Bolscon hype begins!

Love em or hate em, they ran a great event last year! Jwolf and the rest of the BOLS guys got it right. Jwolf dropped the challenge, and we answered the call. Fritz's Eldar got smacked around like a red headed step child stealing his new mommies cookies, and Jwolf barely escaped the wrath of the Blood Angels through Zen like manipulation of the scatter dice. I still don't know how he managed to wrap that blast template around terrain, miss all of his own troops, and kill Dante who was out of LoS. The tournament was huge fun, the prize support was top notch, and the venue was beautiful! This year, it will be even bigger. Be looking for more info soon.

Jawaballs and Fritz will be making their trek out to Austin once again for another long weekend of dice, suds and Goatboy. But this year, Fritz and I are part of the show! We are going to be spearheading a massive apocalypse grudge match on Thursday night I believe. It is time for Fritz to pay the piper. He beat on me for years as I was learning to play the game, now I am the master and he is the learner. On one side, the Xenos Eldar scum Fritz will be trying to gather up all the cheeze, runes and jetbikes he can find, while on the other side I will be leading the charge of Red imperial armor. It is my hope to rally up 40000 points of Space Marines and Imperial Guard led by Lord Dante and the Glorious Blood Angels.

Jwolf and BigRed have offered to let us dip our fingers into the BOLS store of models for all to use, and they are offering up nice prize support! It should be a match like none other!

So stay tuned for more info and start preparing for war!

On a related note, I have not been following the beef between BOLS writers and Stellek. I prefer not to take part in those sorts of things, but I do know that the boys have dropped a challenge for Stellek to come to Bolscon and throw some dice! I know Stellek has his reasons for not coming, but I personally think that it would be great for every one. We all want to see the battle. It is like Ali-Forman, Optimus-Megatron, Starbuck-Apollo and Tom-Jerry all thrown into one! How could that be a bad thing? I for one would love to see these two stand across the table from each other, shake hands, beat the crap out of each other, then have a beer and laugh. So I hope Stellek can figure out a way to make it to Austin this year! I would not mind meeting him myself. I also would not mind Stellek being my doubles partner! How bout it man?

Jawaballs

Saab's Mission Highlight of the Week: Mission #1

Mission # 1 Dawn of Confusion

This past October (2009), I attended the Da Boyz GT in Rochester, NY. Let me tell you; the decision to attend this October 16th, 2010 was agreed upon before we even started the 8+ hour car ride back home. Da Boyz hosted a wonderful event with top tier people, both in gaming skill and attitude. I was quite pleased by the willingness of the players to share ideas and great booze with those they’ve just recently met. Usually, when you start drinking rum at 10 AM things take a turn for the worse, but the day only got better. Tables were well constructed, missions were well written, and other than listing our club as The Wrecking Crew (we can ruin our OWN reputation, thank you very much j/k ) the whole event ran extremely smooth.

I want to examine one of their specific missions since I remember doing a double-take the first time I read it. Never had I played a mission where both players could complete the first objective! You can find a link to download the mission as a PDF. HERE.

Did you print it out yet? “Yes”

Good!

This is a prime example of how to present a mission correctly (in my opinion). It has a small fluff section, a section for mission special rules and game length, and an outline for the specific deployment. Note the picture of the deployment on the bottom right. This picture is absolutely necessary when you use different deployments such as the 3rd Ed(?) “triangles” , or if you alter a 5th Ed deployment like they did here. Also, it helps those like me who can’t remember what “pitched battle” means by game three cause your friends busted out the Jager early.

The Objectives are split into Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary sections, which I like. What stood out for me were the headings in parentheses. You knew the goal of the objective without having to really fish through a couple lines of text. The Objectives themselves aren’t too far fetched. We’ve all played victory points and objective markers.

I love interesting missions, but sometimes they can get too far outside the realm of 40K, and then you have an instance where The Mission defeated you, not The Opponent(I’ll expand on this in another post). However, this mission gave an interesting twist on target priority. You could spend time trying to kill your opponent’s two units, but at the same time you can’t neglect his other ones due to the fact the 2nd and 3rd Objectives are VPs and objective markers.

Having both players able to complete the Primary Objective was a new thing for me. At first glance, I was worried people would feed each other their two primary objective units, but in practice this was avoided due to Victory points. In my case my two units were a LR Crusader and Assault Termies. I wasn’t about to march those out to be killed; they were almost 500 points! The ability of both players to complete the primary objective also mitigated some differences between army power. Just because you had soft units didn’t mean you couldn’t put the boot to your opponent even though he squashed two of yours. You get 40 pts; he gets 20, everyone’s a winner! *kinda*.

Also notice that the secondary and tertiary objectives together are worth as much as the primary objective. I love this aspect of the mission. You can sometimes go up against an army that is an extreme “one-trick pony” who gets lucky with the primary mission objective being tailored to his strengths. Instead of going, “I’m boned!”, you can go and beat him on the secondary and tertiary objectives and still walk away on top. I ran into a 7 KP army with KPs as the primary objective (mine has about 15+ KP). Instead of panicking, I focused on winning the secondary and tertiary objectives when it became clear I couldn’t table him.

