The Jawaballs Way: A kickstarter is launched!

Hey Folks!

I started producing How to Paint tutorials about six years ago, and in that time, have received tens of thousands of comments and emails from dudes thanking me for helping them with their hobby.

Well, I figured it was time to revamp my products. And now is your chance to show your support for me!

My skills have improved, and new paints are available, so here you go!

The Jawaballs Way: How to Paint Wargame Miniatures!

I have started a Kickstarter to raise capital to get an entirely new line of DVDs produced.  I am making a series of six double length discs.

One. Yellow and Red:  I will paint a Lamenter, Blood Angel and Khador Battle Mechanik Officer in high definition.

Two. Blue and Green: I will paint a Cygnar Journeyman Warcaster, Ultramarine, Terminator Librarian, Dark Angel and Tyranid!  Phew that is going to be a huge set.

Three. Bone and Wolf Grey:  I will paint a Deathwing Terminator, Cryx Bone Jack, and Space Wolf.

Four. Black and White: The two hardest colors to paint!  I will paint a Ravenwing Biker, Menoth Warjack model, and White and Black Death Company models using the Jawaballs techniques.

Five. Detailing and Hand Painting: I will paint eye lenses, power weapons, lightning effects, scopes, banners, scrolls and hand painted insignia, numbers and skulls just to name a few!

Six. Hobby and tools: I will cover the tools of my trade and demonstrate in depth how to make several different bases and a competition level display board!

How is that for a comprehensive set???

Each DVD is going to be a full function DVD with menus and a full color printed disc in a compact, full color eco sleeve.  I estimate no less than four hours of instruction PER DISC!

What is a kickstarter?

This is a fund raising website to promote new business and projects. Essentially you pledge to preorder your discs. Once I have reached my goal, the order becomes reality and you are charged for the purchase. I then collect the cash and get the DVDs produced, then mailed out to you.  I set the goal of this kickstart at 7000 dollars. Each disc will cost about 1150 to have printed and mailed to me in bulk. I will then ship the discs to you, within the US, at no additional cost. Shipping world wide will cost a few extra bucks.  You will have a chance to pick your disc of choice.

The DVDs will be zoned for US, so you foreigners will have to adjust, though I am sure you are used to that.

So go ahead and check out my Kickstarter and get yourself some new painting DVDs and help me out at the same time! Also included in the top tiers of the kickstarter are chances to get yourself a custom painted HQ or Jawabanner at a nice discount.  You can't lose!

EDIT: I am working on a new way to reliably provide digital content, so I created digital options if you prefer that way. Stay tuned for details!

Jawaballs

Battle Report: Blood Angels vs Imperial Guard Deep Strike army

I went to the Glen Burnie battle bunker after Gamesday to try to get a chance to take on any one who may want to come play. A reader was supposed to, but sadly Ryan fell asleep and failed to make it. But luckily there was a guy there willing to play! Doug had also traveled down to the area for Gamesday. He had an IG army made using the older codex and asked me if I cared that he use that one. I did not and we started rolling.

1750
Blood Angels standard Jawaballs mech list
Imperial Guard 2 basilisks, inquisitor and retinue, calidus assassin, and a LOT of deep striking infantry bristling with melta and plasma guns.

3 loot counters
12" deployment zone



My opponent had some Inquisitor fun that allowed him a +1 to win the die roll to go first. He used it and won the roll. In his triumph, he claimed the honor of going first. (Which I would have given to him any way.) My standard procedure for a deep strike army is to take second turn and reserve every thing. He deployed his 2 basilisks and inquisitor/retinue and I reserved it all much to his chagrin. The 3 loot counters were in easy range for my rhinos and troops to get to.

Turn 1:
Nothing happens. Every thing was in reserves.

Turn 2:
A good portion of his infantry deep strike into the center of the table. He then runs them into a large terrain piece in the center. Right around here he confidently announced that he has not lost a game in over 2 years...

