Tournament Report: Jawaballs Blood Angels shakedown

I had the pleasure of playing at another Brothers Grim tournament this past weekend. They run them every other month. This weekend, I decided to go with a new Blood Angels list called the Bowling Ball of Doom.

Reclusiarch
Libby with Blood lance and Preferred enemy
2 priests with PW, one in Termy armor
5 assault termies 3 TH 2 LC
LRC with multi melta
Ras x2 with Razor, asscan, melta, PW
Ras with jump packs, melta pw
2 Baal preds
2 ac/lc preds

My battery was dead so I got little footage and what i did get is not worth posting cause it was hurried and boring. But I will summarize the games here.

Game One was against a guy I have seen often at the store and had many conversations with. He is a lawyer in the real life and you can tell that his profession translates into his gaming! :) He is a strong player and smart guy and fun to play against. He had a ultramarine list with 3 pods full of sternguard and tacticals, a couple of melta bikes, a termy squad with termy libby, a dread with TL Las, and scouts.

The mission was 5 objectives DOW. He began by dropping two pods right in front of my line of armor but rolled poorly on his shots and did little damage. Then all but 5 sternguard vets died because they took a morale test and chose to fall back. I unloaded my LRC and slaughtered them. That is just about how the rest of the game went. He dropped guys in my assault range, and they died. Finally, I sent out my termies to start mopping up, and they got in range of his termies to charge. He was keeping them back. Surprisingly, my squad died and only managed to kill one or two of his! He killed my chaplain, libby, priest a LC term and 2 storm shields with 5 termies and a libby. But it was just a morale victory for him and a lesson for me. The game ended shortly after with me getting all but one battle point.

Game two found me matched up against a TAU player who crushed his opponent. It was bases with a modified deployment. The board was cut into two corners and I deployed as far as I could, in assault reach of his base. But he seized the initiative and blew up my razor back and immobilized my LRC! My squad would have to advance on foot! No worries though. On turn 3 they made it into assault with the troops he had on his base. A few minutes later and 12 kroot, 10 fire warriors, a full squad of pathfinders and a squad of suits with drones lay dead at my feet and his base was squarely mine. At that point I sent off my chaplain to deal with a pesky squad of suits that had been moving out of range after shooting... he left them just close enough for me to reach them, and they died. My termy priest went after his broadsides in the corner and cut them down. This game ended in a turn 5 tabling.

Game three had me lined up against an Eldar army for the tournament win. I was one point away from the top guys at table one. But looking across the table at my opponent I have to say I was worried. He had 3 serpents with fire dragons in each and 3 falcons with Dire Avengers. In reserve he had a jacked out seer council on bikes. Oh yes, I came up against the best tournament list the Eldar could muster in a mission tailored for them to win. Kill points with a unique twist. There were 5 scattering objectives. Every turn all 5 scattered. We could claim them as normal objectives at the end of the game. For every one that we claimed, we scored 2 kill points! That would come in huge for me.

The game started off well though. I won the roll to go first, and scout moved my Baals up, then moved 12". Next thing you know I was all the way across the table and taking side shots at his transports from point blank range. Between the preds and my las/ac fire, I destroyed one Serpent and killed a squad of dragons. The next turn I immobilized another serp with dragons. He was definitely not used to seeing his tanks dead! All he had to do was use his speed to stay out of my reach, and pop my transports with his ranged weapons, then at the end swoop in for the bonus points. But the scatters favored me! They clustered every thing into the center of the table, forcing him to dance around on the edges. I managed to take down all three of his serps, all of the dragons inside, and almost wiped out his council. I left a Baal in their assault range when they came on the table knowing that he would viciously take it down, it was responsible for killing two squads of dragons! But I moved up a razor back into nearby ruined building terrain and waited for him to come. Sure enough, he brought them in, an exploded the tank, but could not consolidate, and that left him just close enough for me to assault with a squad with a priest. My plan was to get in with the first squad, then pile on ICs as I broke them off the terminators and ran them over. The first squad made a boat load of armor saves and FNP saves while failing to do much damage before he got his shields up. The next round I got could not reach him with any other ICs and he managed to get his shields up, and we both got a kill. The next turn I managed to get my libby in, but every one else was short. After all they had to mop up an immobiized serpent and dragon squad. This was my best chance because the libby blocked his shield power and I won the combat by two, but he made his leadership test and held. At the end of the game, I had a squad that was able to claim three of the objectives and he was unable to reach them with his turbo boosting falcons. That gave me the edge in KPs and the win! But failing to kill his seer council left me with a draw on the secondary objective which was to kill his HQ and I failed to score two of the bonus points. I ended the game 7 points shy, and 8 points shy of maximum for the day. That would leave me at 2nd place in the tournament.

I didn't see what the final standings were because I had to jet after awards were passed out. Sick baby and angry wife needed me home and it was already 9pm and I had a 1.5 hour drive. I did win a Baal Predator though!

Yet another well run Grim tournament. The missions as always were unique and fun and the players are top notch. I only wish they could start them up earlier! I think as time goes on and the baby gets older, devoting entire days to gaming will become tougher and tougher. We did not start rolling dice until almost 12:30 pm. By 12:30 I had already been up for 6 hours and had been waiting at Grim for 2 because I thought it was supposed to start sooner. In my opinion this one, and all tournaments like the ones I have gone to in Scranton PA, should start at 10am. That gives dudes with families a chance to have their cake and eat it too. We can get in a day of gaming, then spend an evening with the wife watching some crap movie. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and being away an entire day costs me dearly! After speaking to Dave who organizes the day I know why he rolls at noon, he is there until 3am the night before because Grim runs late night gaming on Fridays and the man needs some rest. I can see that. But also he said something about guys not getting up early enough to show up on time which I don't agree with. It was a 40 man tournament with a pretty big wait list. Guys were driving 2 and 3 hours to get there and showing up early. I don't think it would be any problem at all filling a Grim tournament with 40 guys who want to show up at 10am at this point.

