Philosophy of the game: Counter-charge

Hey there folks, it's Xaereth again, from Delusions of Grandeur, taking a slight deviation from my 'Rediscovering Angels' series I've been giving.  Today I want to show you the way I approach the game in general.  I think in order for future posts of mine to make sense, it'll be good for people to read them in this context.  It's something I posted a while back on my other blog, so to those of you who read both:  I apologize for the repeat.

As a sidenote, please realize I won't be repeating content from one blog to the other often at all- this week I'm a little pressed for time what with like 3 huge papers due, and a final project and such.  Perfect timing for said recycling content :)

Blood Angels in Action

It's the Capt of the 8th back for another romp in the blogosphere.

This is the start of a series about my army list and where it is headed based on in-game performance. Now I'm not going to try and sit down and analyze units and synergies etc. There are plenty of blogs out there for that, and let's be honest, they can do it better than I can (nods at Xaereth). What I can do is take my list that I am currently running and put the rubber to the road. I can put the army to the test and evolve my list from the performance I get. And all you statistics people don't get all "sample-size" on me, I don't have time to test units 50 times. I'll be just reporting my results, and how I plan to change things if I don't like how it goes.

So let's start with my most recent list. For those of you who have followed my blog, What I Do, you might have noticed that I have army list ADD. I make a new list a week it seems. I like to think through the process, and use the different units that I have at home and ideally painted. But I am trying to stick with a list and improve it. So here we go:

Librarian with jump pack
usually has Blood Lance and Shield of Sanguinius (great load-out for DS'ing marines)
Honor Guard with Jump packs
4x melta

2x Techmarine with jump pack
Power weapon and combi-melta
3x Sanguinary Priests
2x jump packs, and one on foot

4x Assault Squad with jump packs
10x marines
2x melta and power weapon on sergeant

3x Devastator Squad
5x marines
4x missile launchers

Almost a horde marine list. It totals 2000 points, has 60+ marines on the table, most of which have FNP. And let's be honest, this is not an original idea here. I took elements from different blogs out there and put them together in my own mix.

The plan of course is to place the Devs on the table to start in some 3+ cover with one of the Priests as a babysitter. The rest drops in, up close and personal. It packs a punch, but it seemed a bit copy and paste to me. I don't believe that "spamming" effective units is a bad thing per se. Some people will tell you that is the case, but if someone is telling you how to play with your plastic soldiers, then they need to just pump the brakes a bit.

So I wanted to make it a bit different, mix things up a tad, so I sent an email out to the boys at 3++ asking for help/ideas. In the meantime I got a game in against a Tau army. It was a massacre for the poor guy. I had tabled him by the bottom of turn 3. Nothing worth reporting, unless you like blowing up fancy hover tanks with melta guns and routing little blue skinned aliens in combat.

I came from the game feeling pretty good about the list and thinking that I had it all figured out. But Tau mostly fold to any army that can drop right on top of them reliably, and beat their faces in combat. It's just an older codex.


I then got a reply to my email in the form of a post, and it had some good ideas. Namely, my army lacked combat punch. Sure I have Furiously Charging marines everywhere, but they crumble to a dedicated CC unit. I had no counter to a Deathstar unit, or even a good hammer unit. This became super obvious when I played a small game vs Dark Eldar last weekend. It was a very interesting game that will get its own post here soon. I think it will be enjoyable, lol.

They suggested dropping some assault marines to make space for some Sanguinary Guard, ideally 2 units. I thought it was a good idea and am going to run with it. I will probably go with one unit of Sanguinary Guard and one of Vanguard Vets. I'll use the Vets with storm shields as an anvil to tie up other Deathstars, and the Sang Guard as the hammer to smash the other guys face. That's the theory at least. I'll have to put them to the test.

So how are all of you dealing with Deathstars? What do you do when Vulkan exits his ride with some TH/SS termies in his posse? How do you survive that Wolflord on his oversized chihuahua smacking you around with 15 attacks with a thunderhammer that strikes at initiative? (jk about that one, but it feels that way sometimes) And how are you going to deal with the Archon + Incubi wiping your whole army? (nearly true story)

Help out your fellow Blood Angels and let us know what works for you!

-Michael, Capt of the 8th

Some Ridiculously Expensive Dark Eldar Death Star Options

Hey all I’m Kevinmcd28 from baals-2-the-waals.blogspot.com and The Ocean State Dice Devil’s. Jawaballs has asked me to guest write on his blog from time to time. So to continue my recent explosion of articles on Dark Eldar, since I am creating an army of them myself, here is an article on possible hard hitting death star units to center your army around, so please enjoy….


When running through Codex: Dark Eldar you seem to notice a lack of something other armies generally have, and that his a hard hitting central unit, or death star unit to most of us.
Dark Eldar really don’t have much grind it out power since it isn’t their thing really. So what do you have the options of? I’ll start with probably one of the most expensive options in the books

Asdrubael Vect’s “Absurd” Squad
Vect- 240
-Dais of Destruction -200
x9 Incubi, Klaivex, demi-klaives, bloodstone, onslaught – 263
total- 703 points

I call it absurd because of the cost. Now Vet himself is one of the most expensive units in the book. Now the Dais of Destruction, if you do not know, is a Raider with AV13 all around and has 3 Dark Lances. For 200 points you basically get a Ravager with transport capacity and an excellent AV13, so it can be seen as worth it instead of buying a regular Raider or even more a Ravager. Now when it comes to kitting out Incubi it can be hard not to give full upgrades yet I do leave the” Murderous Assault” out because it seems the least useful of the bunch since most of the time you’ll wreck any unit you assault with these guys.

