Hand made full sized banners!

Don't worry about not getting what you want for Christmas, buy yourself a banner!

Here is my newest hand made banner for a gaming club in the UK, The Northern Knights!

If you are interested in a banner for yourself, take a look at the ones on the right that I have done and let me know what you want! The banners are about 7.5x3 feet, an exact proportional copy of the banner that comes in the 40k space marine command squad kit.  They are painted with top quality acrylic paint on heavy Duck canvas.  They are hand sewn by a professional and painted by yours truly!  They look great at events like Adepticon where the little extras make a big difference, or hanging on your wall in your man cave.  A slightly smaller version is available for those of you with slightly smaller spaces.  Email me at hotmail if you want one!

Jawaballs

The Jawaballs wishlist for a new Blood Angels codex

Rumors have it that the new Blood Angels codex could be a fall 2014 release, or maybe all the way into January 2015.

Sigh.

I guess it is not too early to start wishing?

First, what are the issues?  Well, for one, the book was written with the strengths of 5th edition in mind.  It was a very good 5th edition codex. It certainly wasn't over powered, but it was strong, and there were multiple competitive lists as opposed to some of the newer mono build books out now.

Now, on a competitive level, the Blood Angels are sitting near the bottom of the list.

Why?  Well first, what made them powerful in 5th was Furious Charge and NFP on a 4+.  Both were huge, as going before all other space marine, and most other models was a major advantage.  In addition, a 50% chance to ignore most small arms fire sent them over the top.

But with 6th edition came major changes. First we lost the +1 bonus to initiative on Furious Charge.  Then FNP had a minor change, it now only works on a 5+ but works against more shots that previously ignored it.

The only problem is that the Blood Angels were written to balance out those huge 5th ed advantages. One of their major weaknesses is the absence of affordable fire power. It was not a huge problem in 5th because there were not many armies that could put down hundreds of mid strength shots.  But nowadays a single round of Tau shooting can easily wipe out any army I ever won a tournament with in 5th.  So the loss of their advantages coupled with the "balancing" lack of dakka left them fluttering in the wind!  And no, the Baal Predator does not help.  At best it can pump out 12 shots, but has to be within 24" to do so, and will certainly die the following turn if it does.

But that is old news and has been covered to death, and is not the only thing that killed the Blood Angels.

Next came the 6th edition rule set in general.  As we all know, 6th ed is the shooting edition.  The newer books allow for an unprecedented amount of mid to long range, mid strength shooting.  It used to be that rapid fire bolters were one of the best solutions to mowing down lots of troops.  Now 20 shots is pretty much the norm from any shooty unit.

Also comes Overwatch and Interceptor.

As if the Blood Angels needed even more disadvantages...  Assault a squad of 12 pathfinders with a Blood Angels assault squad is a terrible joke.  First they are going to have to make at least 2 or 3 saves from that squads overwatch, but every other unit within 6" also gets to pepper them.  We all know how that works by now.

Interceptor?  So much for deep striking/drop podding Blood Angels. I believe they were the first to have some sort of "Skies of Blood" rule.  Good luck deep striking any where on the table with riptides ignoring cover and getting a reroll on the scatter!

Again, all of this has been beaten to death.

My old pappy always said, don't complain unless you have a solution to fix your problem!

So here we go.

The Jawaballs Wishlist for the new Blood Angels Codex.

First, open up all Space Marine toys.  Access to Thunder Fire Cannons will be a welcome blessing.  I have not tried them yet but the ability to use the new marine units would also be nice.  Besides, Marines have one of the things that made BA unique in 5th ed, the Storm Raven but Blood Angels still can't use Scout Speeders or Storm Talons...

Second, bring the points cost in line with the current marine books.  I pointed out an army using Codex: Blood Angels, then did the same army using Codex: Space Marines, and got something like 14 more models on the table, including Thunder Fires, and only really gave up Blood Claws on a dread and the FNP bubble..  Blood Angels units like Vanguard Vets and Death Company have to pay a crazy amount of points for Jump Packs as compared to current marines.  And Blood Angels are supposed to be the Jump Pack army!  Blood Angels are simply not worth the old points any more. We all know that and this will certainly be addressed.

Third, return their ability to assault.  Furious Charge is a universal special rule so they aint never getting back that bonus to initiative.  But at least give them a chance to make it into assault!  They need a special power, like "Blood Curdling Charge", that scares their opponents so badly that they cannot overwatch. Or at least forces them to make a leadership with an appropriate minus.  That alone would give them a chance.