Ick listen to me! I am talking like a family guy. How my life has changed. A year ago I would not have even thought about that stuff. Oh the nasty twists of life.

More to come...

Pawn Stars! or fraud stars? And Blood Angels news.

I have become a fan of the History chanel show Pawn Stars. The premise of the show is that some dudes own a pawn shop, and people come in to sell stuff. The guys walk you through the history of the item on camera, then tries to buy the item for very little, and sell it for a lot. Occasionally they bring in an expert on some of the stuff to get the item appraised, then haggle over the price. The big moments are when they get an item like an antique Coke machine for 100 bucks, then get it fixed up and make 8 grand on it. One thing that is consistent, when some one comes in with an item, no matter what, the shop owners cut the asking price by more then half, then cap what they will pay at just above half.

In other words. They find out what an item is worth, and either pay half of that price, or don't buy it. That means they make back 100% of their investment. Standard wholesale practice. Buy an item, sell it for twice what you paid for it. Most of the time, they get the item for less then half it's price and make great money.

That brings me to the episode I just watched. A guy who had previously sold them a high end crossbow came in again, with another bow. He claimed that he lost his job and needed some quick cash so had to sell his super duper bow, described by him as the best bow in the world. The guy was also wearing a shirt plastered with the logo of the company who made the bow. He dealt out his pitch, talking up how awesome the bow is. Then the show cuts to a scene about the store owner also talking up how awesome the bow is. Then they cut back to the guys talking about the bow, and start dickering over price. In almost all situations I hvae seen, this portion goes on for at least a few minutes, with 5 or 6 counter offers until they arrive at a price.

Well not this time. This time, the owner asks for a price, something like 1500, and the shop owener inexplicably offers him 1300 as a counter. (I rounded the prices for simplicity) The bow oner accepts and the show goes on. Wait... what? In any other deal, the shop owner would always start at less then half of what the guy was asking, then dicker him up to just over half. This time he offers him almost what he asked for it with no bartering at all?

I call sheet.

The first thing I did was do a quick ebay search for the same bow. It is going for 400 bucks. The one in this episode had upgrades, but still. The shop owner is smart and rarely makes a mistake. He knows what an item is worth, and does not take the customers word for it, and he NEVER pays more then 50% of it's retail value.

Why this time? That is what brings me to my point. I was just duped again by corporate America. Only this time I was tricked into watching a 20 minute advertisement for this particular bow. Further, these guys were even more sneaky by using a popular television show to make it look like there was even more interest in this bow then a commercial could. The show gives it validity.

Later on, they take the bow to an archery shop, and have the owner look at it. The archery owner breaks into another synopsis of why the bow is awesome, and offers to sell it for the pawn shop. Finally they go out back and shoot it, two of the doofus pawn shop guys nearly hitting the bulls eye, showing just how easy it is to shoot this bow. See, any one can!

Even if the bow was worth 2 grand brand new retail, there is no way the pawn guy would pay 1300 bucks for it, since that is just about what he would be able to sell it for. Plus, the bow retails for around 1300 bucks and is currently on ebay for less then half that. The speed at which he came to an agreement calls to question the validity of the purchase. Finally, they had three different scenes talking about how awesome the bow was. These facts burn my craw.

Grr.

Oh, and I played in a tournament this weekend, and won all three of my games, taking 2nd. More on that later this week! Jawaballs

Tonight on Jawaballs Live!

Join me as I paint a set of 10 resin bases for my newest squad, and hear some exclusive behind the scenes thoughts as I talk about my Hard Boys list! I won't be posting this stuff up on the blog so catch the broadcast! 6pm EST.

Find my live broadcast here

Jawaballs

Ork question?

When an ork truk moves over 12", may they disembark and still assault?

When you take a warboss on a bike, you are allowed to take biker boys as troops. Biker boys normally are Fast Attack. Does this allow you to take biker boys to fill the two troop requirements in the force org chart? Or do you have to take them as FA that score objectives. Can you also take them as FA? Can any ork experts please shed some light on this? Feel free to expand on this. I have a buddy who is getting into 40k and likes orks, so he was asking me these questions... and having not looked at the dex, I just don't know the answers.

Jawaballs

Jawaballs Approved new Blood Angels 1850 list

Here you go guys, my new list:

Points need to be tweaked a bit, but it is about 1850.

Mephiston

Assault Squad
Power weapon
melta gun
razorback
assault cannons

Assault Squad
power weaon
melta gun
razor back
assault cannons

Assault squad
power weapon
razor back
TL las can

scouts
fist
combi melta

Sanguinary priest with PW

Sanguinary priest with claw

Baal predator
heavy bolters

baal predator
heavy bolters

baal predator with flame storm
heavy flamers

Predator
las sponsons

predator
las sponsons

vindicator

Battle Report: Blood Angels vs Ultramarines

Wow, I have a lot of batreps to write! I got in two games on Friday and one on Sunday. Here is game one from Friday.

My 1850 list vs Ultramarines

Casius in Land Raider with 3 ss/th and 2 lc termies
10 scouts
20 tacticals and a captain via drop pod
5 deep striking termies
marines in a rhino


Mission:
Kill points

Deployment:
I forget, I think 12" edge

Turn 1:
I win the die roll and elect to go first. I deploy every thing except for my 3 baals and the scouts.

Not a lot happens for me this turn. I fire some shots, damage a rhino and thats about it. Mephiston nestles in behind my Vindicator and I wait for him to come down in pods.

