had questions, but felt uncomfortable to interupt the players. Plus many gamers make it obvious that they are NOT interested in explaining the game to inexperienced players. Well, not us! We will answer those questions before you even know you want to ask them!  Some of you would love the chance to go to a gaming club of your own, but live too far away from any organized group to make it on a regular basis. Well this is your chance to get the gaming club experience right in your own man cave!  You will be able to ask questions and aquire insight as we play, and even play a role in our decision making. That's right, you will be able to suggest strategy, and we will give it a shot!

But we won't be stopping there.  During the free broadcasts, we will be shooting High Definition video, getting in close to the action and models, and producing batreps unlike any you have seen before. We will then be making this bonus content available for you to download from WarTV!  Miss a show? Don't worry about it, you can download the HD footage and watch it at your leisure.

In addition to our gaming group night, we will be making available special segments from our own areas of expertise. You will get Fritz producing video on his analytical and tactical briliance. I will be making available exclusive "How to Paint" videos as I reinvent my own artistic style, and tactical videos of my own as I ever try to stay ahead of the 40k curve.  And Jim will be bringing you his own flavor of analysis of the game, by providing you his own insight into how he implements his trial and error and becomes a force in the 40k world. But also, you get the other side of gaming. Jim travels to many historical conventions and runs Gnome Wars sessions, a game he invented. He is an outstanding hobbiest and is known for his seminars on "Painting the Three Footer."  Teaching you how to paint a model to look good on a table, with minimal effort and talent.

You will also get our usual variety of fun. Trips to Gamesday, Feast of Blades, Nova, and so on. You get what we already are known for, plus lots more!

Oh, and we won't be doing just 40k. Look for us to explore WHFB, Gnome Wars, Warmachine and Flames of War as well!  It is going to be your complete gaming central!

So join us for the first broadcast of WarTV on Saturday, June 30 at 3:00 PM EST as we bring you the first televised live games of Warhammer 40k, 6th edition.  It is going to be a fantastic day full of give aways with the grand prize of the day being a new 6th edition rule book!  Thats right! Join our mailing list and watch our show, and get stuff.  :)

Sit back and Relax. WarTV is here!


In order to be eligible to win next weekends grand prize of a 6th Edition Warhammer 40k rule book, you need only be signed up on our MAILING LIST. It is a yahoo group for now. You know how they work. We will randomly draw the winner of the new rule book during the show from the names in our list at the time.

There will also be other loot as the three of us delve into our shelves that we will be giving away to people viewing throughout the show. (You will also need to be on the mailing list.)  So watch all day and score prizes!

Come watch the war!

War to come...

Jawaballs

JawaForge Resin coming through!







It always tickles me silly to see my efforts bear fruit!  Even though I have more or less abandoned selling resin bases, here are some pics from a customer who had bought some with his buddy for use in a Dual Wing army for doubles. They won Best Painted, I think at Miniwargaming. These were my Industrial Ruin bases.  I'm proud that something I made helped some one else succeed.  Thanks for sharing Andy!

You can check out more of their work HERE.

I discontinued the base business because it was not really cost effective for me. Plus, I hate to admit it but too many other guys were making way better bases than I was.  It simply required too much time for me to compete, and with the Jawa Baby, that was one commodity I did not have.  Plus resin is a very finicky material. I live in New England, the land of 100 degree summers with 100% humidity.  Resin is not a fan.  I had to pretty much shut down during the summer!

I still have most of my molds though, so they are still sort of available on a limited basis.

Besides, we have WAY better planned for you starting very soon.

Stay tuned!

Jawaballs


Ugh.. Allies are back...

Well we had a brief respite from Codex Cherry Picking when GW removed allies from the game.  The only thing it did was allow an already strong army to fill out units from other books to make up for their weaknesses, IG for example.  It was annoying and abused.

Now, based on what I have read, allies are back.

Oh well. If you can't beat em, join em!