Fourth, give them a chance in open terrain.  In order to use their new assault abilities, they still have to make it across the table and with the distance between deployment zones in some of the 6th ed mission, that is increasingly difficult. In 5th edition they got a Librarian power that gave them a cover save. Well, new armies can easily ignore cover now... How to do this? Give them tech... like air dropped barriers placed by the Thunderhawks that can provide lanes of protection as they advance.  They can be little force field thingies that only last for a turn and is placed with Deep Strike rules, using Void Shield technology. What a cool tactical element to add to the game!

Fifth, new models? Blood Angels already have some of the best Marine models. The Death Company and Sanguinary Guard box sets are fantastic for creating assault themed armies.  There are so many well crafted and beautiful bits that they simply don't need new models for infantry.  In fact, the only thing they really need are a few new Characters. Corbs, Mephiston and Tycho are showing their age.  A Sanguinary Priest upgrade sprue, in the same vein as the Commander box set would be sweet.  Create a set that includes all of his options plus options for Corbs!  Speakign of Corbs, return him to his HQ status, or create a Sang Priest HQ option like they have for the Reclusiarch.  

Maybe a new variant to the Thunderfire... or other heavy support artillery options that any assault army would definitely have to support their advancing assault troops!  Supressing artillery guns... (Dont you dare say Whirlwind)

So there you go folks. What do you think would return our beloved boys in red back to the top tables?

Jawaballs

Oh by the way I do have Comment Moderation in place still.  Please be civil!

Having our cake and eating it too.

For what it is worth, there seems to be a lot of grumbling about the rapid fire output of codex books.  Weren't we just griping not long ago about how long it took them to get out updates?

And how about the Dataslates?  Aren't these what we really wanted? The ability to play what we want? When you look at it, these are the ultimate balancing factor.  Now GW is giving us permission to pretty much play whatever we want.

But in reality, wouldn't that be how it works out any way? When I imagine warfare in the 41st millennium I don't see a sea of blue armor clad Ultramarines standing alone against a sea of Yellow Iyanden.  I see The Ultramarines with multiple allies going up against Iyanden and their allies.

  Maybe the Ultramarines are getting psychic assistance from Ulthwe in the form of a Seer Council and Wraithknight because Eldrad forsaw some horrible deed performed by this particular faction of Iyanden and he knows that if he fails to stop them even more Eldar lives will be lost... Maybe they also enlisted the help of their Tau buddies, but all the Tau could spare was some fire support in the form of a Riptide and 6 Broadsides because helping the Ultras preserves that border of their Empire against the Tyranids, and that is certainly for the greater good.

Maybe the Iyanden have banded with the Dark Eldar because they believe the Ultramarines have defiled an ancient Eldar temple that both of them claim ownership over. Maybe the Flesh Tearers got pissed at Calgar and sent in a dispatch of assault marines to make a point.  They are not necessarily helping the Xenos, but it is certainly within their nature to launch a strike out of pride and anger. Maybe they thought Calgar was withholding some sort of Sanguine Relic!  While we are at it, Farsight sent in a Riptide and Broadsides of his own on the side of the Iyanden to try to brake the Tau stranglehold on his Enclave.

Looking at the botched intel surrounding some of our own recent wars, it is not too far a stretch to imagine armies blasting away at each other over misinformation, and it is also not too far a stretch to imagine multiple allied forces working together out of convenience and mutually beneficial goals, not necessarily common ideology.

With this in mind, that is what the Dataslates bring to the table!  Let us ignore the fact that they are money grabs intended to promote the sales of the newest and most expensive models. (Wraithknight, Wraithguard, Marine Flyers, Broadsides and Riptides)  Lets us instead focus on the fact that we can keep our beloved Blood Angels, but actually play the other models we love. I can use my sweet Mephiston conversion and lovingly painted assault marines, alongside my Ulthwe seer council and with the fire support of the Tau dataslate and an attack wing of flyers from The Ultramarines!  Blood Angels don't have access to the Storm Talon.

And did I say that this is balancing?  It is the great equalizer!  No longer are our weaker armies shelved in favor of the newest most powerful books.  Now we can literally have our cake and eat it too!

What it comes down to is that we already accept 6th edition as a broken sort of game. We already accept that while it is indeed fun to play, it is not all that good a game in the competitive tournament sort of sense. Why are we so aghast to see dataslates and new a new codex every couple months?

