Community time!

Here are some snippets from the community.

First, I got an email from a blog reader who liked my Mephiston conversion so much he wanted to try his own!

I think this conversion is again WAY better than the existing Mephiston model.  And the vampire wings were a nice touch.

In other news, a new commission site called Worthy Painting is having a promotional giveaway in conjunction with my friends from the great white north Mini Wargaming whom I had the pleasure to meet at Gamesday.  These guys are giving away a thousand POUNDS worth of loot (I think thats about 1600 bucks) and all you have to do to qualify for the give away is to subscribe to the site and email them.I think I'm going to enter myself, and if I win, give the loot to one of you! :)  Here is some video from Worthy Painting:



Emails:

I get lots and lots of emails asking for advice on list building.  There are two kinds of requests. The first is from beginners asking me to tell them what to play.  They have no idea what lists work and are looking for a starting point.  For these guys I can't really do much list analysis and I hate to pigeon hole beginners into a specific list. So I usually tell them to go with their hearts, and use one of the lists over on the right as a starting point.  Most of these guys, by the time they figure things out, would probably not be playing the list I gave them any way.  So if you fall into that category, Go with your heart!  I started with Whirlwinds and scouts and hell, I almost won Ren Man at Nova this year with two squads of scouts in my army, including Close Combat scouts!

Now the other type of requests I get are from guys who have obviously done their leg work. And these I love to answer.  Usually they are guys prepping for a tournament and need some final advice on tweaking their list. Recently I responded to one, and got this reply:

Hello Mr. Jawaballs
First of i want to say that I'm not a celebrity whore and I'm not
trying to make you my best friend, but after the last mail about my
jump pack list I started Thinking. After the thinking was done I sad
down and wrote my army list over again. When that army list was
complete i saw one of your old live shows and you said that Dante was
bad... Correction, horrible. So afterwords i sad down again and
rewrote the list so there was no Dante, But that meant no Sanguinary
Guard as troops, and since i had used all of the elites i had to think
again. The point being, I can't use the army list before you approve
it as playable. Or maybe there's something that needs to be changed.
So here you go Mr. Jawaballs, The best army list in the world!

Ps. did you get some inspiration from the last list??? And BTW i'm
from Denmark so my spelling may not be that good

Blood Rain

HQ
Reclusiarch Tenebrae
Reclusiarch With Jump Pack  155


Librarian Cronus
Librarian With Jump Pack, Shield Of Sanguinius  125
And The Sanguine Sword

Honour Of Blood
Honour Guard With Bolt Pistols, Jump Packs,  270
Blood Champion, Chapter Banner, Power Fist
And 2 Power Weapons.
Joined By Reclusiarch And Librarian

Elites
Priest Purpureus
Sanguinary Priest With Jump Pack And  100
Power Fist

Priest Albulus
Sanguinary Priest With Jump Pack And  100
Power Fist

Priest Pulliaceus
Sanguinary Priest With Jump Pack Power Fist  115
And Infernus Pistol

Troops
White Wing Strike
5 Man Assault Squad With Power weapon  130
And Infernus Pistol.
Joined By Priest Purpureus

Blood Drop Support
5 Man Assault Squad With 2 Hand Flamers.  120
Joined By Priest Albulus

Heavy Red
5 Man Assault Squad With Infernus Pistol.  145
And Thunder Hammer
Joined By Priest Pulliaceus

Fast Attack
Red Lightning
Vanguard Veteran Squad With Jump Packs,  240
2 Power Weapons, Power Fist And Storm Shield

Total  1500

Looks like I need to be careful what I say!  First of all, don't worry, I understand.  But lets talk about Dante for a second.  He is not horrible. He gives a nice debuff to your opponent, and allows you to put something deadly right where you want it.  But in comparison to Dante of old, (PDF Dante) he is not as good, not even close.  I don't recall but I believe he is more points now.  Feel free to look em up.  But there are two translation omissions from PDF to Codex that really hurt. First of all, the Perdition pistol used to act as a regular melta gun with a 12" range. Now it is just a melta pistol with 6" range, 3" melta range.  This means you will never be able to attach him to a squad of more than 5 guys and use it upon landing.  You have to be WITHIN 3" of a vehicle to use it. You don't scatter, but you have to ring the squad around Dante.  So placing him WITHIN 3" of a vehicle means that it is impossible to get more than one ring around him upon deepstrike, which means that he will not be able to have more than 6 or 7 models land with him.  Small point, probably circumventable, and probably a non issue.