On his turn, as expected, he drops his pod right in front of my Vindi and pops it. He combat squaded the troops inside. He moved up his Land Raider.

Turn 2:
Not much shooting occurs yet. I snipe some ineffective shots at his Land Raider and none of my other shooting does much at all. But in assault, mephiston and an assault squad cut down his tactical squad. I should have killed the pod some how too though. It enabled terminators and another pod to drop right in my midst next turn.

On his turn he brought the pain. The land raider unloaded, and another pod came down. His scouts came onto the left side of the table.

Turn 3:
Game is moving fast. Mephiston and company destroy the second tactical squad. But that is it for squishy scrubs. A baal Pred comes on and cuts down 8 of the scouts.

On his turn, he assaults Mephiston and wins the fight! Mephiston is broken and falls back. Guh. He also brought in a squad of terminators... It was getting messy.

Turn 4:
A flame tank came on for me and I ran it towards his squad in the back who was pinned down from a destroyed rhino. My baal finished off his scouts. Mephiston continued to fall back and ran off the table. :( I started shooting all I could at his termies but failed to do much damage.

On his turn he tried assaulting my tanks, but I moved them 12" and he missed mostly.

The game was coming down to tied kill points and I had to wipe out 2 terminator squads.

To cut this one short, since I do not remember a lot of the details, It came down to me finally cutting down one of his terminator squads with torrent of fire, and immobilizing his Land Raider. I had the lead in Kill Points, and his only unit able to move any thing was at least 2 moves away from my fast vehicles that could just run away. He would not be able to score any more kill points. Game over.

Sorry for the abrupt batrep. I got in a lot of 40k this week and the details are foggy. I need to start writing these right away.

This victory showed again that the Blood Angels are capable of handling quite a lot assault power with very little. No, I did not manage to kill his termies in assault, but I did have enough fast moving Torrent of Fire to finish the job. This game proves that in a KP mission, blood angels can score them fast if needed. I had a lot of killy punch and was really just waiting for when I had to, to knock out his pods. This game did expose a chink in Mephiston though. He is NOT fearless! And Thunder Hammer termies are his bane, especially if he gets charged by them. How do I deal with them? I have to set them up and assault them with Mephiston and at least one other assault squad with a priest. I need two other power weapons in there to help.

More to come!

Jawaballs

New Blood Angels - Playtest Battle Report Video

Here is something that Rob Baer sent into me a while ago, I thought you all would enjoy it. Jawaballs

Hey guys, MBG back again with my first Blood Angels Playtest Video. We tried out the following list vs. my Mech guard.

Overall it was a good learning experience for what the new 'Angels are capable of, and how to go about it.

I like the fast moving vehicles, and the psykers, but I dont like the lack of long range fire. However I dont think I'll be able to get around the long range fire part, as my guts telling me the more competitive builds will be all out aggro assault.

1850 Mech Angels

• Librarian w/ Blood Lance, Shield of Sanguinius
• Brother Corbulo
• Furioso LIbrarian Dreadnought, BL SS
• Furioso LIbrarian Dreadnought, BL SS, Drop Pod
• Assault Squad 5 Man- Melta, P Fist, Razorback Las/Plas
• Assault Squad 5 Man- Melta, Razorback Las/Plas
• Assault Squad 5 Man- Melta, Razorback Las/Plas
• Assault Squad 5 Man- Melta, Razorback Las/Plas
• Baal Predator
• Baal Predator
• Baal Predator 

---

The basic idea of the list is to rush forward and pound the heck out of your enemy. The single Librarian model hangs out in a razorback and gives everything a 5+ cover save.

It was a good starting point to jump in on the angels, and use some of their special stuff, however I think the direction this list will end up taking is more assault troops with jump packs and enough armor just to screen them.




Game 2, same lists.




-MBG

So what do you think of the Battle Report? I tried to snazz it up a bit with some graphics, but am far from video mastery at this point.

Saab's Mission Highlight of the Week - Mission #2

First off, sorry for skipping a week. I was working on my progress report for my thesis committee, and it took more of my time than expected. However, now that it’s over, I have some extra free time to concentrate on “important things” like 40K.

I’m lucky enough that my local game store runs 10-week-long 40K leagues that are pretty much set list so you can’t “list tailor” when you find out who your opponent is. Best of all, the missions that the league organizer, Scott Wilson, writes are never the boring snooze-fests from the back of the book. Some of my favorite and most memorable games of 40K have been while using his missions, so expect to see them on the site from time to time. Also, if anyone travels to one of our Brs Grim Tournaments, this is the type of stuff to expect, since our Tournament Organizer also writes missions in a similar style.

Enough Talk
Let’s Play!

Download the Mission HERE
OR
https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0B3ESh4I4VF2aYTA4MjAwZmYtOThiZC00ZTVkLWExOWUtYTQ0NGU1NDM3YzU2&hl=en

The second mission I’m posting up is an exciting twist on deployment that is not played very often. In this mission you’ll be deploying from the short sides of the table, you know, the one that’s only 48 inches wide. To compensate for the length of the playing field, there are Special Rules for incorporating “Gate of Infinity-like” teleportation each turn. It all depends on how jawa-ballsy you want to get (wow, that was an awful pun). We’ve all done 5 objective games, so there’s nothing foreign there, but don’t forget that it must go to Turn 6 and Turn 7 is a 4+. There’s a great deal of tricks you can pull off with the Warp Field; things that Eldar would be proud of. So give it a shot and let me know how the games turned out!

-Greg(Saab)

Making a website, no clue what host to use? Let Jawaballs be your guide.