Now is this unit worth it? In any game smaller than an apocalypse game not really. The 3+ save you get with the Incubi makes them just as easy to kill as a Space Marine, except with T3. You also have to remember that these guys are not terminators, they are a lot easier to kill. This unit will have to get upgraded early with pain tokens to become very effective. It just costs a lot of points to shell this unit out, but it will be a lot of fun to play.

The Baron’s Pack
Baron Sathonyx- 105
Hellions x20, Helliarch, phantasm Grenade Launcher, stunclaw
Total- 460

Now before I get the whole, “Hellions are not that good” argument I must say that the Baron makes them good. I personally have a similar unit as my centerpiece unit in my army. With these Hellions you get 60 S4 attacks on the charge, not even counting the Baron’s attacks. With the Hellions alone the mathammer comes out against a standard 10 man marine squad with 30 hits and 15 wounds. So basically you will kill 5 marines alone with just the Hellions, the Baron will probably kill another 2 himself. You might lose a Hellion in swing backs until you hit and run and jump away out of combat if it is your turn next. Also you can drag away enemy weak characters with the stunclaw such as Librarians and Priests. It would be foolish to drag away Lysander and other strong characters although.

Another reason this unit is competitive is that the Baron lets you re roll failed dangerous terrain tests as well as conferring a 3+ cover save from stealth. This gives you the tactic of jumping around between area terrain and picking off enemy units until you get upgraded. When you get furious charge then you can charge stronger enemy units with S5 on that charge. This unit may not be very frontal and in your face but I can guarantee it will be annoying enough to distract your opponent which is the main purpose of your Death Star. Combat drugs are also available giving you that random power up as well.

Lelith’s “Bridal Party”
Lelith Hesperax-175
Hekatrix Bloodbrides x20, Sharnet/impaler x2, razorflails, haywire grenades, Syren, blast pistol, agonizer – 225
Total- 400 points

Now this could also be used with normal Wyches instead of the Elite Bloodbride version for more models at a cheaper cost. Also you could use your own flavorful mix of Razorflails, SN/I, and gauntlets to fit your taste I just like adding in a RF so I can get some easy wounds. Lelith herself is a death star on its own. This unit does need a Webway portal to get in effectively so I would pair Lelith with a coven of Haemonculi to get the portal. Another example of a fairly fragile unit but this one will be filled with more assault prowess. The 4+ invulnerable save in combat is what is going to save you here, you need to get into assault with this unit as soon as it appears and just ram your way through weaker units to get the Pain tokens necessary to rip apart the stronger enemy units. At 400 points a version of this combo will be very popular in many DE lists you see in tournaments and pick up games alike.

Urien’s Grotesque Pack
Urien Rakarth- 190
Grotesques x10, x10 Urien’s +1 strength ability, liquefier gun, Aberration, mindphase gauntlet- 430
Total- 620 points

Another Ridiculously expensive option but probably the only true heavy hitting unit in the book in terms of strength and toughness. With Urien in the unit he confers 2 pain tokens with his abilities and you get one automatically so you pretty much automatically at the start of the game have all 3 pain tokens. So yes your S6 (because of Uriens other ability) T5 mean machines get FNP and furious charge and are fearless. So really S7 on the charge with 40 attacks….goodbye sweetheart!

Now with Urien attached they do not get berserk rampage which does give you mixed feelings. Also with a mindphase gauntlet for every hit you put on a Indie character they have to take a leadership AND toughness test, if any is failed they suffer instant death…..muahahaha!
Now also the FNP with high toughness does make up for the 6+ save. They also have 3 wounds a piece making them resilient. 30 T5 FNP wounds makes a good bodyguard for Urien until you detach him. you will need to webway these guys for the best effect since this unit will never fit into a transport at this size. This unit will also be popular in my opinion.

Well that covers four of the many death stars you might see come at you when facing Dark Eldar if you play with either a lot of points or some foolish friends, though some are feasible. There are also many others without a Special character in the book, these are just some examples of some expensive pain you can deal out. Also without a lot of the upgrades I can’t help but put out on every above unit…..So more on this later….

-Kevinmcd28 (Balls-2-the-Waals)

This weeks WTF gripe.

Come on GW. Really?   For the most part I think that Gamesworkshop does a lot of great stuff and I try to be positive.  For example, I love the Stormraven in the leaked picture. The Dark Eldar models are gorgeous. The Blood Angels codex was well done.  I didn't even grumble when they raised the prices of some of their products by 40%.  (I bought a Corublo model for 8 bucks two years ago, how much is it now?)  Having said that, I think that this needs to be griped about.

Behold the picture.  On the right is the old GW Super Glue.  It is a 1 ounce bottle of glue that I bought for 6 bucks last year.  I thought that it was a little pricey at the time.  I think the price was hovering around 8 dollars US very recently depending on where you bought it.  I personally think that their super glue is a good product. I prefer it to their other glue called Plastic Glue. It has a strong bond, but does not melt the plastic together like the plastic glue. I liked it because while it was strong, I was able to pull arms off marines to upgrade their guns with little damage to the paint job.  

Much to my chagrin I tried to order some more GW Super Glue this fall for my gaming club here at school from the Warstore and they sent me Zap a Gap instead. I did not know why, thinking it was an oversight, until I tried to order it again from Rob Baer at Spikey Bits and he told me it was discontinued.  