So all and all, I really enjoyed this mission and the Da Boyz GT, and I hope you do to. Even better, I hope to see some of you attend their GT in October 2010.

Cheers,
Greg (Saab)

Better late than never!

I know it is a little late, but I wanted to tell you about my friend Mike's painting challenge! If you want to show off your new Blood Angels, go check him out, you still have time to enter! He can be found at http://micho-bp40k.blogspot.com/2010/03/blood-angels-painting-challenge.html

Enjoy! Jawaballs

This week on Jawaballs Live! Brought to you by Army Dice.

This week on Jawaballs Live! I will be giving away free Army Dice!

Scott From Army Dice has offered to sponsor my show by providing dice for give aways! He has given me a set of Chaotic and a set of Yellow Fist dice to begin with, and only more will follow! So please visit his site, tell him how much you like his stuff, and let him know that you saw his stuff on Jawaballs Live! So this week, I will be giving away some of these dice.

For this week's show, I will be talking more Blood Angels, as well as a new way of thinking about 40k that will change your life. I will be starting on resurrecting my old Blood Angels to turn them back into a fighting force and I will talk about my newest list idea. Be ready for some true Jawa-Insight straight from the Jawaballs and Fritz war room! If you are a 40k gamer, hardcore tournament player, or weekend warrior and want to stay ahead of the curve, you don't want to miss this show.

Visit my show URL. The show starts at 6PM EST every Wednesday, but I will probably be bouncing around the chat room well before, and it will remain live as long as people want to hang around and chat.

Jawaballs

Battle Formations of the Blood Angels

+++ Transmission Begins +++
O Brother-Captain Dante,

May the Emperor grant this report comes to you at a useful time, but of course there is no way to be certain if it has arrived on-time or many years too late due to the vagaries of the Warp. Still, I hope this will be useful to you nonetheless.

Per your request, I have compiled a small number of examples pertaining to task forces I and my subordinate commanders have formed from the Second Company. Though this is far from comprehensive, it may prove interesting, and any comments you may have will surely prove instructive to me.

Due to the diligent efforts of our artificers, my Second Company has a great deal more armor and Dreadnoughts than many of our Brother Chapters. Thus we have often departed somewhat from the Codex Astartes when creating strike forces and the like. Success will show that we adhere to the spirit of the Codex if not always to the letter.

For the simulation sometimes known as "'ard Boyz" (my understanding is that this is a Xeno term), we have considered this:

Brother-Captain Tycho unfortunately inducted into the Death Company.

4 full Tactical squads armed with a melta and lascannon, the sergeant armed with a power weapon. These would be Combat squadded, and half the squad would use a lascannon turret-armed Razorback to assault the enemy while the other half provided fire support.

2 Predators armed with extra armor, lascannon sponsons, and an autocannon turret,

Ancient Toran, who remains a potent psyker despite being entombed in a Dreadnought sarcophagus,

3 Sanginary Priests to inflame the ardor of our Battle Brothers to the proper pitch, though of course we know this is ever-dangerous,

A Vindicator fitted with a siege shield,

and a Baal Predator, armed with heavy bolter sponsons and either its usual armament or a Flamestorm cannon depending on the foes faced in the simulation.


However, our standard deployment formations usually consist of one of the following:

If we are to face enemy armor, we might send much as above, only leaving one of the Tactical squads, their transports, a Sanguinary Priest, and the Baal behind.

If we are likely to face mostly infantry, we may well deploy

a Librarian,

4 5-man Assault squads carrying a melta, a power fist, and in a heavy flamer-armed Razorback,

a Baal Predator equipped with assault cannons, heavy bolters, extra armor, and a storm bolter,

a Vindicator with a siege shield and extra armor,

a dreadnought with two twin-linked autocannons and extra armor

a Furioso Librarian

a dreadnought with an assault cannon

and a Furioso with two Blood Talons, extra armor, and a heavy flamer.


---Continued----


+++Transmission Ends +++

Painting the Blood Angels Troop Choices

With the new Codex just two weeks away, I've begun to look at my current Troops squads and their armament. Mostly I've been running three five-marine squads of RAS, with the Sergeant armed with various close-combat kit, loaded in a Blood Angels Rhino. The new Codex will inevitably have a points drop on these basic units so I am considering expanding each one out to ten-marines strong. That means I'll have room for special weapons like Meltaguns. With an eye on growing the squad and building news, I'm looking to paint up about 15 more of these basic troopers.

Painting-wise, mastering a way to paint red quickly is important to building and painting a Blood Angels army. I've gotten to the point where I can produce finished marines rather fast. I take the grey plastic models and spray them with a citadel spray gun with Mecharite Red as my undercoat. Then I put Vallejo Model Colour: Carmine Red into my spray gun and get a nice even coat of red on the entire squad. Then I bring them to my painting desk. I cover then entire model in Badab Black Wash. I let that dry and then I drybrush with blazing orange. At that point I am done with the armor and all I need to do is paint the rest. It produces a deep red for Blood Angels armor.