There are a lot of web host sites. I use Hostmonster. Why? Well, first of all, they are cheap and offer unlimited upload and download. But more importantly, and here is the thing that you simply cannot pay enough for, they have fantastic customer support! I have never seen a service that offers better. I highly suggest them to any one who is looking for a host! If you are, and you are ready to make that purchase, please click on this link:

CLICK HERE TO SIGNUP FOR HOSTMONSTER.COM

I get a little bonus! Help out the Jawababy!

Jawaballs

Jawaballs LIve is streaming NOW

Come check out Jawaballs Live! At 6pm EST.

Visit

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/jawaballs-live

This week I will be working on a new Razorback and talking about this past weekends tournament results with the new list.

Jawaballs

This week on Jawaballs Live!

This week on Jawaballs Live! I will be discussing the recent success of my new Blood Angels list, Mephiston, and an 1850 point tournament I attended over the weekend. And work continues on my new army, as well as discussion about future non Blood Angels plans!

More to come.

Jawaballs

Lists of the near future?

Here is some more from DocRailgun!

+++ Transmission Begins +++
One of the interesting things about the Blood Angel Codex is that a number of useful (we won't say "competitive", because that means a certain something in the 40K world) lists are possible even under 2000 points.

In 1850 points it's very easy to field lists such as these:
- a "Razor Rush" list meant to get in close combat in the relative safety of Fast Razorbacks -
HQ - Mephistion
Elite - 4 Sanguinary Priests with no upgrades
Troops - 5 x 5-man Assault Squads with a melta and a power sword in a Heavy Flamer-armed Razorback
Fast Attack - 2 x Baal Predators with heavy bolter sponsons, storm bolters and extra armor
Heavy Support - 2 x Autocannon Predators with lascannon sponsons and dozer blades

- a shooty mechanized list -
HQ - 2 basic Librarians with The Blood Lance and The Sanguine Sword
Troops - 5 x 5-man Assault squads with a melta and a power sword in a Twin-linked Lascannon-armed Razorback
Fast Attack - 2 x Baal Predators with heavy bolter sponsons, storm bolters, and extra armor
Heavy Support - an Autocannon/Lascannon Predator, a Las/Las Predator, and a Whirlwind with a dozer blade

- "The Tears of Sanguinius" - an assault-squad list
HQ - 2 basic librarians with The Blood Lance, The Sanguine Sword, and a jump pack
Troops - 4 x 10-man Assault Squad with 2 meltas and power fist, 1 x 10-man Assault squad with 1 melta and power fist, 1 x 5-man Scout Squad with a heavy bolter, 4 sniper rifles, and camo cloaks
Elite - 5 x Sanguinary Priests with jump packs and power swords

- "Echoes of the Past" - a super-elite army
HQ - Dante
Elite - 3 Sanguinary Priests with jump packs
Troops - 6 x 5-man Sanguinary Guard with Death Masks and an Infernius pistol

- "Warp Angels" - lots of psykers
HQ - 2 Librarians with jump packs, The Blood Lance and The Sanguine Sword
Elite - 3 Furioso Librarians with Wings of Sanguinius and The Sanguine Sword
Troops - 15 Death Company w/ jump packs, 6 power fists (or 10 power swords), Lemartes and 2 DC Furiosos with 2 Blood Talons

We could, of course go on and write some Dreadnought lists, or Storm Raven lists, or lists full of Assault Terminators with Sanguinary Priests in Deep Striking Land Raiders, but those are easily done as well.

So the question is, what will the lists opposing the BA look like fairly soon?

It seems safe to assume that a lot of lists now are melta and mech heavy lists. But what happens when there are 10 Lascannons on the field and 6 of them (twin-linked) can move 12" and still fire, and the others can be brought to bear while still moving 6"?

Does that bring out the footslogging armies packed with melta, or an arms race of lascannons? If the former, what is that countered with? Triple Vindicator and Triple Baal lists, or Furious Charging Assault squads with power sword lists?

What do people then field against the Sanguine Host? Land Raiders? Would that not bring the BA's Fast Lascannons back? As many Outflanking units as possible? Is that when the Blood Taloned Furiosos come out?

+++ Transmission Ends +++

Battle Report: Blood Angels vs Chaos Marines 1850

I went to my first tournament with the new codex over the weekend at The Unknown Comics and Games in Scranton, PA and had a great time! I want to begin by confirming what we already know... BA are Rock Hard. Here is game one.

My list:
Mephiston
2x Sanguinary Priest
3 Razorback assault squads
meltas, power weapons, 2x assault cannons, 1x TL Las
scout squad
fist and combi melta
3x Baal pred, 2 asscan 1 flamer, 1 heavy flamers 2 heavy bolters
2x Auto can preds with Las sponsons
1x vindicator

Chaos list:
Lots of plague marines, khorne berzerkers, and regular CSM.
Land Raider
Kharn
Full las pred
demon prince
rhinos
vindicator

Mission: 5 loot counters
Deployment: 12"

So, I won the roll to go first, and took the honor. I deployed, mostly in the middle. The objectives were set up in a triangle on the left, one in the center and one on the right. I flank marched my scouts and 3 preds.

My plan was simple. Ram that vindicator right up the middle with Mephiston hiding in it's ass. Support him with ass can fire and corral the enemy towards the objectives placed near the edges, and bring in the preds and scouts to mow them down.

Turn 1:
I open up with shooting at Rhinos and his Las pred. The pred is immobilized and I stun some rhinos. I ignored his Land Raider completely, and went towards the left. It would be a couple turns before I would have to deal with it. The Vindicator moved up 12" and fired, failing to do any damage, but it got his attention. Mephiston was hiding behind it. He tried to sneak a couple rhinos up on my left side towards objectives.

