Make sure you read to the bottom for discussion of my Nova list.
Time for another post! This picture shows a scratch built model for the Heroes of Armageddon project by Chris Borer. You can read more about it on Dave Taylor's blog. Which if you don't check every day, you should. He is just outstanding. I have tried something like this, and failed miserably. Chris is a true artist.
How bout a shot of some of the Heroes of the Blood Angels army?
I think my models hold their own next to Dante in their own little ways. :)
What is up next for me? Well more terminators I say! I have to finish up three lingering commissions. Number one is a small one for a client in Canada. He asked for a squad of terminators, 2 priests, a chaplain using Lemartes model, and a dread. Now that I am done painting the Heroes project, I can focus on getting these done.
This picture of the full sized Heroes of Armageddon banner I am doing does not show any more detail than the last. The wall I am up against here is a pretty big one. Normally I have a huge table in my classroom upon which I can lay my banners and paint them. But during the summer, I have to work at home. And alas, I don't have a huge table. I am off to home depot today to get a big piece of plywood to mount the banner to. Then I will be able to put it in the back room when not being worked on, and bring it out and lay it on the coffee table to work on.
Also at home depot I am going to buy some flood lights and Ott light bulbs that I can use to finally finish taking pictures of the Heroes models. Tim's contribution is on it's way, and every thing else has been turned in including a breath taking DC Dread by Black Matt, Cho's dread, storm raven and assault squad and Joe's death company. Joe sent me his DC Tycho, and John and Mike mailed me their Baal Pred, DC Raven and DC Dread as well. Hopefully by tomorrow I will have all the models photographed, and waiting placement in their new Battlefoam transport when that arrives.
After all that is done, I have another lingering commission. I have had a Black Templars commission sitting on my desk since September. The client has been slowly paying it off and as such, I have been slowly working on it. He is finally ready to finish paying, so I am gearing up the jawa machine to get it done. This commission consists of a Marshal, Champ, 15 crusader marines, 3 razorbacks, 3 speeders and 10 terminators.
And finally I can work on my own stuff. I played in a tournament over the weekend with a new list. I played Mephiston, 4 ten man assault squads, 3 ac/lc preds, and 3 baal preds, two with flamestorm and one with tlac and heavy bolters. I had a big win vs tau, and a slug fest vs BFS member Jeff O who plays a hard as nails Blood Angels list. I held my own in that game but lost in the end. It could have gone either way. But in my third game I encountered the problem I feared. This list was fairly strong, but had a few weaknesses. One would be lots of fast moving transports in an objective game. I knew if I faced Dark Eldar in Dawn of War deployment I was sunk. Add in objectives and forget it. Vect's ability to seize the initiative on a 4+ is huge, deployment keeping my guns off the table first turn sucks, and not being able to see any thing is the worst. Well, that is what I faced in round three. I played this opponent in a previous tournament and got the drop on him, and blew him off the table. He responded in kind. From the start there was little I could do. And he cleaned my clock.
I can say that even against all of the incredible DE fire power, my boys endured after deep striking. He had to assault them to take them down. A squad of 10 marines with a priest actually almost beat a full squad of wyches and a full squad of hellions in the assault. In fact, they had it won. The hellions actually lost combat on a turn and ran off the table, but the wyches stayed and kept the marines tied up. This allowed Vect to finish them off. Vect and his Incubi hurt bad too. They should not be assaulted. :) I played that game as a test of the survivability of deep striking marines in the face of massive shots. With a less assault oriented army like GK or Guard I think they will do better. The dark eldar, while not super strong in the assault, had the fast hitting numbers to overwhelm me. Guard and GK without halbreds wont have that and again, those are the armies I need to worry about the most at Nova.
So any way, I have decided that 40 assault marines will make up the bulk of my army. I started assembling them last night. I am using Sanguinary guard bodies and jump packs with Death Company heads and arms to finish them off. I really need a bulk of well painted assault marines for my personal army any way, since all of mine were painted 3 years ago by a noobie Jawaballs and they show their age.
What will I use to fill out my list? Well, I have realized that there is little I will be able to do against GK at Nova. A GK player with the standard list walked all over the tournament on Saturday. Indeed it is true that Land Raiders are dead again. Their brief return due to the ebb and flow of melta power was fun, but now putting one on the table vs GKs is just a waste of points. So too are small units. Five man razor back squads are just as dead vs GKs as Land Raiders. Hence my four full assault squads. I'm still digging Mephiston though. Simply because I like my conversion, and he is fun to play. But sadly, I simply don't feel that Blood Angels can field any thing to counter the GK threat. By doubling the amount of hard hitting shots that even the shootiest of armies could produce, GKs have overcome the 5th edition cover save equalizer, effectively breaking the game. I don't think even the best Blood Angels players could compete against a competent player with a GK list. I'm certainly going to try, and will do the 9th legion proud, but I am going to the Nova with realistic expectations. By the way I am still maintaining that at least half of sixteen armies in the top bracket will be GKs, and am calling a full third of the armies in the invitational as GKs, with them winning both.
I am hoping to go 3-1 on day one at the Nova, setting me up for another shot at Renaissance man. Last year I lost by .01 points. Essentially the one point one of the judges docked me in paint scoring because my terminators were not on the same resin bases as the rest of my army. (I was too lazy to rebase them the week before Nova.) I think if I go 3-1 again I can have a chance at taking it. Of course I have to finish my 40 marines, and that leads me to another question. What else do I play? Since I am going for a competitive list, that looks good, I think I come back to the list I played on Saturday. I already have my three well painted predator tanks. Do I paint three new Baal Preds and jazz them up with some hand painting and go for it? How about going with my termies in their land raider? The point is that if I accept the fact that I know I won't win vs GKs, but play my list that I know does well vs every thing else, can I go 3-1 and swipe Renaissance?
If I go by that strategy, here is what I am planning.
Mephiston
4x ten man assault squads
all have PWs
2 have two melta
2 have two flamer
3 priests.
2 with jp and pw
1 bare
terminators in raider
1x hammer
4x claws
extra armor
multi melta
elite chaplain
In the month I have I can make this army look good enough to go for Renaissance, and it can win 3 games giving me a shot. What will I do vs GKs with the raider? Deep strike. Let it hit the ground and pop smoke.They are going to have to kill it, then deal with fearless, feel no pain termies. I Start Mephiston as far up as I can behind LoS blocking terrain, and deep strike the rest. I probably won't beat the knights, but I know I will put the fear of Sanguinius in them! :) With a little luck of the draw, the right opponents, and friendly scatter dice, I have a chance. That lines me up for the next day. With most of the auto win GK armies in the top bracket, I will hopefully have a shot at winning whatever bracket I fall into. Either the 3-1 or 2-2. Hopefully calamity does not befall me and leave me in the 1-3 or worse! (I am still trying to get last years 1-3 finish at The Battle for Salvation out of my mind.)
More to come!
Jawaballs
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