On my turn, only Dante and a Baal come in. Again, my legendary ability to roll 1s. So, the pred lights up a squad causing them to fall back, and Dante jumps in to assault a squad, killing it.

Turn 3:
A lot more of his stuff came in. Dante found himself surrounded by at least a planets worth of Guardsmen. The Baal exploded to melta fire from some veterans, and Dante would go down in a hail of Las and Plas shots. The remaining troops that did not fire, ran to spread out and receive my charge. His assassin came in and simply deployed in the center. He also lost a squad that deep striked to close to Dante and then failed on the mishap table.

On my turn, about half of my remaining forces came in. I spread out my Rhinos to get into position to take objectives, and rammed my Death company and corbs right down the middle. They moved in and finished off some squads and the Baal preds cut down droves.

Turn 4:
All of his forces came in. He began to see my plans, and started to make moves to prevent them... It was at this point that he realized that unless he got extremely lucky, I was probably going to take the win. He shot up my Death Company, then using direct fire from this Basilisks, destroyed a rhino and a Baal. Thats ok, I have more. :)

On my turn, the rest of my stuff was in play and the game was on. I put my tanks in position to move fast on turn 5 and take objectives. I cut down a lot of guardsmen trying to hold objectives on my side and made shored up my troops to withstand Basilisk shots on turn 5 by spreading them out and arranging the rhinos to block plasma fire.

Turn 5:
He mad his move to claim objectives and took two. But it was too late. On my turn, I simply tank shocked the crap out of him, losing one rhino, but successfully rolling over and pushing away 4 squads from my path towards the objectives. One rhino, that I was using to hold an objective, stormed away 18" to actually claim another one, while an assault squad who lost their rhino moved over to claim the first. I used a rhino to skillfully push him off the last objective. At the end of turn 5, I held all three objectives and there was little he could do to stop it. I rolled the die to end the game... and of course... a 1 popped up. Game ends... Jawaballs wins!

He had a sick army. He was sort of sharking me... He knew what he had, and had a chance to see my army before agreeing to play. Every squad was decked out with maximum plasma and melta shots. He thought he was going to roll over me and had I deployed my army like he was expecting, I would have been run off the table turn 3. However, he was a perfect example of a good player being "Behind the 5th edition curve". He was trying to play 4th edition tactics with a 4th edition army. The game is NOT about overwhelming fire power, which he definitely had. A lot of players are slow to change with the times, and their old stand byes no longer work. This guy who had been crushing people with this army for 2 years finally came up against some one who thinks in the 3rd dimension (credit to Fritz for coining that term) and epic failed. I feel badly for him because his army was strong and nice looking. But now it is totally illegal. He is going to have to rebuild the entire thing according to the new codex, and hopefully got a taste of what it means to play 5th edition. Video to come soon.

How to Paint Space Marines: Hand Painted Angel Wings video 3

Here is video 3 in the set. Again, poor focus. It seems each video I did is going to be like this. And I did not take any still shots of WIP. :( Oh well, I will post a lot of pictures when it is done. Enjoy any way! It still has some value.

Honor Guard Update 6: Sanguinary Priest Jump Pack and Standard Bearer

Here are a few pics of my Standard Bearer and Priest near completion. I have to HL the priest jump pack, but there is a decent pic of the Angel Wing on his jump pack, I am going to do a large 2nd company blood drop on the other side. The bearer is justabout done. I need to clean up his highlights and finish the banner, but he needs the least amount of work of the 5. I would say the whole squad is about 65 percent complete. The other three have interior lighting effects, power fist, power sword and Plasma Gun which are going to be hard for me to perfect. I decided to mount them all on Scenic Resin Bases, the same ones available on my E-store. So there you go! If they are good enough to be in my Golden Daemon entry, they are good enough for the table! I am going to have the 5 of them on a rock outcropping that is mounted on a wooden base for display. Their individual bases will be removable as per the GD rules. More to come!