On his turn, not a lot happened. He returned fire but failed to do much damage. He moved up his transports on the left and popped smoke.

Turn 2:
I committed myself to destroying the two transports on the left filled with chaos marines and khorne berzerkers. I pumped all of the shots I had into them, destroying one and weapon destroying the other. Only my scouts came on that turn, and are the ones who popped the transport with the combi melta. So now I was faced with a decision. ASsault the scouts into the berzerkers, or try to escape! They would surely get cut down next turn. On the assault, Mephiston had jumped over to assault one of the squads, and got in on them, killing most of them. The scouts assaulted the other squad. I cant quite remember the exact details of this huge scrum at this point. Two scouts end up dieing thanks to Feel no Pain from my priest and they are locked in.

On his turn, we will get right to the assault, because aside from our tanks trying to snipe each other, shooting no longer mattered in this game. I did blow off the turret to his las tank though. In the assault, he brought in a demon lord that spawned out of one of his sergeants. Despite the fact that the sergeant was locked in combat, the lord moved out of that combat, and charged mephiston. Not sure if that was legal, but it made me happy because that was exactlly where I wanted him. I had to attack the squad since I was previously locked in combat with them, and was hoping to put free wounds on the demon. I failed to kill them all though. The fist survived. The demon scored a wound on meph, and the fist scored two. They would be locked in. Meanwhile, the scouts are fighting for their lives! I jumped in another assault squad to help him out with the berzerkers.

Turn 3:
On my shooting, my flame tank finally made it over to the middle of the table and was primed for laying down some hurt on his dev squad. My baal preds had been shooting futilely at his plague marines.

In the assault, mephiston decides to end the demon's life, and does. This forces a leadership test on the sergeant who also runs and is killed. Mephiston consolidates over to try to save the scout. I have to be honest here, I don't remember if they were simple CSM or Khorn Berzerkers, OR if this happened on turn 2 or 3. SO I will just compile the rest of this assault here.

Mephiston jumped into the next assault and saved the scout sergeant. I think this was all backed up a bit allowing him to do that on turn 3. Any way...

Turn 4:
He had moved his LR up now and was about to disgorge them on the next turn. I jumped over there with Mephiston and assaulted his Plague marines, killing 6. The scout jumped into a razor back and they high tailed it out of there while they could to go claim an objective. My other assault squad moved to claim an objective. My last assault squad moved all the way to the right to claim one. Some where in this mess, I lost an assault squad, I think to the squad that was locked in with the squads that the demon came out of. I really need to make more video during these games, but I get wrapped up in them!

On his turn, Kharn and the Berzerkers unload from the LR and pile in on Meph. He tried to move a rhino over to try to contest, but it got immobilized on terrain. Mephiston is forced to attack the plaguers, and kills them all, but is finally killed by Kharn. He rolled to fix the rhino, and did!

Turn 5:
It has come down to this. I had one assault squad using an immobile Baal as cover and trying to claim an objective at the top of a triangle of objectives. The bottom left one was contested by a razorback, but Kharn and his squad destroy it, claiming that one. The bottom right of the triangle my scout was claiming from inside a razor. The 4th objective went unclaimed, and the 5th I controlled. I managed to immobilize his rhino again with shooting, so was not really concerned with it contesting. At this point, I controlled 3 and he controlled 1. The die roll? Game goes on.

Turn 6:
I had been shooting at his berzerkers and Kharn for 2 turns now and whittling them down. There were only a few left. He destroyed my Baal with his Land Raider. And tank shocked my squad at the top of the triangle with a rhino, and they failed. (Unfortunately, I forgot until after that this squad was fearless due to rolling a 1 on the Red Thirst, they would have actually not fallen back.)

Now the game would end again on a random roll. I controlled 2 and he controlled one. The die roll? Game continues.

Turn 7:
I failed to destroy Kharn and his berzerkers, and they managed to spread out between two objectives and claim them both. At the end of the game, He held two and I held two. Great game man!

Summary:
I know, it was a convoluted batrep. I have been out of it for a while and forgot to pull out the cam... all day. But the essense of the game is there. A slug fest ending in a draw. Cant complain about that!

The star of the game was definitely Mephiston. He destroyed a demon prince, a squad of Berzerkers, a squad of CSM, and a squad of Plague marines. I took the combined might of a full squad of berzerkers and Kharn to finally bring him down, while he was distracted with plague marines.

So, point one, Mephiston is boss. To all of you BA band wagon jumpers out there, or veterans who cant get past the fact that he is not an IC, get over it. He is truly a monster. Use him smart, keep a priest nearby for when he rolls those silly 1s, and he will rock. But what do I know, I'm only Jawaballs!

Point two: Blood Angels get way more for less. You heard it hear first... don't waste the points on Sanguinary guard, vanguard or Death Company. You can get the job done with assault squads and priests. Sure they are pretty units, and powerful, but smart players can figure out how to use the assault squads effectively and win games with them. If I had to choose between a 200+ point Sanguinary Guard squad, and a 5 man RAZ with PW, Melta and ASs cans on the raz for 180ish, give me the troops baby!

During this tournament, I fought two huge Chaos armies in a row, decked out for assault. Both squads had multiple Berzerker squads, plague marines, and variants from there, T-sons and CSM squads. In both cases, I was fighting upwards of 40+ hard units, and I have a total of 23 infantry size bases on the table including Mephiston and 5 scouts. To say the least, I am not tooled out for prolonged assaults, but I held my own in both games, getting a draw that should have been a win, and in game two, a win.

Blood Angels are for real boys! In the hands of a smart player, this codex will wreck. Game on.