But the glaring omission is his preferred enemy bubble. The PDF Blood Angels were amazing with their Ven Diagram of Death.  Corbulo and Dante had bubbles of Furious Charge and Preferred Enemy.  This was awesome.  The perferred enemy was removed from Dante.  This is bad.  

In return for the loss, he got a death mask which helps a bit in close combat, a -1 stats debuff to enemy IC, and the ability to turn San Guard into troops.  Well, the debuff is pretty much a free ticket to bad sportsmanville. (Guys hate that, and most cannot separate themselves from dinging your sportsman score for "cheating".)  And San Guard as troops is nice, but when you think about the fact that they are probably not going to survive, ever, not so good.  These guys are going to be in the hottest zone on the table. They are going to be facing the worst the enemy has to offer, suffering terrible psychic powers and hordes of power weapons.  Having them as scoring matters not when they are all dead.  See the point?  Besides, I am not sold on the value of the San Guard any way.  3 attacks on the charge, no invul, very expensive.  One squad as a fire magnet may be a good idea, but lots of them is a point sink that is one Plasma Vet Squad away from dead.

So where does that leave me with this list? 

I like your non character approach.  Mephiston, for all of his awesome, is expensive.  I have not decided if he is better than a chaplain/lib combo instead.  

I like your honor guard choice. The wargear is appropriate.

I dislike your priest choices.  Take the fists off. They are independent characters, and as such, will be targeted hard.  If they are waiting until last in combat to take their swipes, they probably won't get them.  Smart players target them and simply take em out with a power weapon.  Give them Power Weapons instead, and take a couple infernus pistols with the savings.

In your troops drop your infernus pistols and hand flamers and go with Melta Guns.  The loss of a single chainsword attack is minimal compared to the range of the Melta Gun.  The hammer is nice though, but in a 5 man squad you run the danger of losing them before ever using it.

Vanguard Vets?  I love em.  

Sadly though, DoA Blood Angels are a 50/50 army.  You will win big or lose big. You will never be able to win those drawn out slug fests, or have the versatility to win the wonky missions.  You have one tactic choice, full attack.  When that fails, and it will half the time, you will lose.  But you will have fun doing it.

Hope that helps!  

Thats all I have time for today!  Nova Review next.

Jawaballs

Regular scheduled programming resumes...

Hey folks,

Summer is over, and I am now sitting in my blogging position of choice, my classroom at school.  So it is time to get back to blog business! Once I get settled into my new Apt., I moved last night, I will work on uploading more content from both Gamesday and Nova.

What do I have planned for you this year?  Well I am currently working on the first of a series of posts over on BOLS about the elements and principles of art and how they relate to gaming and the hobby. Most of you won't find much value in it, but I'm sure some of you will!  Look for that soon.

My 2k point army is done for Nova, and frankly I don't plan on changing the list much for the fall GT season.  It is not the strongest list, but damn it took a lot out of me over the summer to paint it.  Besides, I like the challenge of figuring out how to win with a list that is not designed to.  I did manage to win four games at The Nova Open though!  You can follow my thoughts and tactics as they evolve with the list.

What this means is that it is time for new projects.  Firstly I am going to finish a Black Templars army commission that has been sitting on my desk for a year now.  The customer diligently paid a little at a time and now it is time to finish it up and get it out to him.

Then I have several other projects I plan on getting done.

A demon lord commission
A Tau army
Grey Knights (my new competitive army)
I plan on painting an army of Knights in the same style I used for the weapons of my Nova army.
Complete site revamp for Jawaballs Productions
Completely new and vastly improved tutorial videos
The Jawaballs Guide to Codex Blood Angels PDF (It was at about 30 pages last time I worked on it.)
Relaunch of the Jawa-Forge!  I will be launching a bunch of new resin base lines and am working on things like Rhino Doors and other cool resin products.

Oh and then there was The Nova.  What a weekend!  I ended up 4-4 on the tables, but that was not why I went.  When I got there I quickly realized that competition for painting honors would be stiff and fierce. Right out of the gates there were some beautifully converted IG armies using Skaven, a sick IG army that looked like Cobra from GI Joe,  a very cool space marine army with hand painted sun images, and dozens of other armies equally gorgeous.  Honestly I had little hope for my chances to place.