Updated: Check out the angel wing on the heal of the priest!

How to Paint Space Marines: Hand Painted Angel Wings Video 2

Here is part two of the video set. I am very sorry for the blurry resolution. My cam has been a lil bitch lately. I think the rest get better from here. On this video, I start laying out the wings using Shadow Grey. Previously, I layed out the entire footprint of the wings in order for me to go on later and add details. Hope you enjoy! JB

How to Paint Space Marines: Hand Painted Angel Wings

Here is video one of my newest series, How to Paint Space Marines: Hand Painted Angel Wings. I will be posting them all here.

Come meet Jawaballs and Fritz at Gamesday!

Thats right! Ever wanted to know what we look like? Want to see our tactics first hand? Want to look us in the eye and tell us you think we are full of poo? Now is your chance. Come meet us at gamesday! Fritz and I will be running a Club Table at Gamesday Baltimore. You will be able to come and challenge us to games, or ask any burning question you may have! Look for painting seminars, tactical presentations, and other cool stuff offered by Jawaballs and Fritz for 40k, and The Brothers Grim for WFB. Look for my Blood Angels banner and you will find us! We are looking forward to getting a chance to meet readers and enthusiasts and have a great day of 40k fun. Also, if you cannot make Gamesday but are still in the Baltimore area, Fritz and I will be at the Baltimore Battle Bunker on Sunday to take on all challengers. If you could not get some game time against us at Gamesday, come on out and throw down! Or challenge us both to a team up with a buddy. So there you go! Looking forward to seeing you all. Jawaballs

Golden Daemon Honor Guard Update 6

Here is a quick pick of my Sanguinary priest. I decided to take an extended break from painting for a few weeks in order to refresh myself and get ready for the push for the Golden Daemon. I have a week off starting at 2pm tomorrow and will be doing a LOT of painting. Expect steady updates! JB

How to Play Blood Angels: Where to begin

So, the question has been asked many times. "Jawaballs, I love your models, how do I start a Blood Angels army?" Rather then answer that great question every day, I have decided to start a post here and continue to update it. Feel free to add to this for those newcomers that I will be directing to this thread.

If you have found yourself here, you are either a regular reader, or I directed you to my blog from Youtube. Either way, thanks for stopping in! First of all, if you want to know where to start with a Blood Angels army. Watch the video attached to this post. To begin, go out and get yourself this list of items:

Brother Corbulo
Space Marine Battle Force
Assault on Black Reach
Box set of Death Company

That ought to cover you for models. The AoBR has the rule book.

Now, get yourself the Blood Angels codex, which is found under the Downloads tab on the GW website. Linking to it does not work for some reason. Search the site, or call GW to help you find it. It is a free download. Print it out. Many thanks to Master Darksol who showed me that the links to the GW website do infact work. By the way, if you have not checked out his blog, do so. The Emperor Commands. I had tried to link that codex before to no avail. Here is the Blood Angels Codex.



Also, get the following hobby items:

Xacto Blades
GW Super Glue
Pinning Drill

Paints:
Blood Red
Blazing Orange
Chaos Black
Boltgun Metal
Skull White
Bestial Brown
Bleached Bone
Golden Yellow
Baal Red Wash
Badab Black Wash
Mechrite Red

Reaper Kolinsky 10/0 brush
Citadel small and large drybrush

GW Black and White spray primer.
(or a substitute)

My set of "How to Paint space Marines" Blood Angels available HERE.

That should get you well under way.

Now, put together a 500 point army, and start painting. If you are a beginner at Blood Angels, my videos are a must have. Without tooting my own horn, they have helped hundreds of guys learn to paint, and will answer every question you have.

I suggest Mechanized Blood Angels. Read every word on my blog, check the archives, and learn my list and tactics.

Get Corbulo, a tactical squad, your death company, and an assault squad, and get them all in Rhinos. Corbs can ride with the DC. There you go! That is a quick start to your new world dominance. More to come.