So from what I understand, we will be able to use a second FOC to take allies. So a minimum of 1 HQ and 2 troops.  What a fantastic way to fill out a point starved codex like Blood Angels!  What would I take?  Well this is the dawn of the psyker.  GW is selling a whole set of cards full of psychic powers. Who are the true masters of the psychic?  The Eldar of course!  Who has cheap and relatively effective troops?  The Eldar!  Eldar pathfinders are simply impossible to kill without taking the chainsword to them.

So I take my Librarian and two assault squads, a Farseer on a jetbike decked out with the Eldar cheat runes, and bring my troops up to four by taking two pathfinder squads.  Awesome!  Especially if the rumors for sniper rifles are true. (Shooter picks out targets.)

But this is not just a WAAC paradise friends. This is a chance to create some truly unique armies with sweet themes.  I guess we will see what pans out in a few days!

Make sure you tune in to see what Fritz and I cook up on June 30th.

Jawaballs

I.. hurt myself today.. to see if I still feel...

I don't know why but Hurt by Nine Inch Nails makes me think of Psychic Devastation. And when I think about psychic devastation, I think about the 6th edition fun I will have with my drop pod army.  First of all, hello second librarian!

The Librarian was already the best budget choice in the Blood Angels codex for an HQ. Yes Mephiston is fantastic, but I don't know how effective he is in a truly competitive army. When I won Mechanicon, it was done with a simple Librarian as my HQ.

With what is believed to be the edition of the psyker, now is the time for the Blood Angels librarian to come into it's own!

Blood Angels terminator librarian

Could it even be the time put the terminator librarian with Storm Shield on the table?  

How about Librarian Dreads?

Hell, how about Mephiston?  

I am drooling about the prospect of playing a pair of Libby HQ and a Libby Furioso.  

We can only dream just yet. But soon!

Be Ready.

June 30th.  War is coming.  Will you be watching?

Jawaballs

Be Ready

So we will have 6th Edition in our hands on June 30th.  That is the day Fritz, Jim and myself change your world.



More to come.

Jawaballs

Staying ahead of the 40k curve... slowly.

So I have made a 40k career out of some how staying ahead of the curve while fielding unique and interesting armies.  The best example of this was my Death From Above: Stomp Stomp army from a few years ago that took advantage of weaknesses in the current 40k competitive meta, and a unique quirk in the Blood Angels PDF of the time.  I was able to play three Venerable Death Company Furioso Dreads.  Not only were they crazy hard to kill, but most guys at the time were only packing a couple of melta guns per army tops and fists and hammers were nonexistent.

That army, followed by my new codex Defensive mech list, earned me 3 Vegas Golden tickets and a number one ranking on Rankings HQ for a few months.

Horn tooted.

I'm getting to the point of the article, really.

Any way, I managed to pull this off by being observant of what I was facing at local tournaments, and trying to guess what I might face at upcoming GTs.

Enter 2012 and GK henchmen spam and DE venom dakka. Two armies that could not only blast you off the table with shooting, but finish the job with superior assault.

At a recent tournament I noticed that Blood Angels were having some success against GK spam by putting a furioso dread into a Storm Raven and turbo boosting it into the GK ranks.  Sure the raven would die, but it absorbed enough shooting to ensure that the dread lived. Next turn, the dread would tear into purifiers.  Fearless is a handicap for poor purifiers.  The dread will most likely kill 7 or 8 of them, and if they are unlucky one will live from the fearless saves. Locking the dread in combat on the GK turn, then freeing him next turn for the dread to assault another squad.

Single dreads were tearing through entire armies!

That got me to thinking about a cheaper and more reliable way of delivering dread death to GK armies.  The raven is too expensive and unreliable. It can be blown up before it even moves, stranding your dread on your edge.  So I figured pods were the way to go! Sure I would lose dreads due to GK dakka before they got to assault, but when you are running six of them, odds are one or two would survive!

Plus it would make a pretty cool army.

Plus plus, I had the models sitting around!

Now I get to my point. More on building the list later. First a cool pic for the blog rolls.

Librarian with Melta Pistol


I had the models sitting around.  I had lots of unused infantry from my ever changing lists. I also had the dreads, or enough store credit to get them and the pods.

With a minimal investment I had a full 2k point, 10 pod army, painted to table top standards ready to go.