SO, I was surprised to find out at the end of the Nova that I had been selected as a finalist in both Best Army and Best Single Miniature!  I mean, I knew my army would be in the top ten, but it was an honor to see it up there for the best.  And Single Mini???  The Sanguinor was chosen as one of the top 5 models in the room.  Holy Crap!  Of the literally thousands of models to choose from, the model was standing there next to a small handful of truly perfect paint jobs.  Bob Evers had a fantastic Land Raider with a beautiful dragon painted on it and I thought for sure he would win.  He truly impressed me with his skill.  Pics to come.

I was blown away when my name was called as Best Single Mini winner.  It was a humbling honor.  While my ultimate goal of Best Army stopped just short, I have nothing but congrats in my heart for the winner. His Cobra Command army was one of the most unique armies I have ever seen.  And as per the rubric, he crushed me on conversions.  Two other armies were selected as finalists, Joe Johnson's Salmon/Skittle marines and Sandwyrm's Gorgeous IG!  I'm not sure if there was a 5th.

Oh and Myself, Stout Smurf and Brother Captain James, who filled in for Fritz who had to deal with private concerns, won Best Team Presentation!  That was something that we knew we could take, and we went for it hard.  Our three piece display board was awesome and our armies worked well as a whole, VISUALLY.  On the tables we got thumped hard.  I was the only one of us to win a singles game which I did by crushing an Ork army, and Smurf and BCJ were the only combo to win a duos game.

Speaking of crushing, my list managed to brutalize some folks. It was deadly efficient at making armies disappear when the right circumstances presented themselves.  The terrain at The Nova helped.  Three times, vs orks, IG and Deathwing, I set up my massive assault, then unleashed it on turn 3.  Leaving behind nothing bot vaporized boot heels, exploded vehicles and gallons of gore. The Ork player admitted that he has never quite taken a beating like that.  I held him at bay for 2 turns by keeping Mephiston behind cover in the center of the table and positioning the rest of my troops, then launched a coordinated assault.  True that his mek Shields failed, but such is fate.  The orks were wiped to a man.

Then I got some Deathwing terminators on the table played by a fun and cool dude.  He bravely charged ahead, but kept them all clustered where I could multi assault.  One minute he had 25 or so terminaters, a land raider crusader and belial, and the next turn they were dead.

One of the funnest games of the weekend for me was game 4 vs IG blob.  Having earned some experience on how to deal with blog guard in hard boys, I did not take this army likely. (I'm sure the player was used to unsuspecting marine players charging his ranks and getting ganked.)  So I took my time, played the terrain, and lined him up for my biggest assault yet.  I think the body count was well over 65 to my zero wounds suffered in return.  The highlight of the game though was my scouts going toe to toe with 4 Sentinals and emerging victorious.  That power fist was glowing! This was also the only game that I did not score perfect sportsmanship in.  There were three choices filled out by the opponent.  Basicly Bad, Average and Excellent. Most of the games should have fallen within the Average category. But in all of my Trios games, and my first three I was excellent. My game four opponent even admitted that we had an excellent game, but circled average! Guess he didn't appreciate watching his entire army evaporate. ;)

I also took my share of licks. I was pretty much tabled by Nids and Dark Eldar, had a tough loss vs Space Wolves and a fun loss vs IG in my last game.  More on that later.



I did take pics of the painting finalists. I will do a post tomorrow for them all, as well as a Nova recap.

Until then, thanks go out to Mike Brandt for such a great event.

Oh and Grats to Nick Nanavati on winning the invitational!  While my prediction of a 50% GK showing in the invitational did not come true, (I believe it was more like 25%)  Or did I predict 25%? I forget.  No matter. I also predicted a GK win, and fore warned that Nick would be a force to reckon with.  His list was brutal and he knew how to use it.  Grats to you Nick for the win!

Jawaballs

Dawn of the Nova

It is 10pm on Tuesday night. In just over a day and a half, Myself, Fritz, Smurf and his nephew will be packing ourselves into the Smurf-Mobile for our trek to the Earthquake rattled DC area.  Not since Bolscon have I so anticipated a 40k event.

Maybe that is because this is the kickoff to the fall 40k GT circuit.  Maybe it is because I will be seeing so many guys I have come to call friends.  Maybe it is because over the last 6 weeks I have logged no less than 240 hours painting my army and am eager to have it finally on display.  Much to the chagrin of my occupational therapist. A few weeks ago she asked me if I could just not paint for a while... Hah.  :)

Here is my finished Sanguinor.