Battle Report: Blood Angels vs Cantor Marines

First game in over 2 weeks! Today I got to play against Burt, a member of our club. Burt is known for being a little surly, but truely, I think I am one of the few guys who "get" Burt. He is always fun to play against! But if you dont understand him, it can be a little intimidating. The best part of playing Burt is that Fritz and I have messed with him so much, that now he always suspects something is up. :) I might add, that Burt is a fellow Blood Angels player, using a Flesh Tearers build. I also give him credit for showing me the Way of Sanguinius. It was a game against burt where he methodicly destroyed my army from range, while I was helpless. That was when I was all jump packs. Soo, thanks burt, here is a taste of the fruits of your labor...

1750 Blood Angels vs Cantor Marines

My standard list vs Cantor, 3 Drop Pods of Sternguard, one of which was completely jacked out with Storm Shields, lightning claws etc, a 7 man Honor Guard, each with a power sword, and two tactical squads with Razor Backs, combat squaded.

Mission: 3 Loot Counters
Deployment: 12" table edge.

Burt won the roll and deployed first. He placed his 4 combat squads and 2 RB in terrain. I reserved all.

Turn 1:
Burt brought in 2 drop pods. One was his HG which came down on the objective nearest me. The other came down on the third. They were deployed in a triangle, with one in each of the left corners of the board, and the third forming the tringle in the middle. So, at the end of turn 1, Burt was holding 1 objective, and contesting 2. I dont know off hand if Cantor makes his Vanguard vets troops, if he does, then Burt was holding 2 and contesting 1.

Turn 2:
On Burts turn, neither of his pods came down. He simply moved his guys to secure objectives and held firm waiting for me!

On my turn, travesty. Only one Baal and my Furioso came on. It was at that time that I noticed his HG had no power fist. Target priority acquired! I moved in, charging my FD at the HG, and my Baal providing fire support. I was unable to get to them this turn, but next turn he would be in assault...

Turn 3:
Burt brought in another pod... these guys came down right ontop of my forces. The sternguard jumped out, and shot Melta guns at my Baal, but only stunned it. He had no other shots that could hurt me this turn.

On my turn, all but a Rhino and a Baal came on. Game on! I clustered my forces on the left side of the board, and bumm rushed his HG and the SGV squad near the edge. I rolled in a Baal, and did some shooting at the squad that Dante was about to assault. I wanted to wittle them down to 5 or 6 so Dante could cut them down on the charge. My furioso moved up on the HG in the building, and flamed/melted them. My troop rhinos continued their left flank end around towards his other objective. IN the assault, Dant cut into the SGV and with the help of Corbulo giving Furious Charge, cut them down. My FD needed a 3 to get up to the next level and assault the HG, and I got it... just barely. Unfortunately for them, they had no power fist, and artificer armor does not protect them from a Furioso Dreadnought getting in 7 close combat attacks with preferred enemy. They all died as well, and my dread massacred back down to ground level, leaving the objective open for my tactical sqauad to come up and claim.

Turn 4:
Poor Burt would suffer some horrible luck on his shooting. He saw my charge on the left and dropped a pod full of SGV right in the path, and moved up a Razor to try to stop me. It seems he caught my disease, and rolls 1 to wound with Las/multi shots. Sadly, he would merely manage to stop my Rhinos from shooting this turn, and also a Baal.

On my turn, things would turn ugly I started to break out. My tanks were hemmed in by drop pods and terrain. Burt objected to my dread pushing his way through the ruins, so we rolled off and the dice said the furioso could not and would have to go around the ruined wall and drop pod. Nope, not a Blood Angels dread. Dante jumped up and over the pod and wall, and landed in range to melta and assault a Razor that had moved up to intercept My vehicles jockeyed around in the confined space making room for the Baal to clear the way. HE moved out of the terrain, and sized up the blocking Drop Pod. In my shooting, a Baal knocked the gun off the Pod, and Dante stunned the RB. Then on the assault, my dread tore into the pod. 6 penetration shots later, the pod was gone... exploded and my way was clear to his other objective. The Dread massacred up to where he would have been had he just gone through the wall! Poetic Blood Angels justice.