The signature yellow helmets is also important to get right, but most new painters are at a loss to get a good yellow on their models. I start with a basecoat of Iyanden Darksun, then I wash with Gyphonne Sepia. Once that is done, I mix Vallejo Model Color: Yellow with Iyanden Darksun and paint that on again, leaving the wash in the recesses. I highlight by adding bleached bone and then white to the mix. This produces a nice yellow color that is not too bright and cartoony, but still attracts the eye to the head.

Once again, new WD is in stores, but my sub has not come...

I emailed GW with concerns about my White Dwarf subscription about a month ago. The issue is that my WD issues regularly arrive two weeks into the month they are supposed to be here for. They are supposed to arrive at my door first. In a very polite and to the point letter, I outlined that I was considering dropping my WD subscription when it expires and gave several reasons. One of which was content, but most importantly the fact that it is coming almost a month later then it used to.

Well, the one issue that I was so looking forward to is now in stores. The Blood Angels issue. And once again... not in my hands.

They did respond to my email. Pretty much said nothing... "it's not our fault... blah blah" They said they would forward my concerns to higher ups. Whatever. Looks like I will be forgetting to forward my check to GW when my sub runs out.

The fact that their most recent exclusive "subscription" mini sucks ass, or should I say the last several... Frodo? A dwarf with a Tech Marine arm? What the hell? Oh, and now we have to buy them... Bah.

Jawaballs

What the hell! A little real world ranting about movie tickets...

Ok, enough is enough. Read this!

What corporations have to understand is that it is not they who set the ticket prices. It is us. I have been out of the loop for a few months with the baby, the last movie I saw was District 9. But I paid 12 bucks for me and my wife then, which almost made me blow an O-ring, and now? This is just CRAZY! Theaters in New York City are now charging almost 20 bucks a ticket! The problem is that we let them do it! They raise the price, and we reward them for it by paying any way. Avatar sets huge records, and CEO's see dollar signs. So the prices go up even further. Here is a little secret. The prices will continue to go up so long as we continue to pay them. If they charge 40 bucks a head and we still go, they smile all the way to the bank. But what most of us don't even consider is that all we have to do is NOT PAY THEM and the prices will go down. If enough of us just don't go to the movies, they will feel the impact in their pockets.

I didn't see Avatar, and I for one was excited about movies like Iron Man 2 coming up... but when the time comes, I will have to pay 40 bucks plus a baby sitter to go see it with my wife. Throw in popcorn and a drink and my wifes red slushy and I am now paying upwards of 140 bucks to go watch a 2 hour movie. I don't care what movie it is... it is just not worth it. A movie is a movie. 3-D or not, they are selling us the same thing they were selling us for 6 bucks ten years ago. Lets put this into perspective. 13 or so years ago in New York City I paid 7 bucks each to take my girlfriend to see Titanic. Now they are charging 19.00 for Avatar. Almost three times as much!

Sure inflation happens, now things cost more to make... but think about this. If I paid 10 grand for a car 13 years ago, and prices went up the way movies have, I would be paying about 27,000.00 for the same car.

But that is not the case. In 1997 a new car cost about 21,000 dollars. (I removed any specific maker to avoid dumb comments.) Now, it actually costs LESS! Why? Because that is the price the market bears. The car company knows that if they double the cost of their car, they will not sell it. So why are we letting the movie industry double the cost of movie tickets, then add ANOTHER 50%?

Hey, you want to go see Iron Man 2 for 20 bucks? I got a 2007 Toyota Matrix I will sell you for the bargain price of 50,000 dollars. That is what the movie industry is telling us.

I will be the first to get in the "I'm not paying!" line. I have a sweet 40" HDTV at home. I can wait 6 months and watch Iron Man 2 on Netflix.

What do you guys think? This summer, just say no. Stay in, watch Netflix with the wife, play with the kids, or go out and play 40k. Whatever you do, do NOT go pay 20 bucks a head to watch a movie.

Jawaballs

I didn't even get into how the movie experience is starting to really suck. Last time I saw a movie, I counted no less then 27 cell phones out in hands in front of me while people were texting. Or browsing the web on their Iphone. Some of those things were bright! Nothing like trying to enjoy a movie with kids shining little flashlights in my eyes. Add to that the fact that it seems to me at least that theaters are taking a step back in design by trying to pack back in the seats they removed in the late 90s, and is it really worth it? What am I going to do, go wait in line to complain to a manager about cell phones just to have him shrug and say so what?

Jawaballs paints a full sized Blood Angels Chapter Banner: The Final Video

I am trying this new youtube utility.

Not the Same Ol' Song and Dance

I would like to welcome Greg Sabino to my blog! I first met Greg at the Baltimore GT in 2008 when I wound up playing against him, and we were both fairly new at 40k. I gave him a sound thumping, handed him my army list with my blog URL, and we became friends! He later bought one of my painting videos and I would like to claim full responsibility for his fantastic looking space marines! :) Just joking Greg. In truth, he puts many many hours into his hobby. He is a true student of his passion and it shows in his work. I am bringing Greg on because of his love for what he does. I personally can't think of any better reason! I am looking forward to seeing what he adds to the table. Jawaballs


My name is Greg S.(Saab) and I play out at Brothers Grim which is on the eastern end of Long Island. I have absolutely no desire to give tactical or list building advice because there are plenty of people on the internet who think they can provide such a service. Instead, I will hopefully provide a resource concerning missions, objectives, and new ways to enjoy the game of 40K.