Well almost, I still have to add flocking to his base.

Why so much time? I guess Fritz put it best the other day.  Fame is fleeting. Memories are fickle.  If you don't represent yourself hard and often, then you fade away!  The last couple years I have been concentrating on my list building and playing. Sure I have won a lot of games, but my painting has taken a slight hit.  It is good enough to still compete for honors, or at least be noticed, but recently my armies have been flat. Good. But not good enough.  I decided to change that for this Nova.  

Updated Mephiston! New base, new highlights, new sword, fixed damage.

First, I decided on a list full of models I love.  I decided to make list strength a secondary factor to beautiful models.  

Then I painted up 32 new infantry to a very high degree.  20 assault marines, 10 scouts, 2 priests with JP, and the Sanguinor.  Then I touched up the few existing models I was going to play. My 5 termies, chaplain, meph and another priest.  

Part of the process, for EVERY model in my army, was to do a new base.  I hand built, painted and flocked each base in the army. Jawa resin bases are nice, but they are a convenient short cut.  For this army I wanted every base to tell a story, and I wanted every base to appear as if it was the actual terrain of my display board.  I explored the use of materials I have never tried before, like static grass and long field grass.  I also broke into color schemes that are new to me.  For my painting, I tried a risky new style. I don't know how it will do with the judges, but it definitely leaves an impression.

I built a new display board, and am right now prepping a new soundtrack for my embedded epic music!

All this for The Nova.  Mike Brandt has planned a truly epic event.  The man deserves credit.  I have never planned an event of my own, but I have spoken pretty closely with Ed Miller and Ultrabob from Battle For Salvation, Tony Spino of Mechanicon, Aaron from The Conflict GT, and Mike Clark from Showcase Comics and Games and The Valentines Day Massacre. After quite a few beers shared with the crew, I feel that I have at least a decent understanding of what they do.  It is nothing less than monumental. My hats off to Mike Brandt. Let me be the first (at least on my blog) to thank you Mike for doing this.  

I also want to throw out a shout to Battlefoam. I don't think Romeo got enough praise for what he provided for the Heroes of Armageddon project. He truly does give when it comes to these events and Battlefoam will be in full force at The Nova. While I love my current bag, it just wont do for all of these new and unique models. As a show of thanks for what he did for our charity project, I will be stopping in to see him and putting in an order for a new custom bag for this army!  Win or Lose this army will be staying together and as is.  Battlefoam will be it's transport.

Ok time to get to work again.  I have to add squad markings, and finish the bases, and the army is done.  Then I need to finish the display and have a scotch.  

Oh that reminds me! Tomorrow I have to make a stop at the package store for a bottle of 12 year old single malt.  It will not be the Nova without Whiskey! 

Oh I forgot to mention I will be playing Man Boy Genius, Rob Baer for the whiskey challenge!  I was supposed to get my hands on Brent, but work said no way for him.  So Rob is the next chump...er champ in line.  I owe him a couple punches in the face for the beatings he has given me in the past, but we have not matched up since the old days of the PDF, and I was still playing a Whirlwind.  Oh yes... it will be a different game MBG.  Muahaha.

Jawaballs  

2nd squad is finished! Close Combat Scouts. And Terminator upgrades!

Pant.. pant.. pant....

I have a huge crink in my back, my arm is numb and my left eye fell out long ago. But Things are coming along!  My display board is taking shape, and I finished the second scout squad. Now I am working on bringing my existing terminators into line with my current paint style.

Terminator before update

Terminator after. Not much of a difference. I added dark lines in the recesses and an extreme highlight.  The reinforced contrast should bring them in line with the rest of the models in this army.  Once the basing has been finished they should pop.

Scout Squad Bruno

I am digging the green touch of grass.

Very different base because this model will actually be standing on a cobblestone road on the display.

All of the models are based appropriately to their location on the display. Bruno here is standing at the base of a collapsed castle wall. The brick on the ground is mossy and overgrown. Some poor serf was unable to get out of the way. And yes, Bruno has converted himself a Combi Melta!

I have been trying to tell a story with every base I do. In this one, yet another 

long dead human is digging his way from the afterlife.

Peekaboo! I am hoping people looking at my army will have fun looking for little surprises. 

Time to finish the termies!  