Turn 5:
Desperate now, Burt moves out men away from his held objective. A combat squad fires on Dante, and kills him with a Melta gun! Sadly though, this put them in range for a wild charge from the furioso. He also fired shots at the dread with a Lascannon, but again failed to hurt him. Unfortunately for Burt, Dante would be his only kill on the day.

On my moving turn, I moved a rhino up and around his pod on the left, tank shocking the vets in the way. He made his leadership, and elected to just move them. Having no place to go but back, he pulled them out of the way as my rhino swung a right and moved into claim the now vacant objective recent held by the tac squad that vaporized Dante. I moved up my dread, and supported him with Corbulo in the DC rhino. My tactical squad moved up into the ruins to claim my second objective of the turn. With my last movable rhino... the third stalled, I tank shocked the vets again just to dispense with them. Burt pulled them back again, and I prevented him from possibly surrounding the scoring rhino in assault. In shooting, I unloaded a Baal on Cantor's squad hiding in the middle, and killed a couple. The drop pods prevented me from shooting all 3 at them. I had to settle for taking the guns off the pods.

Turn 5 ended with me squarely holding 2 objectives, and him holding none. I rolled a die, but the result would bring the game on to turn 6. However, Burt had had enough.

He had a scary list, quite strongly tooled out for assault and death. But his weakness was his immobility against my super fast and shooty army. He put a jacked out squad of Vets with Storm Shields, claws, powers and cantor, right in the middle of the table on an objective that they could not even hold. That was probably 500 points that did nothing but take casualties. He put an Honor Guard squad on the table each with a power sword, probably blowing another 380+ points with the pod, but their lack of a power fist left them dog meat when my Furioso got to them. He also placed 3 combat squads far off in the corner where they were useless. Sure it is easy to armchair QB a game like this, but the reason I say this stuff is that it points out a major strength in my army! Burt is an experienced Blood Angels player, but was not prepared for my tactics. The combination of fast moving rhinos, and a small but VERY strong assault force took him completely by surprise. The 3 Baal Preds, while never fully unleashing their fire power due to glances and obstructions, were a constant worry for him.

A streak of good luck would have made the game much different for him, but that is why we roll the dice! Good game Burt!

www.jawaballsproductions.com Here is my new list video!

And dont forget to check out my new E-store for my How to Paint videos and Scenic Resin Bases!

www.JawaballsProductions.com is now live!

My apologies for not being very active on the posting the last couple weeks, but I have been working on a new E-store! Thats right, www.jawaballsproductions.com is now live and ready. On my new store you can find my How to Paint DVDs and now you can purchase them as Digital Downloads. I am still in the process of listing them all, but you will be able to purchase all of my video sets as digital downloads. It will take you about an hour and a half to download them on a highspeed connection. Also, I am pleased to introduce my new line of hand crafted resin products. In my Kustom Kastings section, you will find Scenic Resin Bases, and other fun things for 40k like the new Seismic Hammer for the Ironclad Dreadnought! So go to www.jawaballsproductions.com for "How to Paint Space marines" videos, and Scenic resin bases, and check back often as I will be adding new product daily.

Warhammer 40k Blood Angels: Tactica 1, army list

Hmmm, Tactics... where to begin??? I have been meaning to do some posts on tactics lately, but wanted to wait until I had a decent idea of what the hell I was talking about before I started shooting off my mouth... In this day and age it would be nice if more people did the world this courtesy. :) But I have been on a winning streak with my Blood Angels lately so I wanted to discuss a few tactics that seem to be working for me.

First of all, army list is key. We all love those toys and want to get as many of our beloved models on the table as possible. But we have to just settle on the fact that some units just are not practical. An army of cobbled together, expensive units with no synergy will get owned and you will not have fun. We all want to win no matter what people say. This brings me to selecting the right units for your force, which will be the focus of my first tactic post.