So why try to force the round peg into the square hole?  Let us embrace the game for what it now is... A quite literally balanced game system where no one is over penalized for playing an army they like because they can easily make up for that armies weaknesses by any of the multitude of other options available to them.

Bring on those Dataslates. Lets hope those unpaid GW interns keep pumping them out!

Bring on Forgeworld!  Open up the GTs to all 40k approved Forgeworld units. There is no place for Superheavies in a standard game of 40k, but how bout those Elysian armies?  I would absolutely love to encounter one in a tournament.

Bring on those new game changing codex books every three months.  Give me my Blood Angels now not later!

Let us take a step back from the number crunching meta fest that 40k has become. Let us instead take this moment of time to embrace the hobby for what it is meant to be.  A fun, and creative HOBBY, where people build and paint models and then play a game with them... rather than a finite rules system that we have taken it as our right to rape and abuse (along with each other).

I am looking forward to encountering some creative combinations of dataslates and armies. I hope the TOs embrace the change and instead of placing restrictions upon what can be played that only reward the small but vocal minority, open up the game to what 40k has become, the first truly balanced system in it's history.

Thoughts?

Jawaballs

Tau Dataslate

Hey guys, so I just read through the Tau Dataslate.

What the hell.  It appears to me that 40k is going the way of DnD 3.5.  It seemed like every month they released 3 more books that just made the game more and more broken than before, ultimately leading up to a complete reboot. (4.0)

Case in point: Dataslates

Now you don't even have to play tau as allies... you can just bring in a kill team comprised of a riptide and 6 broadsides to support whatever you want...

Really quick I came up with a list and I'm sure you all can do way better.

Space Marine Codex:

Librarian master level 2
10 man scout squad
10 man tactical squad
x3 Thunderfire Cannons

Codex blood angels:

Librarian
Death Company x5
DC Dread with talons
Storm Raven with hurricane bolters

Riptide with Ion
two 3 man broadside squads with missiles.

1780 points.

Both the BA and the Tau are considered Battle bros to the Marines.  And look at this, 6 heavy support choices!  A ridiculous amount of fire power, and some decent anti assault.  (Sure you say, just shoot the troops.) But this is just a taste of the what is possible. I can certainly go with a furioso dread instead, and pack in more troops to the list without losing any strength, and this is only 1780 points!  Plus I could skip the BA completely and go IG instead... or Eldar...

How bout the best of all three worlds?  The Marines as stated above, an Eldar Deathstar council on bikes with a Wraithknight, and the Tau kill team.  (575 pts for the KT)

It would look like this:

Librarian master level 2
10 man scout squad
10 man tactical squad
x3 Thunderfire Cannons (640)

Riptide with Ion
two 3 man broadside squads with missiles. 6 broadsides (575)

Farseer on Bike
6 Warlocks on bikes
3 Bike troop squad
Wraithknight   (706)

1971 points.

Man... it's crazy.  I guess it is kind of good. Who needs a balanced game when you can just play every thing at once!

Lets just embrace the madness. Grand Tournaments should now just allow all 40k approved Forgeworld and let the apocalypse come.

Tonight on Jawaballs Live

I am doing my live show tonight at 7pm EST.  I will be showing off my LED lightup dreadnought!  Tune in!

See the live feed HERE.

Jawaballs

LED Dreadnought!

Continuing to work on my Lamenters army, it has become apparent that I need to pick up the game. So I contacted the guys I met from Powered Play Gaming while I was at Nova and picked up some of their LED kits!

What they offer are a set of pre wired LEDs complete with switch, battery, plug and play board and an assortment of colored lights.  Why is this awesome?  Because any one can do it.  I had zero experience with wiring or LEDs other than playing around with my tealight base.  I was intimidated by having to wire, solder, and power LEDs within my models.

These kids are intended to be used within wargaming models, and are made to be incredibly easy to use.  Here are some pictures showing how:

 Open up the pack and you pull out a mass of wires and a little board.  At first glance it seems a bit confusing, but each wire is labeled with it's color and it very quickly becomes apparent what to do. Any one who has hooked up an Xbox to a TV can do this!

Here is the board.  There are 6 sockets on the board. Two of them are larger than the others, These are the two that the switch and power goes into. It is obvious by the size of the plugs.

They sell miniature 9 volt batteries.  You can get one of these, or use the plug provided to hook up a regular sized 9 volt.

Here you can see the switch and battery about to go into their plugs.

Then you plug in one of the LED plugs into any of the four remaining slots and whammo!

Here is a closeup of the board. The two slots on the left are for the battery and switch, leaving 4 slots for LEDs. Easy?