There is light at the end of the tunnel!

Jawaballs

Jawaballs Nova Army 2011. 1st squad is finished!

The first squad of my 2011 Nova Open army has rolled off the line tonight. Done, based and ready to fight!

I give you Scout Squad Ellis. Attached to the Blood Angels 2nd Company under Lord Mephiston. Ellis is the sniper without the cloak behind the broken cross tombstone looking down range.  These guys have been ordered by Lord Mephiston to take up position in an ancient cemetery and hold for orders.  Their instructions are to engage enemy scouts from range. But Bior, the scout with the Missile Launcher, may have bigger issues on his hands...

For this squad I used a combination of Long field grass, scorched static grass

and olive green moss as complimentary green to the reds. I will use this theme throughout the army.

This scout found great cover behind a tombstone.

Ellis relays communications to the rest of the army inbound.

Awaiting orders.

Scanning the horizon.

Ants in his pants?

Thats no moon!

Something moved out yonder...

Ok folks. I'm getting a bit loopy. These five guys might not be all that effective in game, but I think they will add a great element of cool to my display.  :)

Oh, I just got notification that I will be playing the one and only Rob Baer of Spikey Bits fame for the Whiskey Challenge!  I have played him several times in various tournaments, and I don't think I have ever beaten him. Knowing Rob, he will be packing a nasty Crowe Gk list. I hope so!  I would love to test my list against one of the best.

Time to get your lickins Baer!  See you Thursday.

Jawaballs

NMM Sanguinor and Jawaballs Nova Army WIP video!

Hey folks!

So I have been working like mad trying to finish my army for The Nova Open.  My intentions? I want to compete for Best Painted and/or Renaissance Man.  Haha, lofty goals huh?  Well, last year I was .01 points away from winning Ren Man with an army that I admit was not my best.  This year I decided to bring nothing less than the best I can do, on every model.  To a degree. There are many different interpretations of what is "best".  Some people think nothing but flawless blending with no highlights at all is best. Some think that purely realistic with massive wear and tear is.  I have decided that this time, my best will be a very stylized and almost "cartoony" army.  I am working Non metallic metals, and all of my models have many layers of shading, blending and layering, but they are finished with a bold, stylized line edge.

Joe Johnson proved that you can win Best Painted with a very untraditional style of painting.  His "Salmon Pink" creamsicle marines have won the award many times out here on the east coast.  It was his inspiration, along with techniques I have developed recently as my painting style evolved that brought me to my current army look.  Rather than trying to copy what has come before, I wanted to create something new and different, but no less beautiful.  That is evidenced in my scouts and assault marines.

With that I give you my Sanguinor model. I decided to include him in my list very recently, and wanted to give the model my first real try at NMM gold.

Here he is mostly finished! I just have to do the peripheral details that will take just a few minutes. 

And if you want to see the rest of the army check out my video:

I will post an update of this soon!

Let me know what you think.

Jawaballs

Busy Day! PIC HEAVY

Fist of all I wanted to share links from the GW website:
I won Best Banner at Gamesday and they got it posted up!

But they misspelled my name... :(

But I didn't stop there!  I made their website again as part of the Heroes of Armageddon club table!

Fritz managed to sneak in there as well!

The club table won Best Theme!

I have more Gamesday videos coming soon.

Now for the real purpose of posting today.  A step by step of my new model:

The Sanguinor:

I am following the Sanguinor guide from Whtie Dwarf, April 2010

The first layer of paint is a 50/50 mix of Calthan Brown and Snakebite

Then Snakebite with a pinch of Bleached Bone.

Then a 2/1 Snakebite and Bleached Bone

Then a 50/50 Snakebite and Bleached

All the way to a 1/2 Snakebite Bleached

Then a wash in the recesses with Dark Flesh

Then some Dark flesh mixed with black

Then pure bleached bone highlights followed by extreme highlights with White

Then a wash with watered down Sunburst yellow to make it more goldy

After the yellow wash I hit it with a watered down Leviathan Purple in the recesses

and did the details like wings and such my standard Codex, Fortress and White

Finally I retouched the highlights on the armor with bleached bone mixed with Glaze Medium

and then the final white highlights again. 

At this point I glued the backpack to the stand and base coated the scrolling Bestial Brown.  I cannot work further on the model for fear of damaging the paint.  I will get pics of him finished up as soon as possible!

Assault marines next... :)

Jawaballs