First of all, avoid point sinks! The new Space Marine codex is FULL of point sink units. Sternguard Vets are one huge example. Plopping them on the table inside a Land Raider Redeemer is an extreme example that can be ruined by a single 50 point attack bike. Avoid building your army around that one kick ass unit inside that one kick ass transport. In my opinion, rather then taking that 600 point+ combo, it would be better to pick up say... three tactical squads. In some cases, it is quantity, not quality that matters.

But if you are going to go, go strong! If you want to play your Sternguard, commit to them. Take the commander that makes them all scoring units, take as many Sternguard as you can get on the table, and get em in Rhinos. (more on the value of the rhino in another post) If you want Land Raiders, play two. Vindicators? Play three! At least take more then one tank if you are going to take a tank at all. I play my Vindicator and Baal Pred together. They make a great team, especially when supported by an attack bike and speeder. This forces my opponent to make choices. Putting just one tank on the table is probably a waste of points. People will single out that lone vindicator and pop it like a virgin on prom night. This is especially sucky if that tank was your lone anti tank unit...

The same goes for transports. Taking just one rhino will probably result in that one rhino getting whacked by turn two every game. People will see it and think there is something special inside, (and there probably is) and zone in on it. If you are going to go transports, go multiple. Make your opponent make choices and if one goes down, you will not feel the loss so strongly.

5th edition has sort of turned the focus of 40k towards lots of troops choices. In the past you saw armies taking just two small tactical squads and loading up on Veterans and elites. I personally feel this shift is a good thing. My army has evolved from two to four troop choices. But seriously, there is something to be said for 40 space marines with bolters and plasma guns who have zoomed up to an objective in a rhino and deployed in cover. That little tactic will run you around 900 points and force your opponent to have to deal with 4 tough little nuts to crack. Again this sort of gets me back to my, "If you are gona go, go strong" mind set. Go with the 4 ten man tacticals in Rhinos, hell add two more in drop pods. Attach a cheap but solid commander some place, and spend the rest on a few speeders with Multi Melta and Heavy Flamer and you are well on your way to winning games without even putting a real thought into strategy. Some people find just 10 space marines in cover hard to kill, try 60.

Summary: Put some real thought into your army list. Do some research and make decisions before you put a lot of time into modeling an army that you are going to be unhappy with down the road. Take units that compliment each other and avoid taking hugely expensive point hog units as the core of your army. Sure a squad of 10 assault terminators lead by a chaplain and commander will tear things up... but what happens when they are stranded on one half of the table with nothing left to kill?? It is good to take multiples of things. 1 Speeder is nice but 3 are better. One Rhino is a lascannon magnet, 4 are a bewilderment and confusing. Your opponent will hesitate and not know which one to shoot. Make your opponent make decisions. Taking just one Vindicator makes his choice easy and will probably result in the throwing away of 125 points. Taking 3 will make him panic. Play that up and go with it!

More to come on choosing an army list in the next post.

How to Paint Space Marine DVDs now available in Full DVD format.

Now my painting tutorial DVDs are available in a Full DVD format that can be viewed on any Region 1 DVD player on a TV. Find my paypal link and place your order.

Salamanders

Hey guys, what colors are used to paint Salamanders? Is it the Dark Angels Green, Snot Green, Goblin Green trio? I will be doing a How to Paint Salamanders series of videos, but I want to keep the color scheme simple like my Blood Angels.

Warhammer 40k Ultramarines: How to paint Ultramarines!

Here is video 1 on how to paint Ultramarines. Enjoy!

Ive added a pic of the finished Sgt. Now it is just a matter of finding time to upload them all!!

Warhammer 40k: How to paint space marines blood angels

Tell me what you think of my video here. It was my first how to paint video, and I was sort of winging it (obviously) They will get better!