Horrified that my favorite glue was gone, I then walked into A Timeless Journey, the local comic book shop in Stamford, CT where I buy my paints, to see if he had any and look what he had.  Little tiny bottles of Super Glue!  See the price tag?  Lets compare.

Old Super Glue. 1 oz bottle = $ 6.00 or 8.00 depending on where you buy it. (The Warstore, no tax.)

New Super Glue .17 oz bottle = $ 6.60 + tax.  

That is POINT ONE SEVEN by the way.  You can fit 5.8 of those bottles into one of the previous one.  That means that GW has raised the price of an ounce of their super glue to $ 40.70 with tax included.  Now THAT is a price increase.  What is that, about 700%?  Let me see... I can buy a Land Raider, or glue. Maybe the ink used to print the word THIN is made out of pure squid juice imported from Malaysia? Or is it the plastic that the tiny bottle is now packaged in that warrants the price increase?  What is the point of the plastic? Selling bottles without extra plastic was not good enough? Maybe they boiled down rare wild caught Chinese Pandas to make it?  

I can't imagine the formula of the glue in the new little bottle is any different at all from the formula in the older one, but now they are selling it for seven times the price. That would be like charging 400 dollars for a Baal Predator. So for that GW I ask, What The Frack?

Oh well. Add yet another GW product to the list of things I will never buy again. Man, it is a good time to be The Army Painter! Maybe we can start a campaign. All of us can mail our old 1 oz super glue bottles to GW when they are empty and request a refill? Or demand that they recycle the plastic for use in their new models to lower the cost.  This is just getting ridiculous.  Am I off base?

Jawaballs

Rediscovering Angels Part 2: The Librarians

Hey there everyone, Xaereth here from Delusions of Grandeur, continuing my discussion on Blood Angels, and what they can do for you.  Today I want to talk about the Librarians that Blood Angels have access to, as well as different combinations of powers, used to maximum effect.  Lots of ground to cover today...

40k Player Profile: Ted Nagel

Hey Folks, Jawaballs here!

I thought it would be interesting to do a recurring themed post about some of the various personalities I run into at all these gaming "events" I go to.  I try to hit up at least one a month, whether it is a major GT or a small tournament.  At all of these things there is always one thing that is the same. People!  If you go to enough of them, you start to see the same guys depending on where you go.  It has gotten to the point that I am happy to pack up and travel any where alone because no matter what I will have some one there to chill with.  A great example of this was my recent trip to Mechanicon.  It is just outside of Philadelphia and a good 3.5 hours from me.  The price tag excluded most of the guys in my club and Fritz was unable to cool the wife agro.  So away I went... Lobo-Jawa for the second year in a row.  But all was cool because I knew people would be there that I met the year before, or that I had met at other events.  I hung out with cool dudes the entire weekend and at no time did I feel alone.

The point of this is that the 40k tournament scene is a very small little family of guys who take time out of their separate lives to gather, play, drink and chill.  It is our privilege to be surrounded by great people and we should take advantage of it. One such dude is Ted Nagel.  I first met Ted at Mechanicon 2009.  He is a super friendly, personable and interesting dude.  But also, he is a great painter with no ego to speak of (unlike a certain Jawa :P ) and smacks face on the tables.

Ted working with the Bolter and Chainsword 

crew at Gamesday

He was there again this year and we got to speak more indepth.  Not a single negative word left his mouth the entire time.  It was refreshing to talk to him and inspiring in a way. I challenge you to try it some time. Have a conversation with some one for five minutes and not say something negative. Did you do it? Well try it for a day. Then a weekend.  Not so easy!

The guy joined the military right out of high school, married his high school girl friend to whom he is still married, left the military to take a related career which he served for quite a long time, retired from that one and has another where he is the boss and instructor.  (Intentionally vague to protect his privacy.)  He did all that and still looks like he is in his 30s.  Maybe he still is. The only reason why I think he is not is that he has teenage kids and has retired from two careers... Not the point!  The point is that in talking to him you get a sense of a truly happy guy. Granted, you could not catch him the entire weekend without a beverage in his hand... But isn't that part of why we go to these things to begin with? But better, if you do catch him without one, it is mere seconds before he is offering you one too and running up to the bar, or coming up to you and pushing one into your hands.  Social skills 101 guys.  He is the professor.

Ted is a Space Wolf player with a beautiful, and simply painted army.  He does not spend hours on blending, but instead has a method of painting that is so simple it is hard. And his stuff looks fantastic!

Ted's Space Wolves

Ted's Friday Night awards.

He knows his stuff looks good, but at the same time, claims to not be half the painter I am. Whatever man! First of all, I am just a hack myself who has figured out how to paint red.  I appreciate the compliment, but right back at you.  I learned a lot about painting by just looking at his wolves.  You need to see the army close up to know what I am talking about.  Great stuff.

Oh and did I mention that he plays wolves?  What is in his list you ask?  Certainly not the flavor of the month stuff you see most other wolf players fielding.  When asked why he has no rune priest he says and I quote "I know my army would be stronger with one, but psychic powers are for pussies."  With a joking smile on his face of course.  :)  He avoids playing the min/max list as a point of integrity and prefers to go to tournaments with a powerful, but personalized list made to his liking.  And he still beats face. He did not win Mechanicon, but he did well.  I think top 5? It certainly did not hurt him that he must have scored maximum sportsman and a very high painting score.  

That brings me to him as a player. Frankly, I think you could give him any list, without psykers of course, and he could do well. I played him in a pick up game last year and it was a knock down, drag out slug fest.  The guy knows how to beat face and how to punish you for your mistakes.  Quietly, but most definitely, one of the best players I have ever faced.  