If you play enough like me, I am sure you frown when you and a buddy roll “That Same Damn Mission“ from the back of the book. So each week, I will be building a database here at Jawaballs: The Blood Angels and Warhammer 40K Blog with various missions I’ve either played in tournaments, leagues, or wrote at 4am on the back of a napkin. A sort of “Mission of the Week!”. From time to time, I will also post up missions from various GTs around the country and highlight any new and interesting takes on the game of 40K.

What I want from YOU, the reader, is to give your feedback on these missions. Ask yourself, “Was their loop-holes? Did it favor one type of army? Was it fun?” etc. We work so hard on building and tweaking our armies that we deserve to use them in more than 3 types of “scenarios”. Will all of these missions, be amazing or life-changing experiences? No, but anything is better than rolling “Dawn of War / Annihilation “.

Now before I start posting up missions, I want to examine a key feature that affects all of us who play the game of 40K, “Mission Objectives”. In my time playing in tournaments, I have experienced two main systems; a Primary/Secondary/Tertiary format with Bonus Pts, and a Primary Only with Bonus Pts. I’ve always stated that I prefer the three mission objectives over one primary mission objective. One of my reasons is that I feel you get a better “spread” of scores. I believe this to be important because we use the Swiss Ranking System and it gets the best players playing each other instead of someone who just got lucky. However, I’ve never really sat down and looked at the scores before, which makes the researcher in me cringe (I’m in the last year of my Immunology PhD). If I am going to talk, it shouldn’t be out of my *ss. So I decided to graph up some scores from past GTs I’ve attended.


These data are from 5 game GTs, but the sample size is small because it was the only two GT numbers I had access to while in lab. These score all include bonus points received in addition to mission objective points.

Upon first glance I notice two things right away. First, in the 1 Objective (black) scores appear to be in three clusters. Secondly, the spread/slope of the Top 10 in the 3 Objective (red) is much steeper when compared to 1 Objective. When I look at the 1 Objective (black) graph, I feel like there was no clear winner. Anyone in that top group of 6 people could have received “Top Battle Points” that weekend due to how close it was. However, when looking at 3 Objective (red), there’s a clear 1st 2nd and 3rd. When you’re dealing with 3 objective missions, you really need to beat your opponent into submission to maximize your points. Where as with 1 objective, you can get lucky and still win the game with 15pts even though you only have 1 model left of the board at turn 5(this did happen that weekend). I ran the numbers in Excel and the slope of the lower scores from the 3 Objective graph is still steeper than the slope of the 1 Objective graph. Also, I’d guess that the three clusters in the 1 Objective (black) are derived from the ridged scoring system used.


So what am I getting at? Well, the vast majority of the missions I will be posting will use the 3 Objective system, and the graphs above are a partial reaffirmation of my gut-feeling concerning the topic. However, I’m not about to proclaim the superiority of 3 Objectives throughout the land. The 3 Objective system has its draw backs too, (You can forget about them until turn 4, they can get over complicated and lead to scoring errors, etc.), but overall, I find them to be more entertaining; and I hope you do too.

I have alot of work to do for my committee meeting, but I hope to have my first mission post up in a couple of days

-Greg (Saab)

Jawaballs New Blood Angels codex list Alpha!

So I have decided on my first shot at a competitive list. This is by no means definitive, but I'm not worried, for every model will have use in later army builds and this will make a good core for the new Blood Angels era. 1850 points.

Librarian 100

Sanguinary Priest 50
LC 15

Corbulo 105

RAZ 100
PF 25
Melta 10
Hand Flamer 10
Razor 20
TL AssCan 35

RAZ 100
PF 25
Melta 10
Razor 20
TL AssCan 35

RAZ 100
PW 15
Melta 10
Razor 20
TL AssCan 35

RAZ 100
PW 15
Melta 10
Razor 20
TL AssCan 35

Baal Predator 115
Heavy bolters 30

Baal Predator 115
Heavy Flamers 25

Baal Predator 115
Heavy Flamers 25

Predator 70
Lascannons 65

Predator 70
Lascannons 65

Predator 70
Lasccannons 65

I know, most dudes have been posting up their lists with razors. But jesus! How could you not? It has always been my position that the only reason why I was not taking them in my old mech list was that they were not fast. Now they are and I can take Ass Cannons! It took me about .2 seconds to make the call and order up a pile of them.

Notice how I went without extra armor on my tanks! I figured I have so much redundancy that 2 or 3 of my vehicles being stunned at any given time won't hurt that much.

I went with the auto cannon/Las preds over vindicators because in my experience, they are actually much more effective vs troops, and when it comes to popping transports or combating Valkries, they are boss. I'm no math man, but I think if I averaged out 100 shots of a Vindicator vs a Chimera, and a ACL pred, the ACL pred will win. But the same goes for clustered troops! In a recent game when I put my Vindi back in the list, it just kept missing. I had a whole squad of Tsons lined up for 3 rounds, and I think I managed to kill one or two with the vindi. Scatter and an opponent who knows what he is doing minimizes the effectiveness of the pieplate. You may catch more boys under it with a dead on shot, but I am interested in seeing how the two would play out. Do I smell a future post?