Jawaballs

EDIT:
Oh, the only exception to not taking veterans would be Honor Guard. They are cheaply priced enough to not have them be too much more than an assault squad. For 195 points you can take an HG with a Razorback, power weapon and meltagun. That is only 15 points more than my RAZ squad but they are veterans. BUT they come with a priest. Subtract the cost of the priest you would have had to take normally, and you are saving 50 points. That makes them a steal. You can drop a priest, and throw the Ass Can on the razor and give the squad another upgrade.

One further is that they do not take up an HQ slot, but count as HQ on the Force Org chart. Why is this important? In this tournament, in all three games you scored bonus points for clearing out an entire slot. So killing mephiston earned my opponent two bonus points since he was my only HQ. With an HG with transport, now he has to kill the squad, transport and Meph to get the bonus points. It makes it harder to surrender those bonus points, and adds another element that you can use to thwart those blood thirsty opponents by forcing them to commit way more resources than they would normally need to take down the transport.

Just imagine, it is game 5 of a major GT and you are in it to win it. A draw would hand the win to the other guy because he has more tie breaker points. The game is coming down to such a close result, that it will come down to bonus points to decide the winner. You tally up the results... it comes down to the HQ slot. You killed his two commanders and earned the 1 bonus point and take the lead. He counts up your HQ slot, Mephiston... dead... Honor Guard... dead... "A Draw... I WIN!" Sorry sucka... you missed that weaponless razor back that slipped away and is now hiding in the corner of the table. That counts as part of the HQ slot and you had to kill it... the victory is mine. Blustery arguments and nerd rage ensue... you get the picture.

Of course, feel free to correct me if I am wrong on that HG transport counting as an HQ unit.

How to Paint Red Power Armor Advanced step one by Jawaballs

Ron from From the Warp recently emailed me and invited me to join in a new hobby project to which I happily agreed. Of course, my focus is on making quality painting tutorials that I sell, but I thought it would be cool to jump in with him and provide some stuff for free! I have decided to make a short series of videos related to the new wave of Jawaballs painting videos.

The vanguard video set will be this new "How to paint RED power armor". This will cover multiple games and companies and walk you through an advanced painting style that will produce outstanding models that can compete for best painted any where you go! Simple table top quality is no longer a goal. I want you to paint the best. In this set expect to see layering, blending, fading and wet blending in addition to any other technique I can think of.

I will paint a model to the best of my ability, and walk you through how.

The first step in this process is to premix all of my colors. There is nothing more frustrating then when you mix a color, then cannot recreate that shade. In order to make sure your army looks the same at the end as it does when you start painting, you need to mix up loads of each color you intend to use. So I begin by demonstrating how. I will in part be using the method from a recent issue of White Dwarf by Gamesworkshop. But this method is by no means the only method to paint red.

So enjoy! Here is the first video:

Conversion Spotlight- Blood Angels Stormraven Gunship WIP

MBG Rob Baer back again with a sweet conversion I've been obsessing over.  Deep down inside me I knew it was going to come to this. I would fall to the sweet siren song of converting up a Stormraven, and there was nothing anyone, not even my girlfriend, could do about (trust me she tried).

Going in I had a good idea of what I had in mind, but along the way there were issues that cropped up. Now that I got the overall structure pretty much flushed out I can get on with all the little details and clean up the multiple gaps between kits.

Keep in mind this is a very rough early look at the project. Big Red at BoLS is a taskmaster for hobby articles so I figure this will keep him in check for a week (j/k)  There is still a lot to go back and fix/ glue down, panel out and more parts to be added. Believe it or not the interior is still intact (and the ramp doors still open and close) so I will even be going back to paint that. Unfortunately that mean some of the panels can't be permanently attached yet.

I've been taking pics along the way so I'll have a in depth step by step guide to the conversion once I get it completed (hopefully in a week). Here is a brief list of things yet to be added, and below that PICS!

• Landing gear
• Front stubby wings, with HB underslung
• Land raider hatches (where black sharpie marks are)
• 2nd S foil wing similar to T- Hawk?
• Lots of armor plating
• 45 Degree Fillet structure on the bottom connecting the front half to back
• 4x Bloodstrike Missiles

-MBG

I'd really like some feedback on this project, so please lets hear your .02! Yes the dread is attached by a magnetic clamp, how's it look?

Doc Railgun Apocalypse Battle Report!

Hey all, Doc Railgun here! I played a great game of Apocalypse at Tower Games put on by the Adeptus Minneapolis. There were 7 players, each with 2000 points (though the Tyranid player had 4K) - each force had to include a Troops choice of at least 10 members.
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+++ Tranmission Begins +++
Archmagos Triskele,

As requested, I will recount the most recent sortie by Commander Dante and his Blood Angels. This account may be somewhat more interesting than most due to the inclusion of the Adeptus Titanicus. No doubt there are other reports that have come in about this battle, so I will limit my observations to that of the Astartes except in the most broad way.

We arrived at -Error: data lost- aboard the Battle Barge _Crimson Shrike_, and I was fortunate enough to witness the gathering of information for the battle planning by Commander Dante himself. We were among the last to arrive, and our allies were already arrayed and preparing for battle. These included a force of the Xenos called "Tau", a force of Space Wolves, the transports for several Titans, and most surprisingly - a battleforce of what I was told were pre-Heresy Death Guard Space Marines, somehow come forth from a time-distortion to fight alongside their Battle Brothers.

Below were two warbands of Orks including a Stompa, a huge beast called a Squiggoth, and several aircraft along with a force of Tyranids led by a Hive Tyrant and an immense Hierophant.