Ted chews the fat with a couple other players 

late night on Friday at Mechanicon. 

Ok, time to end this manlove fest before Ted kicks my ass.  If he knew I was posting this up he would probably give me the "head or gutt" line from The Last Boyscout. It would depend on how many Yingling's he has had. But he is a shining example of the complete 40k player. 40k is a social game. Conventions and tournaments are social events. And Ted takes advantage of the opportunity to be social, shaking hands and buying beers.  He is a good player, painter and sportsman. He wins awards with a smile on his face and you are happy to see him do it. But more importantly than any of that, the guy has lived a charmed life, and simply talking to him is enough to feel a little charmed yourself.  He is a genuine and good natured guy. What more in life can you ask for?  I can't think of much myself.

Jawaballs

Let's Do This Thing . . .

Greetings and salutations all! This is Michael, self-proclaimed Captain of the 8th. Jawaballs, in his infinite wisdom, has invited me on as a new contributor for all things Blood Angels.

I began my GW habit back in '03 when my nerd-loving wife bought me some Lord of the Rings models for Christmas. And bless her soul, she even built me a gaming board to boot. If your significant other will go to "Roy's Train World" for you then it has to be true love right? Suffice it to say, I was immediately hooked. I loved the modeling, the painting, and the strategy involved in the game.

Grad school then took me away from home, and the brothers I played plastic toy soldiers with. No one played LotR at the game store so I jumped into 40k. It was the start of 5th ed, and a whole new world to me.


I found an old Blood Angels standard bearer model for 6 bucks at the game store. (here he is painted, and per my usual, unbased)



Another $6 Tycho model soon followed. (this model went into a painting competition, and I got second place, for the record, I was jipped)




And my first army was chosen. The internet inevitably brought me here when I started looking for advice for 40k and Blood Angels specifically. I've been hanging out here ever since. But Blood Angels didn't stay my only army for long. The siren song of the Tau railgun was too much, and made me start a small army for them. It's only about 1500 points soaking wet, and only comes out to play on occasion. I blame Old Shatterhands and his blog for that detour from the Imperium.

I'd consider myself the average 40k player/hobbyist. I like to do it all, but don't do any of it spectacularly well. I love to paint and have won a few local painting competitions, the result of being a little fish in an even littler pond. As a pat on the back I did place fourth in the painting competition Jawaballs put on about a year ago, but I'm no Golden Daemon winner. I like to convert models, but all I do is simple swaps with maybe a little greenstuff. I love the mental exercise of list building and the thrill of competition, but I have only played in one tournament. I enjoy making tough lists and going toe to toe with a like minded person, but real life keeps seizing the initiative and preventing me from playing in tournaments.

I will give painting and modeling advice, for what it is worth. We'll discuss list building and army evolution, along with tactics or deployment strategies. We can take this journey together, improving our painting, modeling, and hopefully our game.

It's going to be a fun ride!

Michael, Captain of the 8th and newest game nerd on the block.

As you can see folks, I put a lot of thought into finding guys who could keep in line with my blog and offer up some great stuff. When I put out the call for contributers, I literally got dozens of guys who submitted stuff. Picking just a few was tough. But I think that Michael is a great example of the Average guy doing above average work.  I think more than any thing else, that is what my blog and videos are about and you all can relate. Can't wait to see more.


Jawaballs

Rediscovering Angels Part 1: What they do best

Hiya folks!  Xaereth here again from Delusions of Grandeur.  Today I'm going to talk about what Blood Angels as an army offer that other armies don't do as well.  It's basically a discussion on points efficiency in a really general sense.  Don't worry, later posts will be much more specific, as I move into analysis on different units.

Dark Eldar Overview

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been summoned by the Jawa master himself to ignore my mostly procrastinated term paper and focus solely on Warhammer 40k. I do not pretend to have many years of experience or a vast amount of wins under my belt. However, I do believe that I can concisely explain my impressions on how certain units work in 40k and how overall effective they will be.

Many of you will disagree which is one of the main reasons I’m doing this, to stimulate your mind with ideas as well as for your responses to stimulate mine. So where do I begin? There seems to be many conflicting opinions about the Dark Eldar codex. I guess I’ll begin with a brief rating system of what the Dark elder codex has to offer in certain aspects of the game. It will be a simple 1-10 rating system with 10 being the most proficient in an area and 1 being the least. Here it is:

Shooting (anti tank): 6

While not guard, or space marine levels, they are able to adequately get by. The number of dark lances that you can take is still impressive, although more reliable anti-tank choices are few in number and shorter ranged. As before, the smaller and more elite your opponent’s army is, the more effective your shooting will be.

Shooting (anti infantry): 10

In the whole codex, nowhere is it more apparent that the dark elder have impressive anti-infantry firepower than in the Kalibite Trueborn and the Venom transport entries. Trueborn if loaded up with max shardcarbines and splinter cannons will unleash 36 poisoned shots if not moving or 32 when moving. Venoms, loaded up with a splinter cannon upgrade and nightshields come out to have a minute cost of 75 points and are still able to move 12 inches and fire 12 poisoned shots at a 36 inch range. In combination with other units in this book, dark eldar will melt their way through infantry.