Tactics? Later. For now, bask in the glory that is the Blood Angels. This is a list I have been dreaming about, and can finally put it on the table!

More to come...

Jawaballs

Rulebook study for the new Codex

+++ Transmission Begins +++

Though the Blood Angels Codex release is a few weeks away yet, let me direct you to a few bits from the main rulebook to get the reader ready.

(p. 42) Lightning claws allow the wielder to reroll failed to wound rolls. They also ignore armor saves like a power weapon.

Page 35 ("Who Can Fight?") states that only models in base contact with a model in another unit or within 2" of a friendly model in base contact with an enemy model may attack in that close combat... BUT they can still be killed by the enemy and the result of the combat will still affect them.

"Allocating Wounds" (p. 39) reenforces this last point, as it reminds us that ALL of the models in the target unit can be hit, wounded, and killed, including those that are not engaged. In fact, the section encourages players to take casualties from non-engaged units so that the engaged units can strike back.

There is an Apocalypse datasheet for the Orks that consists of 100+ Orks. It is considered one single unit for all purposes. Thus, it follows that even if a model in this 'uge mob was 8' away from a model attacking one end of the mob, it can be taken off as a casualty but only the models within 2" of an engaged model can attack.

+++ Transmission Ends +++

Doc points out some of those "Duh" rules that I am fond of talking about myself. It is interesting that you could assault a squad of orks, and models a foot away get taken off the table. The question is, how can you use this to your advantage? A Tau player I met up in a tournament used a squadron of Piranah very well, hiding two so that he would always get a cover save, and giving those the wounds. They were tough to take down!

Jawaballs

Jawaballs Live in ONE HOUR!

If you are reading this, then you have one hour to log on for Jawaballs Live!

You can find the link here!

If it asks for a pass word, it is jawaballs1

I Wanna Go Fast!- Nob Bikers and Custom Bases.

And finally, here is Rob Baer, the last of my 40k buddies to be brought into the fold. Why? Well, he knows his shiznit. Like him or not, he makes beautiful models, and he knows how to play 40k. He has won several GTs and plays rock hard lists that look great. He is also a guest writer on Bell of Lost Souls. I figured he could add a little more variety to this blog, and share his Ork Conversions with you since they look fantastic! Be looking for the final two writers to be invited next week once I have had a chance to get through all the applications. At this point, I think I am looking for some one to write great batreps and some one to add more Blood Angels info. More to come... Jawaballs

MBG Rob Baer reporting in for Jawaballs!  Today I wanted to show off my Nob Biker squad, and their custom bases. The best thing you can do to really show off converted and painted models, is to put them on bases that will show off their detail , and accent the theme of your army.   I figured a base with a bunch of battlefield debris with a rocky deserty look was the way to go for these lads. So, I painted them up in a desert scheme to match the rest of my Ork horde.

First I basecoated them with Scorched Brown, then drybrushed over that with Kommando Khaki, followed by Bubonic Brown. The metals were picked out with P3's Pig Iron and washed with Devlin Mud. Then I used wood glue to affix GF9's "Straw Grass" flock to them. I use the wood glue as opposed to super glue because I think the grass just looks "fuller" when it dries.

So now its time to mount my models on their new scenic bases. Of course I'd have to pin each of them down to their base, which is fine because I know they will be sturdy. I won't have to worry about them falling off the base either (unless I drop them- UGH!)

Here's the Nob Bikers mounted on their new bases.  Since they now made the bits for Big Choppas (Nobz Box)  I splashed a few of those around the squad. Who can't resist four STR 7 hits on the charge per model?

I converted a Waaagh Banner from a Black Orc arm and an Orc Warboss Standard from Warhammer Fantasy.  I had to magnetize the arm at the shoulder to actually store it, as the whole model wouldn't even fit in a 4" foam tray!

Then I sketched the outline of the banner in pencil as a guideline for the freehand paint job. Next I went over it with black, and highlighted that with three grays; Adeptus Battlegrey, Codex Grey, Ghostly Grey, and Codex Grey 50/50 Mix. When I was done I just used the eraser to get rid of any unwanted pencil marks that were left behind!

Of course I still have some Power Claw Nobz, plus the wonder twins: Warboss Snorg and Painboy Steve. Check out the Warboss on his new base of doom! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!


Note the Attack Squig shamelessly stolen from the Fanatics Box. I also converted a flame on the Kombi-Skortcha from an Ork Boy Topknot bit. I think in the near future I'll go back and add a small banner pole to him just so he's taller that the rest of the ladz.

Last but not least is Painboy Steve. I did a lot of customizing with this model, and I think he turned out pretty good.

First he had to have a masked head, and that weird doctor head light saucer thing. Next he needed some Dok's tools and and a bone saw for operating. Then I converted him a Painboy gun from a slugga, bosspole, and burna.

I also painted a "bone cross" on his bike cowl so everyone knows he's the Dok!