That is the first step guys. The point has been made.  When starting an army on a budget, come up with your concept, and build what you can with what you have.  The idea is not to get an entire new army, and assemble 2k points of grey plastic and try to get in games.  Get your army table top, and go play.

The key is seeing what works.  I quickly learned that I needed more killy shooting upon landing for infantry.  SO I dropped a blood talon dread and added one with a heavy flamer and frag assault launcher.  Problem solved.  This minor change was easy, all I had to do was paint the launcher and mag it to a dread.

But as I play the list more, I realize I need more changes.  Here is where the slow adjustment of your army is key.  Eventually I want to play this army as a competitive force, that also competes for best painted. While I started the army using recycled models, I will eventually remake the entire force and paint it to my award winning standards. All while playing a table top army to learn how to do it.

So now as I make changes, I will be painting those models up to top standard.

Here we go!

First the recycling part.  I used models from my retired model case.

Ahh, the remnants of old armies and unfinished projects.

Some of my old black templars peeking out!

Part of my mountain of spare sprues full of GK, DC and SG bits.

I busted out the old case and started scrounging usable assault marines. My first drop pod list included a tactical squad. I figured based on the role I found them playing though, that an assault squad would do better since I could add more melta.

Most of these models were in the retired case. 

Behold, remember these guys?

The first five assault marines I ever painted, and 
remnants from my first Best Painted! 
The beakie was my first.

After finding what I could in the case, I had to scrounge a few odds and ends. Namely, melta gunners.



After scratch building one, and rearming another, I had my two gunners.  All models I am showing you now need to be scraped and cleaned by the way. Please don't say "I see flashing!"


Finally I had to add the sergeant upgrades.  Here is where I stay ahead of the curve.  Previously, I would always give my SGT a power sword, to take advantage of that initiative 5 strike. But with rumors of only fists being able to punch through Terminator armor in 6th eds, power fists will become much more important.  A ten man squad is a perfect place to hide a pesky fist.  You are going to see many more of these forgotten relics showing up soon!

Now to the cool stuff.  After a couple tournaments, I realized that my six dreads were overkill, and not quite getting the job done.  I needed a little more melta on landing, and I needed it to be able to take more than a single hit before dieing.  A psy dread can blast a dread off the table, but could easily fail to kill an honor guard model, let alone the whole unit.  But first I needed to upgrade the librarian model I was using.

I wanted him to have a melta pistol. So I used
one from the SG sprue.

A sword as well.  I used the books from a GK sprue
along with the head and back piece.

The body was SG and DC bits along with the back pack.


The cool cloak came from the Empire General box set. I had to cut it to fit.

Any way, with a little kit bashing, I had a pretty cool librarian. I gave him a SG shoulder pad, with the intent of using more to match the Honor Guardsmen.



Think ahead as you plan. This squad is going to actually become the centerpiece of this army as I paint it to my Best Painted standards.  It has to be interesting and unique. The kit bashing I am doing, as well as the matching shoulder pads will help create a look that adds to the greater sense of unity in the army as a whole.

Flamer.

More melta. Note the slightly different pose. This guy looks a little more 
dynamic as if he is about to charge into a fight.

Blood Champion. SG body with assault squad combat shield
cut and fitted to a standard pistol arm.


I wanted this guy a little more dynamic, so
I used the legs that had the skull and rocks, but cut them off,
and trimmed the foot on the bottom a bit to make him look 
a little more like he is stepping into combat.


And the priest.

I used a GK terminator arm. I cut the shoulder off and replaced it with a small one
with the apothecary shoulder pad.


Apothecary chest and back pack with DC legs and other bits.  

Not too shabby.

So after a bit of scrounging I have a new librarian, an honor guard and a ten man assault squad ready to go.  The squad needs to be completely repainted, and I plan on doing a video on how to.  The HG though needs more love. I will probably do them completely NMM gold.  A big job!  First I have to clean and drill them.  This will be my first unit in my competitive list I plan on bring to GTs like Feast of Blades.  Eventually I will completely replace the other models, but for now I can easily get them table top ready and playable.  I won't play this unit until it has at least been base coated with some basic highlights.  

