Pre Heresy World Eaters full size banner!

Here is the first draft of a new banner commission. Pre Heresy World Eaters!

He wanted the basic World Eaters logo, the chaos star pointed circle with the jaws eating the world, with maybe some chain axes crossed in the back. 8th company.  But he was not sure and left it up to me!  I don't know much about preheresy stuff, but I don't know if the World Eaters adopted the pointy chaos star stuff until after the heresy.

So while the pointy "Gothic" design around the circle enclosing the world may be accurate, for 31st mil Space Marines, I just don't know.  So I decided to go with a more animalistic jaw, using a sharks jaw bone as a prompt.  The Chainaxes need improvement, but I just put them in for place holders, and I need to organize the layout a bit better.

The banner itself is light blue. The field around the logo is going to be black, on the blue banner, with white trim between.  The standard bone colored Jawa Scroll and decorations on the tabs on the bottom.  Is this looking too Space Sharky?  Should I go more with the pointy circle design?

Thoughts?

Coming soon:

Redemption of the Fallen Charity project
Full sized Blood Angels, Lamenters, Black Templars and Custom banners
Eldar Ulthwe
Lamenters back on track

Holy!

It might be a good summer.

If any thing might bring me out of my 40k malaise, this will. My Ulthwe will finally come off that very back burner!

Dammit GW you sucked be back in...

More to come

Jawaballs

Unbeatable list in assault?

I think I encountered it! The Dark Eldar/Eldar combo of doom.

Image borrowed from HERE

 I found myself against Sean Nayden this weekend at a tournament and knew I was doomed.

I know he packs one of the nastiest assault lists I have ever seen, and knew it could only get worse with allies. My first words to him were: "Let me guess, you added Eldrad and jet bike troops" Yup.

 Lets start with his list:

Dark Eldar mother list:
Baron
Vect

15 Wyches- Haywires, hekatix, PGL, Venom Blade
15 Wyches- Hawyires, hekatix, PGL, Venomblade

20 Warriors- 2 splinter cannons, sybarite

5 Beast Masters- 5 Kymerra, 8 Razorwings

3 Reavers- Heatlance
3 Reavers- Heatlance

3 Trueborn- 2 splinter cannons
3 Trueborn- 2 splinter cannons
3 Trueborn- 2 splinter cannons

Eldar Allies:
Eldrad
3 Guardian Jetbikes- Shuriken cannon
3 Guaridan Jetbikes- Shuriken cannon

Aegis Defense Line- Quad Gun

First of all. This is not a gripe, it is a congrats to Sean for fielding an uber list.

I am not a Dark Eldar player so I don't know all of the ins and outs of this list. I only know it from my side of the table. And it is nasty.

First, the list does have some possible achiles heels. In order for it to be optimal effective, Eldrad has to roll Invisibility.  But he has four chances to do so. So Sean has to be VERY unlucky to not get it.

Invisibility essentially gives his army a 2+ cover save to shooting.

We figured out that it would take 65+ bolter shots just to kill a single Razorwing, which costs 15 points a model.

The other weakness is STR 6 shooting, preferably templates, which preferably ignore cover, like Heldrakes I believe. A few of those could probably ruin his day.

In the assault, STR 6 hits hurt him as well. Mephiston vs his beasts for example. However, Sean is very good at not letting you do that.

Why STR 6?

Well that will instant kill his beasts. Otherwise they have five wounds a piece and absorb hits like a Detroit Lions quarterback.

Case in point:

I assaulted his beast unit with two 10 man assault squads, 3 priests, a librarian, five terminators (4 LC 1 TH) and Mephiston.  While it took him a couple turns to take me out due to Feel No Pain and 2+ saves, I believe I managed to kill about a dozen bases of his.  Mostly in the second wave as I focused my hits against his Wyches and their lowly 4+ invulnerable and the warriors.

It only lasted that long because Vect did not get into it until late.

Sorry I don't have any pics of the list but I did discuss the list with Sean on Video:



So there you go!  If you can stomach playing this list, you now have the tools to have a shot at winning any GT you go to.  Enjoy!

Jawaballs

Craftworld Ulthwe Eldar: Warlock Mark 1 Part Two

Here are some updated pics of my Warlock Mark 1.

The first two are updated ones and the one on the white base is the old on previously posted. I added more edging with a mix of my base black with a bit of bone color, and I also enhanced the black shadows on the robe.

Baby steps!

I've definitely considered going blues as suggested before, but I really want to take on the challenge of painting black.  I think it will make me grow as a painter and give me another weapon to use in my quest to win a Golden Demon some day.  (Haha, some day a long way away.)

I also added a few more edges on the sword.  Being a witchblade and not a power sword I wanted to keep it toned down.

I can say that the camera definitely is not doing this model justice. The contrast between the lights and darks is way too extreme in these pics.  The camera is not picking up some of the subtle shades of black.  Maybe a really thinned down black wash will help...

More to come, this is fun!