So that's it. I'm itching to get these guys on the field, with the new Deff Rolla rules and see what the army can do!

-MBG

What do you think? Use the standard base for the model, or buy something that looks good? Jawaballs has a great line of affordable custom resin bases in his store to choose from!.  You can also checkout my blog Spikey Bits  for more custom tips, and tricks for customizing your models!

Jawaballs Live! Wednesday, March 24.

I know, I know, I messed up last week. I got wrapped up with the baby, and by the time I looked at the clock it was after 8. Sorry! But I will be there tomorrow, 6pm EST.

Now that I have had a good look at the codex, I will be talking about Blood Angels and my plans. I also plan on finishing my Black Templar marshal terminator commission. Come check it out!

Jawaballs

Fifth Edition Thoughts

Hey folks, meet the second of my new guest writers, Docrailgun! He has been a consistent contributer with nice articles and batreps in the past and has a flare for writing in character. Adding him to the fold was a no brainer! I was pleased that he jumped at the chance. I look to Doc to continue bringing this blog great stuff. I have two more guest contributers to introduce from my list of steady buddies who fell into that DUH list when I started thinking about adding guys to the blog. Then I will get to the pile of emails I got from other guys. I will be selecting two off the list to be added as well. More to come... Jawaballs

+++ Transmission Begins +++

Though the Ork Codex is considered to have been written with the 5th Edition rules, the Space Marine Codex was released after the new rulebook and the Tyranid Codex recently, it seems now clear that the first two truly 5th Edition armies have only just now been given to us: the Space Wolves and the Blood Angels.

Why are these two books "5th Edition" and the previously-mentioned two not? Let's examine the core changes of the most recent ruleset. The 4th Edition was about killing things, lots of things. We had Victory Points, which encouraged players to kill the most valuable units on the field. It didn't matter much what died, so long as there was lots of it. Vehicles were also discouraged, being deathtraps for their passengers. The 5th Edition is quite a bit different. Now, killing things is only a prerequisite for victory in 1/3 of the standard missions, and even then one must kill all of an enemy unit to get the Kill Point it is worth. The other 2/3 of missions are about objectives - capturing and contesting them. It's easy to contest an objective, any model can do that. It is much more difficult to capture an objective and keep an opponent from contesting them, (usually) only infantry Troops choices can do so. Thus, the game encourages draws and makes it more difficult to gain a victory. Further, one can kill every model in an opposing model save one and still draw or lose a game. It follows then that there are two ways of winning a game of 5th Edition 40K - kill all opposing scoring units or have the most objectives held by your own scoring units alone.

Orks were the first attempt at this - they have large scoring units (mobs of Boyz) that are difficult to kill off completely, especially when given cover saves or Feel No Pain. Large Boyz mobs can also potentially claim more than one objective at the same time. However, Orks have a low I and no armor to speak of, so die in droves to shooting. They would also die in close-combat if it weren't for the power-klaw Nob in every squad which discourages many from engaging them. Orks are a good army, especially if played well... but their success in the edition is due to the usefulness of some of their unit choices. The Space Marine Codex was also a step in the right direction. It provided players with the chance to have very mobile and sturdy (3+ armor saves) units on the field. Further, it made powerful weaponry cheaper, especially the free flamers and missile launchers. But perhaps un-Marinelike, this edition encourages Marine players to keep their scoring units in ther now-useful transports until they get shot out from under them... and the wreckage then becomes a cover save. The concept of Combat Squadding also helps Marine lists have a lot of scoring units (though without as much staying power as a full squad might). The Tyranid Codex gave players the ability to disrupt enemy formations and to keep them from coming across the table. There's something to be said for the 'be everywhere at once' approach.

This leads us to the Space Wolves and Blood Angels' Codexes. What these two armies do best are surely oriented to do what wins 5th Edition games - be in sole control of more objectives, or kill all the enemy scoring units.

The Space Wolves are very good at staying alive and in one place. They have Wolf Tails to protect their units from psychic attacks such as Lash of Submission, they have psychic powers of their own that can offer their units cover saves, their Tactical squad equivalant has an extra A (due to their bolter, bolt pistol, and close-combat weapon) and they have the Counterattack USR. So, assaulting a Grey Hunter pack will most of the time result in an opponent facing 3 attacks per Space Wolf, rather than the 1 they might face against normal Marines. Worse, for a small outlay of points, each Grey Hunter pack can have a model that gets +d6 Rending attacks. This makes taking an objective from a Wolf army a dangerous and difficult proposition.