What is that little blue guy doing there?

Here is a treat for you. Behold, the first model I ever painted... 

Not too bad if I do say so myself. Look at the super thick highlight,
thanks to that old GW "Fine Detail" brush.

Back then I was into using all the accessories. Scope and Bayonet!
I managed a fairly decent job on the lens.

Flashing? What flashing!

Check out my leet hand painting skills. I put a spade on his shoulder.  

I finished him with a heavy blast from some spray gloss varnish.  
Pretty sweet huh!

Ok, thats it for now.  

More to come as I work on this little project.

Jawaballs






The FWT Games 2nd Birthday Celebration!

As you know I traveled down to Virginia with Fritz to attend the FTW Games 2nd Birthday Celebration. It was a fantastic time!

We decided to drive down the long way. When traveling South from the NYC area, you have two choices. I 95 which includes the NYC area traffic, Jersey Shore, Baltimore and DC. Or you can go inland a bit and take I 81 which skirts most of the traffic spots by traveling through mostly farmland. But it is quite longer.

We chose the long traffic free way.  It took us about 8 hours to get there, but that included getting lost in the Virginia back woods for a bit.

We arrived on Friday night at about 8:00 to a packed house. First of all the store is in a really nice area, located at:

13176 Midlothian Turnpike
Midlothian, VA 23113

The shopping centers were neatly manicured and well kept.  So the store is in a nice location with ample parking.  Next door to the store is also a pool hall/bar that serves decent food.  A perfect combo!  40k and beer.

Fritz and I arrived and chilled with the crew. The house was full of guys playing Magic and other card games. There was a tournament going on.  But that didn't stop curious 40k guys from showing up and shaking hands with me and Fritz!  We mingled a bit, then jumped over to the bar where beer and nachos flowed.


Then I busted out Rob's Death Company banner that he ordered for the store.  Here you can see Goatboy admiring it with his grubby fingers.

Not much went on for us that night. We hung out for a while then headed back to Rob's to crash and get ready for Saturday.

On Saturday we had a fairly huge breakfast at Denny's and headed back to the store.

The place was packed right at opening with lots of people showing up to take in the many demonstrations or to get a chance to throw some dice.

We met a blog reader who we have played 40k Space Marine with on Xbox live named Joe and I was the first to get him on the table.

Joe had space wolves. I won the roll to go first and passed it to him. So he set up... then asked what I was playing... much to his chagrin I hissed "drop pod dreads..."  :)  He had 3 squads of 10 GK Troops, a wolf lord with about 12 little wolves, terminators, long fangs with missiles and a vindicator oh and a rifleman dread.

For this tournament I switched one of my furiosos from Blood Claws to a Frag Assault launcher with fist and heavy flamer.  This nasty toy got it's chance to lay the pain very quick. I dropped it right next to his wolves, and killed them all.  Then the wolf lord failed leadership and ran off the table. It was not going to be a good game for Joe!

The rest of the game would go about the same.  My dreads slammed down and got into assault with his troops. A DC dread mowed down a squad and the frag dread locked another one down. They were no where near an objective so that would last the whole game out of the way.  Another squad managed to survive a dread charge then run away and actually managed to not get wiped out.

After much slaughter, the game ended in my favor.




Later in the day, I did some painting demonstrations. I did some hand painting on a blog readers Vindicator, painting an angel wing and blood drop on the side, and a skull and number 3 on the dozer blade. Then I demoed how I painted the power swords on my recent army, and helped another guy with painting force weapons.  That was easily the most enjoyable part of my day. I got to talk about painting with lots of interested folks. I forget the name of the guy whos vindicator I painted, so if you can send me pics please do and I will post them up!

Then came the 3 game iron man tournament.  We didn't get started until about 7pm, so we all knew it was going to be a long night. In game one I found myself up against a chaos marine heavy double lash list. He had lots of oblits and I think it was four full squads of chaos marines with Fabius Bile.  It was pretty nasty because most of his boys ended up being fearless which takes away the biggest weakness of the standard chaos marine.  He had lots of melta on the table, and I knew it was going to be a nasty first round. My plan was to drop all of my blood claw dreads, pop smoke, and hope for the best, I needed at least one to survive the first salvo.