Jawaballs

Craftworld Ulthwe Eldar: Warlock Mark I

Here is my first attempt at painting black for my new Craftworld Ulthwe Eldar army!  I got a set of colors called Andrea Color, Black Set which is a series of 6 shades of grey intended to make it easier to get a nice black.

The paint is a bit thick in some spots. This was a previously painted Iyanden warlock that I Sprayed black, then did several base coats of grey.  I went with blue eyes, sword and sword gems to balance out the orange/red gems on his helmet. (Orange and Blue are complimentary colors after all.)

So what do you think? Should I push the shadows and highlights on the robe even harder? I botched the bone hands, but thats ok, I spent a lot of time on the helmet using the Andread White paint set.  I think maybe a few grey/bone highlights on the extreme edges of the robe?

Enjoy, lots more coming!  I tapped my friend the one and only Dave Taylor for advice on painting my Fire Dragon Wave Serpent.  Look for that soon!

Jawaballs

Craftworld Ulthwe Eldar: Black Guardian Biker, Eldrad, Guardians

Here are a few more WIP pics of my Craftworld Ulthwe Eldar army.

Here is an image of my first five Black Guardians.  The one on the right is complete except for a banner I will do last. I like to put a banner in each of my squads.  

I know, nothing great as far as conversions.  It's just using High Elf models as Eldar. Nothing ground breaking, but I have yet to see any thing like these at any tournament I have gone to. So to me they are special.

Here is a close up of the standard bearer.  For these guys I am using Dire Avenger heads and weapons with High Elf Phoenix Guard bodies.  But rather than just swap out Dire Avenger arms, I am cutting the arms to fit the Phoenix Guard upper arms.  You can see that the upper arm has a bit of scale armor helping it blend with the rest of the body. It looked silly with the Dire Avenger's jacked shoulders jutting out of the PG torso. 

Here is what I mean. I used the upper arm bit from the PG and glued it into place on this guy. I also used the DA ammo belt.

Here is an example where I fit the DA forearm to the PG upper arm.  I tried to cut it so that the forearm looks like it is coming out of the scale upper arm.  

Here is another close up of the other Black Guardians.  

And here is a Black Guardian on a Jetbike!  For him I used a silver helm mounted model.  The legs took a lot of cutting and fitting to make them sit right on the bike.  I did the same thing with the left arm, cutting the silver helm arm and Eldar arm and fitting them. This took a lot of careful slicing a sliver at a time from the arm to make sure it fit right.  I only had one crack at it.  I have not attacked the banner pole arm yet since I need access to the chest and dash details.  For my bikers I am using the DA Exarch heads. I like the unique biker look.  

A closer look.  Once it dries I will shave the flashing. I did not glue the canopy to allow me to paint details.

Thanks to Dave from Battle for Salvation I have Storm Guardian bits!  I traded him some Black Reach orks for his SG bits, just enough to fill out a squad of 10!  I know, Storm Guardians suck. Well this is an Ulthwe army!  It pretty much demands the use of them.  I will be doing the same PG treatment with these guys, however, I am interested in different heads for them. I have two rules, no topknots (Eliminating the Storm Guardian heads) and must have helmets. Any suggestions?  High Elf Silverhelms might work, but with the body being all PG I think I should use Eldar heads.  I could go with Banshee heads... Or perhaps even something simple like Dark Eldar warriors... What do you think?

And of course, a Failcast Eldrad!  Actually this finecast is not too bad.  There is a bubble under his right arm, and the sword is bent as well as his helmet crest.  Neither of the bends should be too bad to fix after warming the model and bending it. I've never tried.  The bubble is not noticeable if you are not looking. 

What's next? Well I am sort of in a holding pattern. The last thing I want to do is assemble 30 models and have them sitting on my table. That is demoralizing and always a bad idea.  I am waiting for my new paints to arrive. I ordered some special sets for painting black, bone and white.  Once I get them I will do a few normal guardian testers, then rock out on these guys.  So as not to get bored I will jump around a bit. These 5 guardians, the biker, a warlock, and then the Forgeworld Wraithseer.  By that time I should have received any Xmas presents from the wife, and purchased the rest of the models she fails to buy me from Spiky Bits. Oh hey Rob, my wife will be calling! Take care of her.  :)

What is down the pipes? Well I am hoping for some great news for the Eldar as the next 6 months unfolds.  I am not just doing this army as a side trek. I want to compete with it.  I am going to get owned for sure if I play this army in 5th ed.  I am seriously hoping for some 6th ed New Codex love. At that point I will be keeping the paint scheme, and theme, but going full min/max competitive list.  That probably means dropping the guardians in favor of Dire Avengers. But wait... I am already using DA parts... smart huh?  

At this point any discussion about what might be in this army in 6 months is pointless. I have not been keeping up with the rumors.  All I can do is hope for some wicked codex creep.  What has to happen? Eldar have to be made cheaper, and making them a bit better in the assault would not hurt.  They would actually be competitive now if their point costs were not so out of reach.  A wave serpent costs as much as a vendetta. A Falcon costs 50 points more than a ac/lc pred.  Sure they have advantages, but I think you can see what I mean as far as costs.  By the way, I am just pointing out obvious flaws and stating examples of the flaw.  In other words the first person that calls me an Eldar whiner is getting a /smack.