The Blood Angels are excellent at the other task - killing enemy infantry. First, the Angels have Fast vehicles. This allows the army to put scoring units where they need to be in decisive moments, but more importantly to put massive firepower while still remaining mobile. A fast Vindicator can move 12" and still fire its S10 area affect weapon. For a few points it can do so while hiding in cover on its turn (the siege shield allows a vehicle to automatically succeed on dangerous terrain tests). The Baal Predator can move 6" to bring all its weapons to bear on a target. Fast lascannon Predators will always be able to get a good shot from behind a building. But what the Angels do really well is kill infantry. The 5-man Assault squad with a melta, and a power sword in a Heavy Flamer Razoback with extra armor is dirt cheap... one could easily max out one's Troops chocies for less than 1K points with them. Throw in the possibility of Feel No Pain and Furious Charge along with offensive grenades and a few gouts of heavy flamer Promethium, even enemy infantry in heavy cover will be in trouble. The list also has models especially designed to kill infantry, no matter how large the unit. A scoring unit might also drop an AV14 mobile bunker literally right on top of an objective late in the game. The list's weakness might be against heavy armor, but there will be a number of S10 attacks in most lists, along with melta pistols and (with Furious Charge) S9 power fists. There will be quite a bit of long-distance tank shocking going on at the end of Blood Angel gamers. The Blood Angels' army is made for Assaulting, from the surgical Deep Striking units to a 30-strong squad that can fire 60 bolter shots and still assault with 60 S5 I5 attacks.

Will the Design Studio continue this trend? It seems likely, as the Dark Eldar should be very good at snatching objectives at the last moment, and the Eldar after them should have very mobile firepower. The Necrons should be good at the defensive game, and the Tau at mobility themselves. If we assume that there will also be a Black Templar and Dark Angel Codex for this edition, we should also see these two design philosphies continue - the Templars might have large squads that simply won't go away, and the Dark Angels might have speed and firepower on their side.

The 5th Edition is quite a different beast than the 4th Edition. Embrace the change... the Design Studio has.

+++ Transmission Ends +++

More Storm Raven Progress!

Just thought I would share some more Storm Raven progress. I need to figure out where to mount the guns, and then get the guns to mount... and I am thinking about adding some more lines to the fuselage.

Jawaballs

Gearing up for the new codex! My first Storm Raven

In my opinion, the Storm Raven is the next worst thing to happen to 40k since the Valkrye. But since it is a Blood Angels unit... I LOVE IT! It is payback time for all you IG players out there. You think your Vendetta gunships are cool... how bout 4 missles, a twin linked lascannon and a multi melta, oh and ours carries 12 guys and a dreadnought!

Let the arms race begin. :)

So I played around with a few ways of creating this thing, and I decided on using the rhino chasis as my base, as I'm sure many other guys are too. I thought the Land Raider would be just too big once I got done making it a flyer. Also, I just happened to have a Razorback on my loot shelf. So I began looking for parts to turn it into a plane...

My first stop was Toys R Us. My intent was to buy some cheapo kid toys. You know, the fake GI Joe stuff. No luck at TRU. They only had a few Joe things as well. By the way, what the hell happened to GI Joe? That stuff used to be awesome. It looked sort of futuristic, but it always maintained that 80s military feel. I bought two toys, an Ice Dagger that looked like a snow mobile on crack, and the Night Raven, which is the 2010 remake of the 80s raven... probably the coolest GI Joe toy ever, that had a cockpit that lowered, missles that lowerd, landing gear that lowered, and a drone that attached itself to the back. It was also about 2 feet long. Well this new raven is a piece of CRAP with a capital S. It is shaped like a long rectangle with some missles hanging of the wing shaped back area. I wont get into it, but man, the things they are pushing on the kids nowadays.

Neither of the things were usable. The Ice Dagger was just too big, and it was all one big part too, so I couldnt even use it as armor plates. The raven was a joke.

Back to the drawing board.

Then I did an ebay search for Gi Joe, and instantly came across the old Sky Hawk! It had the twin engine turbine vertical take off engine, and carried one joe. It had skids with a couple of missles and some distinct rectangular stabilizers on the back. It was perfect! Plus, it was about the same width as the rhino, so it should fit nicely.

I started by cutting the tail section off the cockpit of the Sky Hawk. It came off in a nice angular V shape, that would actually help afix it to the back ot the rhino. The angle was perfect. Then I cut out the front of the rhino, which perfectly fit the cockpit. It looks as if the models were made for each other! A liberal dose of super glue and now it is waiting for the next step.

If you look at the pictures, you will see an empty space between the tail and the cockpit. I will use some card to close that gap to make it look like a long fuselage on top of a rhino. I will mount the assault cannon/las cannon under the nose of the ship, and I will mount the heavy bolter/multi melta on top just behind the cockpit. I will use the sponson areas of the rhino to hold the Hurricane bolters, and finally I will add some wings extending out from the top of the rhino, upon which I will afix the missles.

To finish it, I will close up the windows of the cockpit... it is about the right size to hold 12 marines, while the fuselage and rhino will look perfect for a dread. The best part is I just got a butt load of other GI Joe parts that I can also use to make this thing look awesome.

List Help? Here was a quick email asking for new list help.

Hey JawaBalls I'm a BA player in Kentucky MWG forum nake MadMedek. I bet your even more excited about the new BA stuff coming out than I am. I've read your thoughts on the blog, but I would be honored if I could get your opinion on me ideas on my new BA army. ON HAND FIGS:
-OOP BA captian he looks like Dante in the Tycho Pose (I field as Dante right now)
-LR
-2 Rhinos May convert one unfinished one to a Razor
-bike squad x 3
-Dread
-DP
-Tactical squad AoBR
-Assault squad
-Terminator squad AoBR
I really don't see me trying to deep strike the LR or using Termies. I want to sell the Bike due tue clearing space for BAAL FA now. So here's what I'm thinking

HQ- Dante with SANG Guard
Heavy Support- Vindicator
FA- 2 Baal Preds
Elietes- 2 Sang Priests
Troops- RAS x5 in Razor HF
RAZ x5 in Razor HF
Rhino with DC 5 or more
DP with Furioso
DP with Furioso

I'll allocate extra equipment as points allow
What you think? Thoughts I need some figs.. sigh cha ching!