So I did just that. I dropped all the blood claws, and the death company.

On his shooting, he began blasting away my dreads like they were made of paper. I didnt make a single cover save, and his first two shots killed both of my DC dreads.  But luckily for me, my blood claw furioso lived! He failed to lash my death company.

On my turn, as you can imagine, the carnage began.  I had a poor reserves roll so not much came on, but I wasted no time getting into assault. My Furioso chewed up most of a squad of chaos marines, and my death company charged another, killing most of them and taking great losses, but locking down Fabius.  My heavy support asscan dread and the frag furioso went to work on another mob of marines, and killed a lot.  On his turn he had little to do but shoot plasma at my troops sitting on objectives. The squads were small so this was not a bad tactic. It would not take many shots to take them out, since I could not hide them from LoS and still claim objectives. In hindsight, I should have hidden them until the last turn.

On his assault phase, my BC dread finished off its victim and the DC finished off Fabius in a stroke of luck.  So on my next turn, I went to work on another unit of marines with my dread... but failed to wipe them out due to a bout of poor dice. This gave him a chance to hit me with lots of power fists, and he killed the dread.

So at this point, I was out of dreads except for one with an assault cannon that had been working on a squad of chaos marines.  My death company was holding off some advancing terminators, and my troops were sitting on objectives.  He had 4 oblits left, and one single fearless chaos marine.  I poured all of my fire power into that single marine, but failed to kill him. Meanwhile, he was pumping plasma into my troops taking cover on objectives, and reduced me to just one objective.

After a bloody game, we were tied, one objective a piece. All he had was a couple oblits and a chaos marine.  :) Fun game!

Game Two:
I found myself against a guy named Josh with a very pretty Grey Knight list.  This was the test. This was the list I built mine to beat. However, a kill point mission was not what I was hoping for against this army.  But thats what I got.  He had Coteaz and a Grand master attached to a purifier squad in a chimera. Then he had 3 psy dreads and lots of assassin/henchman spam in psy backs.  I think he had one more squad of purifiers.

It was kill points and 12" deployment I think. It matters not since I was drop podding.  He deployed coteaz on the table attached to a squad of purifiers, in the corner behind some impassable terrain. He had their chimera next to them with the grand master, and some razorbacks with squishy troops, all packed in. He reserved the rest, outflanking the dreads. The dreads would be the key to this fight. They had the capability to take out 3 pods a turn, and in a KP mission, this was bad.  With him out flanking, I knew I had a chance. If I got the 33.3% luck chance and they ended up coming out away from his main force, I could single them out and pop em with melta.  Or just lock em up in assault.  Just as good.

So my first five pods were all of my troops and a DC dread. I dropped my assault marines and tacitcal squad on my right, hoping he would end up there with his dreads. He would be unable to kill them with shooting, and then I would reach them within a turn, and either destroy or lock them down. I then stationed my DC and my DC Dread on his table edge, well away from coteaz. Based on the deployment and terrain, there was only so far that his psy backs full of assassins and henchmen could go, and I wanted my DC there to take them out.

Seeing what I had planned, my opponent mounted up coteaz and company into their chimera and moved out a bit to try to protect his paperbacks.  Psybacks hurt but are still only av11.  He brought on a small assassin squad and assaulted my death company, but lost handily.  He brought on two psy dreads, and unfortunately for me, they came on his favorable side out of reach of my kill zone and free to shoot.  Drat.

So on my turn two I got serious. Mounting up coteaz was a mistake. When he is on the table, the squad he is attached to gets free shots at any thing deep striking that lands within 12". that is a 2 foot bubble of death to any thing in my army, seeing as how coteaz was attached to 4 psy cannons, and they would not only get to shoot the pod, but they also would get to shoot the riders.  But the power does not work while mounted...

Game on!  My feint worked.  Getting Coteaz out of the way left a chance for me to drop dreads right in his ranks, create some havoc, then take cover from the psy dreads using the impassable terrain and pods.

In a feat of drop pod bravery the likes of which have not been seen since the early days of the horus heresy, I struck.