If you decide not to get the miniature 9 volt which runs like 10 bucks, the kit comes with this regular 9 volt plug that you can use instead.

And here is the result!

My WIP dreadnought. I lit up the blood claws with red LEDs and the cockpit and range finders under the chassis with blue.

Here is the view without the armor on. I am painting up the pilot that will be exposed. You can see my clumsy application of the LEDs inside the cabin.  I used a hot glue gun to set them in place.  It was important to place them the way I did, pointing at the view finders, because I used a fiber optic pack also available from Powered Play.  I drilled out the range finders, and inserted a piece of fiber optic. The pack that they sell comes with three different sized round bits of optic plus a couple of square rods and a file.

The lights have to be shining into the ends of the optics in able to have the optic 'carry' the light.  Here you can see me showing how it works. If you look at the near end of the bit of optic you can see the blue light shining through.  The other end is up against the LED in the cabin.

Here you can see the back of my model and how I hid the wires. I built up a base using some plastic side walk pieces I found from a model train company.  It looks like temple flooring.  Inside the base I had enough room to store all of the wire and the battery and I used hot glue to seal it up. Yes, once the battery wears out, this guy will go dark. :(  Well not exactly, I purposefully glued the board to the base behind the model.

First this will allow me to put in a new battery if I desired. But also, this leaves me two extra slots to add more LEDs that I plan on using on my display. This dread is going to be in a repair gantry being worked on by servitors.  When he is on display I can plug him into some LEDs wired into the gantry!

Now, I suggest you use these before gluing your model together. This model was already painted red and has been re purposed as a Lamenters dread.  This meant I had to pull him apart to do the work.  The chassis came apart easy, but I had to drill holes into the arms to enable the LED to fit. I was able to wire the arms through the shoulders, but in order to wire the model to the base I had to drill holes through the bottom of the torso.  You can see the wires here.  Had I the know how to snip the wires, I could have maybe drilled holes through the legs before assembling the model, and wired them completely internally. But I found a good enough way. I inserted two straws into the base to serve as access pipes and left the wireing partly exposed on the ground .This will look like a ragtag repair bay where the dread is charging up...  I hope.  I will find some more wire bits and leave them lying around and stuff.  

I am going to use these to light up a landing pad for my Storm Raven, and to wire up the storm raven itself.  But again, it has been assembled, so I am fairly limited on what I can do.  For example I wanted to light up my Rhino headlights but since that model is almost complete it simply wont be possible.

Plan out whatever lighting you want to do while your models are still on sprue!

Any way, if I could do this, YOU can.  They are working with Secret Weapon to create some bases already built to house the wires and batteries, and have new stuff on the way, like a board that can make the LED "flicker".

I will have a lot more of this posted up soon including some how to Video once I shoot it.  Until then, this LED kit get a huge thumbs up from me. Visit the website HERE and if you want to take the leap give Chris a call, he was super helpful with suggesting how to do this.

More to come!

Jawaballs

A little holiday humor from the soon to be uneployed!

Hi all.  As you know, my wife is a pretty good writer and occasionally I like to share her popular posts that she puts up on a site called Woman Around Town.  Usually her stuff is a light hearted poke at the silly and absurd things we see every day. This time though, it is a more tongue in cheek look at something that hits us all pretty hard.  (If we are unfortunate enough to be in this boat)

Employment, and her impending lack thereof.

So for those of you who like a little sense of humor with your lack of work during the holidays TAKE A LOOK HERE. Sometimes all we can do is laugh.

Next up. More Lamenters!

Jawaballs

Stuff for sale

Pathfinders. I found 3 more after taking this pic

a handful of guardians

3 lords. Two on left are magnetized at hip. All have magnetized weapons. I have some more of the weapons.

3 wraithguard. I need to find a head.

guardian squad with weapon

warlock

3 bikes. one sword is broken needs replace, there is an elven banner for banner pole

autarch rider

converted far seer, needs left arm and canopy for bike

all of his parts are here some place

serpent upgrade set from forgeworld, complete

factory sealed

necron snipers, one built rest on sprue

necron warriors, one painted bone, box missing one or two

3 primed stealth suits with fusion

more to come

Converted Ulthwe guardians using dire avenger and fantasy elves

oop fire dragons?

Far seer converted from wizard

pile o warlock

harlies, one is painted, I need to find his torso

Lamenters Terminator Captain with LED base!

Still WIP but...

Here is a video, you need to watch this to appreciate the image!