Assault: 9

Dark eldar are absolutely deadly in the assault. Wyches are not nearly as beastly in the assault as the last codex however they have been replaced by improved hellions, beast units, wracks, and cost reduced incubi. There are a great deal of special characters that are also deadly. The one thing that all of these units lack (with the exception of beasts) is durability. While this problem can be slightly reduced with the proper use of pain tokens, it still becomes a problem when facing assault oriented armies such as orks and blood angels. These units have a lot of synergy. The best example is that of wyches and incubi. Lets say you are playing marines and you have an incubi squad and a wyche squad. Those incubi want to be going after normal power armor units such as tactical marines, sternguard, and assault marines. Those wyches want to respond to any assault from terminators or assault terminators due to the wyches invulnerable save. This army will be deadly in close combat as long as you assault on your own terms.

Flexibility: 4

Each squad has a particular purpose. Use them the right way and you will win. Use them the wrong way and you won’t. While you can dilute the effectiveness of a unit by giving them mixed weapon choices (trueborn with shard carbines and blasters) these choices will be point inefficient due to the likelihood that these units may only fire once.

Durability: 5

There is no doubt about it, a mech dark eldar list is really fragile. Av 10 open-topped will not last long against anyone. This would be slightly nullified if dark eldar could control their reserves at all, then they’d be able to reserve everything and not have to risk coming in piece-meal. Their real durability lies in the fact that, with the right list, you can have feel no pain on all of your infantry units. Some units are very durable, such as beast units. These units can take a pounding and still demolish in the assault.

Overall:

I believe that Dark Eldar will be a very interesting army to play. In this day and age where crazy rocket-vomiting, counter-charging, tin-can hiding, power armored Space Yetis are the normal occurrence on the battlefield, Dark Eldar seem very refreshing. They also seem that they will be relatively competitive in most aspects of the game.

Well that’s it! Leave your comments and criticisms as normal. Especially give me feedback on how I could be better. Next time I will be moving onto unit reviews, so leave your opinion one which one I should cover first. I think it’s time to get started on my term paper. Good night and good luck.

-OldChiZOne

Woah, OldChiZOne opens up on my blog with guns blazing and offers up some nice gritty grizzle to be grized. Welcome him in as I invited him to help make you guys think a bit rather than just absorb blog info while you stare blankly at your monitor counting the minutes until quitting time.  Looking forward to seeing where this one goes!  Be looking for a couple more guest writers soon, including every one's favorite blogger whore Brent!  


Jawaballs

Space Hulk commissions?

Forgive the crappy picture. Methinks it is time to upgrade my pocket cam.  Here is a Space Hulk terminator that I am painting up for my own personal army. I hate my T-hammer termy and want to upgrade the model.  This guy has been sitting primed on my shelf for six months and I decided it was time to make it happen.  The shield needs more work, and I think I am going to push the recessed areas back further with more red gore and I will add some of my yellow lightning to the hammer.  

The other reason why I am showing this is that I have 3 factory sealed Space Hulk sets sitting in my closet waiting to be painted.  I know I missed the big wave of guys scrambling to scoop up Space Hulk sets, but if you are looking for a commissioned set, I'm open to negotiations.  Food for thought!

Jawaballs

And so it begins...

Hey there folks, what's up!  My (internets) name is Xaereth, and it appears that I'll be posting here from time to time.  Figured I'd introduce myself in this post, and leave the 'real' content for later.

BOLS article covering my Mechanicon reprinted here.

For those of you who do not read Bell of Lost Souls, I am copying the Mechanicon Review I posted up last week here. Enjoy!  You can find the original article with the comments HERE on BOLS.

Hey Folks, Jawaballs here!

Mechanicon was this past weekend. It is one of the biggest East coast tournaments, however tournament organizer Tony Spino and the boys take a slightly different approach to running it. Lets take a look.

Reader submitted pictures. Nice stuff!

I'm always happy to give back to the community and show off some great work from the readers. This time Steven Field submitted these pictures of some Blood Angels Sergeants he painted in part using my painting advice.  Nice job man!

If you would like to have your work featured on my blog feel free to send in some nice pictures!  

Jawaballs

As requested, my Mechanicon GT winning army list!

Hey folks. I did a writeup on BOLS about my recent win at The Mechanicon GT and I have gotten emails asking for a detailed army list, so here you go!

Librarian: Preferred Enemy and STR 10
Elite Chaplain: Melta Pistol
Elite Sang Priest: Terminator Armor

RAS 1:
Razor back
Las/Plas
PW

RAS 2:
Razor back
Las/plas
PW
Melta Gun

Ras 3:
Razorback
Las/Plas
PW

Ras 4:
Razorback
Heavy Flamer
PW
Meltagun

Terminator squad
4x lightning claws
1x hammer/ss

Land Raider Crusader dedicated transport
extra armor
multi melta
(chap, lib and priest hitch a ride)
3x auto cannon/las can sponson predators

There it is!  This is a shooty, defensive BA list.  What I mean is that I don't have the overpowering assault strength to cram my land raider down my opponent's throat.  I am better served keeping it back, using it to give cover or block LOS to my tanks, and shooting.  The idea is to use my las and auto cannons to get the jump on my opponent on Kill Points early, thus forcing him to come to me. Once he gets close I assault with my termies and rapid fire plasma with my razors.  This strategy worked well at Mechanicon.  When my termies do assault, they usually wipe out whatever they hit. So keeping them unexposed to the counter assault is key.