What I love about the Eldar is the variety. I love the different aspects and their varied colors.  They really do allow you to paint any color you want.  This is a nightmare trying to tie them all into a cohesive force, but it is possible.  

Ok, back to work for me. The wife is home in two hours and this is the only free time I get!  :)

Jawaballs

Eldar Ulthwe: Black Guardians

Here are some quick shots of my Black Guardians. Eldar Craftworld Ulthwe, according to the fluff, mostly employs Guardians to do their fighting because their aspects were wiped out I guess. While I will be using some aspect warriors, I also have two squads of Guardians. One storm guardian and one regular.

I hope in the new codex they have upgraded stats for things like these.  It sucks to have such a cool thing as "The Black Guardian" in the fluff but in game play they are no better than regular ones.

I used High Elf Phoenix Guard as the bodies and Dire Avenger heads. One of these guys will have Dire Avenger arms holding a rifle, and the other will be holding a banner in one hand and a rifle in the other.  When I paint things like this, I usually paint the body first then attach the arms and finish them.  That way I can get at the details without them being blocked.

More to come!

Jawaballs

Eldar Ulthwe, the next Jawa-project

So, I finally decided upon my next major army project. I am putting the finishing touches up on a lingering commission this week, and am clearing the slate for a while so I can focus on my own stuff, sorta.

I will be painting a NMM GK terminator to be given away as a charity promotion at Templecon in February. That won't take a day though.

And of course, there is the 2012 "Heroes" project.  I have no clue what it is going to be yet!

Before that though, I want to try to pump out an Eldar army.  I have always wanted to, and at one point had a good start to an Iyanden army.  But as my interests grew, the Eldar faded to the back burner and beyond.

So why Ulthwe?  At Nova I was speaking with a fantastic painter and modeler named Dan and we started thinking about doing a team army project based on the Horus Heresy.  He was planning an Emperor's Children army, so I thought that doing the confrontation between Eldrad and Fulgrim!  My Eldar army was instantly born.  Plus, if the rumors are true, they should be getting some outstanding love next summer with a new book and an appearance in the next box set.  By the way, I will be trading away any chaos crap I get in the new box sets for your Eldar.  :)  Bottom line here, 2012 is going to be the year for the Eldar. It's a great time to start.

My army is going to be fairly diverse and fun. So, I don't plan to win a lot of games with it at first. Oh well! This is the age of artsy Jawaballs I guess.  I like a lot of the Eldar units, and plan on using as many as I can.  I like that the Ulthwe focus on their super guardians, but it would not Eldar without aspect units, so here we go with my first draft of a list:

Eldrad of course
Eldrads Warlock council (converted)

Avatar

Guardian jet bikes with warlock

2 squads of guardians converted from various high elf and eldar parts

Fire Dragons with serpent. (Gotta have the dragons!)

Pathfinders of course

Harlequins

2 wraith lords. I ordered the Forgeworld Wraithseer model. cant wait to paint it!

1 Falcon grav tank.  This is gona be the ride for the harlies.  I am going to paint it all decked out in harlequin stuff. It should be sick!

Wraithguard with lock in a serpent

As you can see there is quite a variety, chosen for artistic purposes. I plan on doing some sweet conversions for the guardians and warlocks.  Also, I plan on doing some sweet hand painting on the serps.  I love them for their large open spaces.  They are like blank canvases. Jetbikes are also great for this purpose.  I love the eldar because they have a lot of great imagry and use banners.  Lots of chances to make this army truly special.

As the army evolves, I will of course add to it. Especially when the new dex drops and new competitive Eldar lists pop up.  My considerable ego cant take yet another year of beat downs in the GT circuit, no matter how pretty the army is!  :)  I have to have an army that competes.

Now, to figure out how to paint these things, and that is where you come in.  I suck at web searching. I looked up "how to paint ulthwe" "painting ulthwe master class" and you name it.  You see, I need these to look special.  Black spray with grey highlights just wont work.  I plan on doing blended and shaded black, but i have no idea how!  I am not too worried about the bone color, though suggestions are welcome.

So, perhaps those of you who are adept at web searches, or more familiar with the forums can help! I need masterclass level tutorials for painting black.  I'm talking Golden demon level difficulty.  Honestly, a tutorial on bone color would not hurt either. Most of what I have found relies heavily on washes.  I prefer to use washes as an accent, not primary painting tool.  What do you guys think? Feel free to share links. In fact, we can make this a new resource for painting Ulthwe and or black.  Share your links and information, and I will edit them into the copy of this post.  Or email them to me. we can make this a work in progress!

So there you have it. The new Jawa army, a community project!  This is a chance for me to do something completely new, and for you to help!

Now to give my wife my wish list, and the Spikey Bits phone number. :)

Jawaballs

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