The decisive battle would take place upon a bridge across a mighty and impassible river. Our Mechanicus Engineseers managed to activate a shield generator around which our allied Titans stood. The Tau deployed their fire support battlesuits just outside a collection of buildings, wherein some of their Fire Warriors defended an important building. The enemy began to advance, and the battle began,

The Blood Angel's first strike was the deployment of Ancient Iacopo, a Furioso Librarian. His pod landed near the Ork Stompa, and even from our command post we could see the lance of crimson energy blast one of the Ork monstrosity's weapons. Iacopo was immediately assaulted by a large "Mega-Dread" and a smaller dreadnought and was cut down, but not before eliminating one of his assailants.
Next, Dante sent down another drop-pod, this containing Ancient Piero, a Furioso wielding two large lighting-claw variants. It came down near a large force of Tyranid Gaunts, which fled from fire brought to bear from suddenly-appearing Tau warriors. One Baal Predator had outflanked the enemy forces, appearing behind the Orks and blasting down a Rokkit-armed Buggy. A second Baal had somehow become lost, and appeared behind our own forces.

Commander Dante had attached himself to a large force of Blood Angel assault troops, most wearing a strange black livery I had only witnessed a few times. To this squad (which had five power fist-wielding members) was also attached a Librarian, a Sanguinary Priest, and the Chaplain Lemartes. They also dropped behind the Orks, intending to strike the Ork Stompa down if they could. The Astartes took murderous fire from all angles, but especially from the Ork mechanism. They assaulted the Stompa several times, and were also assaulted by the nearby Mega-Dread, who was slain by the Librarian. An Imperial aircraft swooped in and destroyed the Stompa, nearly killing Dante in the process.

As the battle ended, it seemed that only a number of Tyranids survived, while among our allies Dante's sacrificial force took the most damage.
We of the Mechanicus were unfortunately not able to capture any of the Blood Angels' supercharged vehicle engines to study, but at least the Imperium was victorious. I will continue to report back as I am able.

Your servant,
Lexmechanic Skori II

+++ Tranmission Ends +++

Tonight on Jawaballs Live!

Tonight I will discuss my game from Monday, ard boys, and premixing paint for a painting job. Don't miss it! 6PM EST. Here is the site.

Jawaballs!

Some of the most brilliant video I have seen in a long time!

If you are a fan of Star Wars, or a hater of the prequels, or both, or neither, you must go check out http://www.redlettermedia.com/

Look for the previews and enjoy. Flippin greatness.

Jawaballs

Battle Report: Jawaballs NEW BA vs IG

Jawaballs is back in the saddle! Finally I am able to get back into the club and get some game on. I played a game last night vs a guy named Rob at Battle for Salvation in White Plains, NY.

Jawaballs 1850 tournament list vs Middle range IG list. His list was not optimized for competition, but this was just testing for both of us any way.

Jawaballs:
Mephiston
RAZ squads x3, TL Ass Can x2, TL Las Can x1, Meltas, PW in two of them.
2 priests with PWs
3 Baal Preds 2x Heavy Bolters/Ass Can, 1x Flame storm/Heavy Flamers
2 Auto can/las can preds
1 vindicator
1 scout squad, combi melta and power fist

IG:
Psyker squad, master of fleet, etc.
Yarrik in chimera with ogryns
vendetta with 3 las and bolter sponsons with 10 vets inside, plasma and las cannon
vet squad on foot with las cannon
3x las cannon heavy weapon team
3 tanks, the long range demolisher cannon, the 20 shot cannon, and one more, cant remember the gun.
2 small vet squads deep striking with melta and plasma

Mission:
capture the flag bases

Deployment:
Dow

I won the die roll and took first turn. Sorry for lack of pictures due to dead cam! The board was heavily terrained with roman type ruins, lots of columns and ruined walls, an a huge colliseum style wall in the middle of the table. Very few lanes of fire that did not provide a cover save.

I deployed Mephiston right in the middle of the table behind the huge piece of colliseum impassible terrain. Next to him, blocking the only lane of fire from the other side of the table, I placed an Ass can RAZ with melta, pw and priest.

He deployed his Lascan team in cover on the right, with line of fire at my RAZ. 12" away, he deployed his command squad with the psykers behind terrain. LOS was blocked completely to Mephiston. He put the remainder of the troop squad in a ruined temple on the left board edge.

Turn One:
My stuff started coming on. I flank marched the 3 baals and the scouts. The scouts sole purpose is to come on behind those pesky tanks that hide in the corners and pop them. Failing that, they will assault squishy units, or take objectives. They are my Jwolf throw away squad. Cheap, but strong enough to have an effect on my opponent's planning.

Right of the bat, Mephiston used Wings of Sanguinius and jumped over the ruin. He landed just a few inches away from the psyker battle squad, and ran to assure assault range with fleet. The RAZ moved up 12" towards the entrenched Heavy weapon team. Coming from the table edge, the TL Las RAZ moved onto my objective and set up its gun on my right corner. The Asscan RAZ moved in on the left, going 18" from my edge and using terrain to block LOS. Next turn he would be in attack range. My vindicator moved 18" and took up position near where Mephiston was behind the ruin. My Las preds also moved 18" to take up shooting position for turn two. At this point I had great lines of fire, giving up very little targets for return fire. My fast tanks would be able to leave their cover and shoot up isolated units.

Poor Rob would not know what hit him! :)

So the RAZ shoots up his Heavy weapons team, dealing two wounds. Question, when shooting heavy weapon teams do you take off whole bases first? Or split the wounds up. It was not very important so we played it that he gave a wound to two different bases and didnt have to take one off.

Being DoW and BA tanks lacking Search Lights, none of my other tanks could fire. But this was good in a way, since none of his could target my RAZ.

On my assault phase, things got bloody fast. Mephiston activated his Preferred Enemy power, and waded into the IG Command. 5 of the models died instantly, leaving a commander with a fist and a psyker. The commander managed to hit back and actually wounded Mephiston! He would be purged for his insolence. They made their LD test to stay in combat.