When this army does need to assault though, they can be overwhelming.  With some lucky rolls on the red thirst, or if I am able to use my RAS in tandem with my priest, they can be truly frightening.  But I am definitely not optimized for assault.  My RAS squads really cant survive against any but the weakest of squads.  Any truly dedicated assault squad will take them down.  So they stay in their razors. But having two melta guns is a boon. I run the flamer back up behind my raider if needed, then it can 12" move from behind, disembark and shoot the melta for an extra shot at cracking a transport giving the termies a squad to assault.  Ideally I disembark them within 6" of the priest so they have a chance to survive the following shooting turn.  The question, how do I adapt? What do I change? I was on the verge of scrapping this list completely, but then I up and win a GT.  What to do???

Jawaballs

Painting Dark Eldar: Jawaballs first attempt at a warrior!

Hey folks, so here is my first attempt at painting a Dark Eldar model.  I was playing around with color schemes and trying to decide on which I would go with first, and settled on a green.  I was going to try purple, but I imagine there will be a lot of failed attempts at it, so I went with something I have a little more experience with first.  I used the same technique of blending I have been using on my Blood Angels. 

I started by spraying him black.  Then I faded Catachan Green from the edges towards the recessed areas

Then I used a catachan green shaded with black, fading from the recesses towards the edges, meeting the first fade in the middle. This creates a blend, which I then carry out to the edge. I then reapply the catachan green from the edge, then back and forth.  

Then I do a fade from the edge using Snot Green, and another using Goblin green.  Then I used Valejo Livery green as an extreme highlight.  That covers the armor plates.

For the eyes I used Iyanden Darksun then Valejo Lemon Yellow.  I then highlighted them with white. I used the lemon yellow and a bit of white on the visor areas that edge around the eyes to create a glowing effect.  I repeated this same technique down the insides of the rifle.  I also added a bit of orange on the inside of the rifle too.  Thats about it!

I left the boots and pec armor black, highlighted with catachan and snot green.  

What do you think? Have I found my Dark Eldar recipe on the first try?  It certainly takes a while to paint these guys.  But unlike my Blood Angels, where I paint an entirely new army every few months, I don't plan on painting all that many Dark Eldar. I will do 40 warriors to create my base, along with 20 wichs and 10 incubi.  I will also do up 6 Raiders and 3 Ravagers.  I will finally do some Mandrakes and other support forces, as well as 10 Harlies.  Then Im done!  

EDIT: I forgot to say that I went back into the recessed areas with Badab Black wash to darken them up.

Feel free to leave constructive criticism.  By the way, that means that in addition to pointing out things that could be improved, you suggest how you would do it... :)  Lets get this rolling as a teaching post for every one!  Feel free to send in pics of your well done models, I will post them up.

Jawaballs

Let the Dark Eldar scheming begin!

Hey folks, Jawaballs here!

Ok, I've had the DE codex for a few days and yes I am making an army.  I love the new models and cant wait to get painting.  I think that the DE are going to be a painters army.  The models are simply way too detailed for guys to half heartedly have a stab at, and with the current evolution of the tournament scene, painting/army points are becoming much more important.

But being a DE noobie, I have no idea where to begin.  Most of the wargear names may as well be written in Italian. It is a journey of complete exploration for me, much like when I first opened up Codex: Space Marines.  Again, where to begin...

Well the starting point is easy for me. I will begin with what I love. And I love Harlequins.  In a painter's army, Harlequins are the top of the top.  I have a full squad of them sitting on my shelf that have been waiting 3 years for a reason to be painted.  I can't wait to finally get to paint all those different colors and play some true death dealing, dancing clowns.

What else?  At first glance I like the Warriors, Mandrakes and Incubi.  I dislike the Wychs.  Why and why?  I well there is a lot more that I like than dislike so I will get the dislike out of the way first. I hate top-knots.  I don't like 9 of the 10 heads in the Wych box set and won't use them.  That goes for all of the cornrows, and Latrell Spreewell braids too.  (hellions) If any one wants to trade, I am offering any DE top-knot or cornrow head for helmeted Dark Elf or Dark Eldar heads.

First of all, put on a damn helmet. You are at war!  The last thing you need is a stupid shard of ceremite splitting open your silly top-knot head you dopes.  If your hair gets in the way when you fight... shave it off. Don't pull it all up into a convenient pumpkin stem that your opponents can grasp onto to wield you like a cricket bat. Or braid it into rows that your opponent can palm like the ridges of a Basketball and dunk you through the hatch of a burned out tank.  Some of the other wychs have ridiculous anime looking cutsie pig tails and what not, all held in place by bones.  Blah.  I want all of my troops wearing malicious and evil looking visored helms.

Enough of that, you get the point.  My models will all be wearing helms.  Except the Mandrakes of course. I think those dudes look sorta cool like Emo Eddy Vedder from the Jeremy Video.  Every thing else about the Mandrakes is also cool. Their ink, their poses, their weapons... They look silent, brooding and deadly. Like the fart I surprised my wife with last night.

The Incubi look awesome. Enough said. I want a squad of 10 malignant goatboy looking eldar.  I love the visored masks.  Too cool.

The Warriors look exactlly how they should. Like evil, nasty guardians.

That gets me started!  Here is my first 2k list:

Archon
Lelith (hate her topknot but she is bad ass in combat)

Incubi x10 with Raider
Mandrake x10 with Raider
Harlies x10 with kiss', shadowseer and troupe master

 4 squads of Warriors x10 with upgrades in raiders
1 squadd of wychs x10 in raider

Competitive? Probably not. I have no idea what is.  But this is a great core for me to get started with, and paint.  7 raiders, 70 dark eldar, 10 harlies and a couple characters, all painted up to jawaquality is nothing to scoff at.  But it will give me everything I need to run just about any army I want as I figure things out.