Ok, here are my quick thoughts. 2 dreads in pods is good. Play your LR and fill it with nasty things. Drop one of the pods empty, and run the occupant behind your LR. Get a chaplain in there. They still control DC dreads right? I don't actually have the full codex yet. :) I'm not sure you need Dante. Just put a cheapo libby in there. Run the LR down his throat with the dread behind supported by Baals. Drop the empty pod turn one for DP Assault. Drop it near a far away objective to contest it. Move up your LR and boys so that on turn two, when hopefully your 2nd pod comes down, there is so much to worry about that that dread will live. Razors with RAZ squads and tacticals are both strong choices still. If you play a tac, get a Las in there. DC in a rhino is ok. Give a few Power Weapons and you are good.

I have yet to playtest any thing so I am just going on my 40k knowledge of what makes a good list.

I will hopefully get in a playtest game this weekend with my new list. THen I can give some real advice! JB

Painting a Death Company Dreadnought

Introducing Old Shatter Hands! Jawaballs Productions is proud to announce the first guest writer on The Blood Angels and Warhammer 40k. He has been a frequent commenter and contributer for years, and now it is official. I have had the pleasure to meet and play with him personally and am looking forward to many more articles from him to come as he develops his own Blood Angels army.

Jawaballs

My debut on The Blood Angels and Warhammer 40k Blog will be ushered in by this magnificent robot, the Death Company Dreadnought. Great in girth and stature, this fellow is going to make a great addition to my Blood Angels force. Having played him only once in a game, I don't have much to say about him tactically, but I know he'll make a mess of any heretical Space Marines that get in his way. Painting-wise this was a surprisingly quick job because I limited my palette to black, red, bone and metallic colors. 

So much of painting is method, process and the order of things. The first thing I did was paint all the parts I wanted metal. These are back portions of the model, all the mechanical bits and the gun barrels. I coated them in Boltgun Metal, let it dry and then did a liberal wash of Badab Black. When that was dry, I then did another wash of Badab Black. Let that dry and then highlightted the edges with Boltgun Metal again. I then picked out little highlights with Mithril Silver here and there.

Next it was time to paint the markings and insignias. For the wounds on Sanguinius, I painted an X with Mecharite Red, then did a coat of Vallejo Carmine Red. I tightened it up by outlining it with Chaos Black, then I highlighted it with Blazing Orange. 

To make this dreadnought a true Blood Angels creation, I ordered Blood Angels Etched Brass from Forge World along with the kit. The Crux Terminatus on his right chest-plate signifies this Dreadnought as once part of the Blood Angels 1st Company before succumbing to the Black Rage, reaching near-death and then being encased in a mechanical body. The details on the Etched Brass are extremely fine and you need to make sure you have watered down your paints when painting them as you can easily lose the detail with thicker paint. I lightly brushed on Khemri Brown and cleaned up any mistakes with Black. Then I took thinned down Bleached Bone and painted it on, as though light was coming top-down. Then I thinned out some Skull White and painted the top portions to complete the look. Then I painted the blood drop Carmine Red, highlighted it slightly with Blazing Orange and painted in a dot of Skull White. 

Once I had painted all of the details and insignias, I started on highlighting the black. I mixed 2:1 Chaos Black with Shadow Grey and brushed on light highlights on the edges of the armor plates. I used a semi-thin brush for this. Then I took Shadow Grey mixed it with Skull White about 1:1. I made sure it was thinned down enough as I only wanted to produce thin lines on the hard edges of the model. I took my smallest brush to paint these on. You have to exercise a certain about of restraint when painting black and I made sure to leave most of the black as a flat color. Once that was done, I moved on to the claws. I wanted these to rally stand out but I wanted to keep an element of realism so I decided not to painted bright blue or red, and instead chose a metallic color with hints of red. 

I painted the claws Boltgun Metal and then washed them with Badab Black. I waited for the wash to dry and I highlighted with Boltgun Metal, followed by Mithril Silver. Then I grabbed my pot of Dark Flesh. I took some out and watered it down to the consistency of a wash. I lightly feathered on the Dark Flesh wash on the claws. I waited for that to dry, then I feathered on some more of my Dark Flesh wash and repeated this process until I had nearly flat Dark Flesh at the base of the claws. To clean it up a bit, I highlighted with Mithril Silver once more. I really liked how this looked and I had leftover Dark Flesh wash so I went around on the metallic parts of the model and brushed in the color. It added a layer of corrosion to the metal and added hints of red here and then. It really worked well. 

I painted the gold Imperial Aquillas and purity seals, nothing special here but when that was complete I was done. This towering behemoth is ready to return to service for the Emperor.