I didn't quite have the tools to do the job though. I needed more melta. You can see in the picture that my three pods landed perfectly. Coteaz in his Chimera moved out and left me space to land.  In a dramatic landing, my dreads got out and opened fire. He was particularly vulnerable because he did not pop smoke on the two rear razorbacks. I was going to pop them, and lather them in flame with the frag dread in the center.

But I whiffed.  The dread's melta missed, and the asscan was ineffective. Drat.

It was still epic though.

The rest of the game would be tight. His dreads put a pounding on me, with all three of them coming safely onto his edge and shooting my dreads and pods to death.  My death company performed fantastic, scoring 4 kill points. And actually one of my exploding pods was an MVP because it killed a henchman that had eluded my DC, forcing the squad to run.

After all that shooting, exploding and podding, the game ended a DRAW in kill points with me winning via secondary objectives.  Fantastic game Josh!

Game Three:
Not much to say here.  I ended up against an entirely unpainted grey plastic Eldar wave serpent army.  The mission was pretty cool though. It was single objectives that were not deployed because they were held by an HQ of choice.  When the HQ died, the objective dropped on the table. The HQ could not be deployed in a transport.  He gave his to a farseer and stood him in the corner behind a serpent filled with Dire Avengers. Then he got inside that serpent and that was the game.  I spent 6 turns chasing serpents around the table and suffering the usual Eldar last turn tank shock. It was not until the end that we realized the game was invalid because he embarked his HQ which was against the rules. There is no way he would have survived wave after wave of me assaulting him on foot and I would have dumped every pod I had on him.

Back to my feelings about fielding grey plastic in tournaments.  Guys come on.  Just don't!  I know they were allowed in this tournament, and I get it that you want to play an army and might not be able to get it painted in time, but tough!  Play it in pickup games, I have no problem with grey plastic in a LGS game but don't like seeing them in game three of a tournament. This is especially bothersome because I believe 3 guys, including Fritz, did not get to play in this tournament. I bet they had painted armies!

This concluded the weekend for us.  The tournament ended at about 3am and we crashed hard.  The next morning Fritz and I were off early for our drive home, battling NJ traffic.

Ok I'm gona go ahead and publish this, it has been in my tray for a while. No time!  I would like to say though that with the advent of 6th ed, we have some huge plans. Stay tuned...

Jawaballs

Night Lords Chapter Banner!




Now for something particularly terrible!  The Night Lords chapter banner!

The client wanted a Night Lords banner that inspired terror. He wanted it a little more realistic than the standard banners, with a more horror inspiring skull.  He sent me a picture for reference.  He wanted a "Negative Space" chaos star behind the main image, illuminated by the crashing lightning bolt behind it.

After playing around with a few ways to do this, I decided to use masking tape to make the star, then painted right over it. I put down layers of blue, getting lighter and lighter, to create the glow effect. Then I did the hard edged bolt down the middle of the glow.

In the bottom left he wanted a nod to the 8th legion. So I added a roman numeral 8. He wanted an eclipsed sun in the center. I decided to go with a muted blue for the color of the sun. He wanted a few words on the right, not sure what they mean.  For the numbers, keeping with the dark Night Lords theme, I painted them black with a single grey highlight. The picture is a little dark so they are hard to read, but believe me, they look subtle but striking.

So there you go!  I am particularly pleased with the lightning effect on this one.  I had a lot of fun painting it.

Let me know if you want one for yourself! Next up, a special custom one for a client attending Wargamescon.  More on that soon.

Jawaballs

Holy Weekend Batman! FTW Games was awesome.

So Fritz and I returned from our trip to  Virginia, exhausted and satiated.  I don't have time right now to do a proper write up of the weekend, plus I want to compile some of the video, but I just wanted to share quickly the outstanding time I had.


First of all, there is a billiards bar right next to the store. Look at the size of this beverage!

I particularly like the lighting. Nice. :)

Any way, if that beer is any indicator to the amount of awesome that we had over the weekend, you can bet that you are in for a treat.  I did some painting demonstrations, and played in a 40k tournament with my drop pod dread list.

I will write up more later.

Jawaballs