Future lists will include a venom or two converted out of Vypers.  The fighter skimmers once they release models, an archon mutant squad just for the painting fun, and jetbikes and hellions cause they are pretty cool too.  The question here is, what is competitive?  If you are an experienced, competitive DE player and already drooling at the possibilities I am more than interested in having you write some articles for my blog.  Send me an email, jawaballs at hotmail, and lets get your point of view! Teach me!

More to come..

Jawaballs

Black Templars Commission.

I don't get very many commissions, mostly because I charge quite a bit of money. It's not that I'm all that great a painter, I can think of a dozen guys off the top of my head who are better than me and it is not that I am fast, because I am slow as molasses.  I charge a lot for two reasons. One, it takes me a lot of time to do them and time is one thing I have very little of.  My time is worth a lot of money to me. And two, every commission I do is done to a standard that I myself would be proud to put on the table.  Every model gets tender Jawalove and a piece of me, sometimes literally, goes into each unit I paint.  I only do one quality level, high. There are plenty of guys out there who do economy level work for the customer on a budget. Black Matt, Goatboy and Blue Table Painting to name three. They are all great and I have sent business to them all.  But every once in a while I get a guy who wants to splurge and asks me to do a job that I want to do. (I don't accept just any job.)

So here is my newest commission!  We will call him Frank. Frank wants a Black Templar army. He asked me to design him a competitive list, build it and paint it.  He asked me to make them stand out, be unique and look great.  I quoted him my standard high prices including some options and he didn't bat an eyelash! My kind of man.  :)

I will be painting:
3 speeders
10 termies
15 crusader marines
3 razorbacks
1 Land Raider Crusader
1 emps champ
1 marshal

He sent me some demon bits to add to the bases of some of the models, gave me some guidelines for what he wanted, then opened up the rest to my creative whim.

I decided to start with the terminators and painted up a test model to serve as the basis for the rest of the army.  This is still a work in progress but very close to finished.

I had forgotten how deceptively hard templars are to paint.  Im using the tried and true Codex-Fortress grey highlights. But man, they are unforgiving. The slightest lapse in concentration and boom a botched line. The black contrast makes every imperfection glaringly obvious.  I need to go back into this guy and clean up his edges.  I went with red helmets and shoulder pads, highlighted up to orange.  I am using the same dark base I use for my Blood Angels but am bringing the highlight up to a Fiery Orange, then toned down with Baal Red.  The bases of these models are my line of Jawabases called Industrial Ruin.  I'm not sold on how I painted it though, I'm open to suggestion here guys.  The claws are just blue for now. I had to balance out the bright orange highlights.

Here is a pic of 5 termies in progress.

Here are some more pics.

So there you go!  I will post more pics as I get more progress.  I will also see if he wants me to paint him a banner like this one.

More to come...

Jawaballs

The Mechanicon! This weekend.

The Death Company was represented.

My "Death From Above: Stomp Stomp" list got me 3rd at last years

Mechanicon. I came a 3+ armor save away from winning

the whole thing! I also got 2nd at The Conflict a couple months later

with those Venerable Furioso Dreads.  

Imagine all of these raiders and Dark Eldar troops in flame 

and you will have a more accurate picture of what is going on here.

Here is is! This weekend is the second year of The Mechanicon!  Last year Tony and the boys ran an outstanding tournament and this year promises to be more of the same and better. But the Mechanicon is not just a tournament. Of all the gaming events I have been to, this is the most complete.  Mechanicon has a little bit of everything. You can peruse the website for the details, but throughout the tournament there will be combat squad tournaments, blood bowl tournaments, special issue games, and a charity auction.  While the 40k GT is the big draw, you are paying for much much more.  Last year, I was there alone because Fritz caught the flu and had to bail, but I was able to hang with cool dudes the entire time. The Mechanicon boys made me feel right at home, and I met some guys in the open gaming rooms that I still speak to now where ever I go. Necron Brad and Ted, who took best army with his gorgeous space wolves top the list.  

They open up the huge gaming room for all night games on Friday, and there is a bar in there. How cool is that?  Last year Ted Nagle and I were buying each other drinks all night and the challenge is to be the last man to buy a drink. It was not long before I lost track resulting in a very rough morning for me. 

So what is my list? That is a closely guarded secret and if I told you I would have to kill Brother Captain James. Actually my list is just an 1850 version of my 2k Nova list. I didn't have time to do yet another complete army.  However, this will probably be the last time I play a tournament with the Blood Angels in my current form.  Big changes for my list are in the works and I hope to drop that hammer at the next tournament. Maybe The Conflict!   I have been bouncing around all of the feed back people have been  sending my way, and trying to put together a truly dreadful list. 

Any way, I hope to see some of you at The Mechanicon. There may be still time to register and make the trip. I assure you, you will enjoy the weekend.  

Jawaballs

Charge!

+++ Transmission Begins +++
Greetings, Battle Brothers. As you have read recently, JB is moving away from small Assault squads in lascannon Razorbacks in response to what he feels was a knee-jerk reaction to the cool new toys in the BA Codex. While I don't agree, I see his point. I also agree that it is probably time to go to infantry-based lists due to the massed Dark Lance-spam we are already seeing from DE players. I think people will get back into their rolling boxes eventually, but in the meantime, what sort of infantry-based lists seem useful from our Codex?
I was considering a few lists, and of course they're just theory at the moment. They'll be tested at some point (likely a 2K tournament in November), but in the meantime they are just Theoryhammering.

The core of what I wanted to run were full-sized Assault squads, with a melta and a power fist each. Each squad would also have a jump-packing Sanguinary Priest attached. Of course there's the option to add in a second melta, but I didn't want to jigger the list's points so much. In either 1850 or 2000 points I can run 4 or 5 of these units with plenty of points left over.

So, for 1850 points, I can run:
5 x Assault Squads
a Whirlwind with a storm bolter
2 x jump-packer Librarians
or take one Assault squad away and add:
2 x Baal Predators with heavy bolter sponsons and a storm bolter

In 2000 points, a list could be:
5 Assault squads
a Whirlwind with a storm bolter
Dante
a Librarian Dreadnought (or a jump-packer Librarian with 2 powers a turn)
This would be mostly against DE to have some vague chance to fight at the same time in close combat.

I could drop Dante for a las-las Predator and an autocannon-las Predator, both with extra armor. Again an Assault squad could go in favor of 2 dakka-Baals.

Why the Whirlwind? It will be good for killing massed DEs, and it can ignore cover saves. I realize most people don't like it, but I have always had good success with them pre-new Codex. They also force the enemy to kill them... while they're not the most effective weapon system, often players just have to kill them for some reason, much like they had to always kill my PDF-Codex Death Company even when there were only 2-3 of them in front of a Furioso. Of course, you may find a better use for 100 points. (2 attack bikes with multi-meltas?)

I appreciate the most recent list JB has put up on BoLS with the Vanguard squads' ability to assault after Deepstriking, but I am still unfortunately stuck on trying to put as many scoring units and models on the table. That is probably a big weakness, but I have no illusions about being a great general.

So, you all did a great job with the Wolves' list I was playing with (and I'll test a revised one very soon), so let's discuss these.

+++ Tranmission Ends +++

Ghost Hunters... Corporate sell outs!

A few years ago on Halloween, I think it was 2006, I was sitting at home and came across a show called Ghost Hunters. I had heard of the show before but never watched it. That Halloween they were doing a live ghost investigation though.  I got sucked in.  Not so much because I believe in ghosts but more because the show just appealed to me. I think it was the huge amounts of just quiet time. A couple of guys hanging out in a deathly quiet , dark building, asking ghosts questions, chasing shadows.  There was a little bit of comedy relief with the younger guys busting on each other.  I ended up watching this live broadcast for a good 4 or 5 hours, then began watching the series on a weekly basis.  Great stuff.  It was simple and mindless entertainment. But of course corporate greed had to set in.

Not long after Sci-Fi became Syfy.  Some CEO decided it was time to mix things up.  Enter the in-programing commercials. Sci-fi started airing WWE. (I suppose it is not a far stretch from science fiction.)  But the Ghost Hunters were still there doing their thing...  Two years ago I looked forward to being able to watch the Halloween live broadcast again.  But this time it was different. There was actually production being attempted.  It had become commercial.  I did not really mind though... until I noticed the "Guest host" some silly wrestler from WWE. This tool box ruined the show.  Making rude comments to the female staff... talking through the quiet moments... spoiling every thing that appealed to me about the show.  But I didn't tune out until one staged conversation between one of the regular cast members and the wrestler happened. The cast member was asking leading questions to get the wrestler to talk about some match coming up. It just annoyed me. I stopped watching.

Last night I turned it on again, now out of a sense of nostalgia more than any thing else.  Oh what a waste.  Instead of watching the opening sequence of Dawn of the Dead on AMC I got treated to a 10 minute in programing ad for a car company.  The cast members were driving towards the destination in a couple of SUVs, and pointing out all the great features... "now I will use the in dash GPS to find our destination." "Now I will use the built in phone feature to call Steve."  "Oh and look, while we are driving to the investigation, we can watch DVDs from last years show on the..." The logo for the car prominently adorning every possible surface. Channel changed.  Enough.  But wait, I wanted to give it another chance! During a commercial of Dawn of the Dead I switched back to Syfy... whats on screen? A huge splash animation of the WWE and some corn rowed wrestler talking about a match... For the love of god.

For the record, Sci-Fi spawned some of my favorite programing of all time.  Taken, Battlestar Galactica, and Eureka to name a few... but give me a break!  It's not like Ghost Hunters is a shining example of ground breaking programing, but the execs need to figure out where to draw a line... some where... For every hour long episode, we see 35-40 minutes of program and 20-25 minutes of commercials.  Now we have to suffer through commercials while we are actually watching the program? It's bad enough sports have sold out. Every team plays in a corporate stadium. Every half time show is brought to you by some credit card company. You can't watch a baseball game without a third of the screen being taken up by ads.  Now we have to suffer through it during our TV shows. Heroes, the new Hawaii Five-O, and Ghost Hunters to name a few are all guilty.

I don't know if there is a cure. Corporations will continue to plague our programs with ads and we will continue to watch. And please don't say that we get to watch free stuff.  I pay a lot of money for TV and feel that we have the right to demand better. Can't we? But will we still watch? I can say that if enough people change the channel, and let them know that you did, maybe we can make a change. So email them!  Here is the email address. feedback@syfy.com  


Give them a piece of your mind!  I will.


Jawaballs


EDIT:  I want to add to this that the Sci-fi needs to make money. They need to have ads during programing. It is the ad money that allows them to make the shows. I don't begrudge them from making profit. I make some money, a very small amount of money, off ads myself. I can even deal with product placement. But that does not mean that they have to gutt punch us with the cast advertising products during the show.  Know what I mean?