On his turn, he knew he had to be decisive with his fire power. He brought on his heavy tanks, one on each corner and one in the middle. He reserved his deep striking vets and flank marched his Vendetta. Yarrik with his mutant body guard came on in the right corner, trying to save his heavy weapon team. But this was a VERY dark night. Three times he targeted my razor back, and three times failed to destroy it. But on his fourth time, he nailed it and exploded it. But the occupants made their LD test and saves.

In the asault, Mephiston finished off the command squad then consolidated back towards the middle of the table on his edge. He walked right past a group of ratlings who were huddled around a camp fire cooking sausages. His only reply to their "ey govna, want some breakfast?" was a derisive snort. His force weapon would not be wasted on children and cooks.

UGH! I just tried to publish the batrep and it failed to process, I lost every thing after this! I spent 45 minutes typing it... :( Bah.

Ok, time to get back to work.

Turn Two:
Mephiston activated his wings again and flew over a tank to land between the tank and his chimera. My RAZ who had their transport exploded moved up with their melta gun to get in range for a shot and assault. The only reserves to come on was my flamer tank. My RAZ moved up 12" on the left and disembarked the melta to try to pop his 20 shot tanke that came onto the board behind the temple. The flamer tank lined up the squad in the temple for maximum carnage... they thought they were safe! My shooting opened up and things started dieing. Except for the chimera. The melta failed to penetrate and Mephiston's plasma gun backfired. My lascannons destroyed his tank in the center and also, with a lucky shot and a failed cover save, the one in the left corner. The flame tank put the squad in the temple to the torch. 16 wounds later, they were all crispy critters and climbing out of the holes in the walls on fire. Mephiston ordered his marines to let them burn. The Emperor offers no mercy to heretics. The vindicator moved out from behind its cover to shoot at his tank in the right corner, but missed.

In my assault, Mephiston charged and hit the chimera with 4 Str 10 shots... but failed to do more then a stun. I dual assaulted it with my RAZ, who also dragged the heavy weapon team into assault. They failed to do more then stun the chimera as well, and only killed a couple of heavy weapon guardsmen.

On his turn, he realized that things were going VERY badly. He brought on his two deep striking vet squads and his Vendetta. The vets came down. one landed too far away from one of my preds to really hurt it, and only immobilized it. The other scattered off the table while trying to get close enough to my base and pop my TL Las Razor holding it. He scattered to safety first, but was not close enough to pop the tank so rerolled. The next roll sent him off the table. Bad luck. The Vendetta blew both las cans off the other pred. That would be just about all the damage he would deal.

On his assault, Yarrik and the ogryns disembarked. Their shooting failed to hurt Meph, so they assaulted. Mephiston, the wise one he is, showed his contempt for the IG commisar and focused on the mutants instead. 2 of them died instantly. This was enough to force LD tests, which yarrik failed. He ran from the battle leaving Meph with the two ogryns that dumbly stumbled and evaded mephistons blade from blind luck.
The assault squad was having trouble dealing with the heavy weapons team. They only managed to kill two, and they made their test the brave bastards! His ratlings started using their sniper guns to cook hotdogs over the burning tank.

Turn Three:
It would all end soon.

So one of my Ass can preds came on into range to shoot the vendetta. My RAZ on the left got back into their transport and it moved 12" to fire on the vendetta as well. The Vindicator turned around and vaporized the vets who deep striked to immobilize my pred. They turned into red mist in a nanosecond. My ass cans opened up on the vendetta, exploding it! 4 of the vets inside perished. Oh, my scouts came on too. They came in behind his last tank. The melta shot missed though.

In the assault, mephiston and the RAZ finished off their handi work. The scouts assaulted the tank and stunned it.

On his turn we threw in the towel. His ratlings finally decided to attack and shot at Mephiston, but failed to hurt him. Turn four would see me wipe the table clean so we did not bother.

After the game we discussed tactics and his list. First of all, it was daunting for him to face wave after wave of my stuff coming on. All of it hurt and was very good at what I used it for. I did not even get my 3rd Baal onto the table! The las preds were superb offering me the luxury of range that I have never had. I can finally reach out and touch my opponent.

I suggested that he drop the ogryns and buy another vendetta instead. Place all those vets who deep striked into the Vendetta. And place his psyker squad into the chimera. Also I suggested he replace the 20 shot tank with one of the other two he fielded. And he should drop Yarrik. A couple of quick and easy changes would make his list way more powerful.

The key to victory was him deploying his psyker squad too close to Mephiston. On turn one I was in his ranks and slaughtering guardsmen. With nothing to slow down my reserves, they came precisely when I needed them and worked to maximum effect.

All in all it was a good test for my new Blood Angels, especially since I have very little experience using a psyker and I will need to master Mephiston if I plan on winning in Vegas!

Jawaballs

A Jawaballs Hard Boys list?

I have been a staunch unsupporter for hard boys in the past. I honestly don't like how it brings out the worst in people. Sure, you are in it to win it! No sportsmanship, comp or other BS. Well, the result of those relaxed attitudes are Carnifexs molded as if they are digging up out of the ground with just a head and arms clawing their way out.

Also, the stakes are pretty high. Prizes for hard boys are huge. Big payouts and a rule less atmosphere brings out the power gamers with no conscience who pretty much ruin the game for any one but themselves.

I admit to being a power gamer myself playing cheezy lists, but I am pretty confident that most guys I have ever played in a tournament would say they enjoyed our game. Cheezy list or not.

That brings me to my decision. Is Jawaballs hard? It is certainly time to find out!

Now to build a list. Let me see here... new codex... new points limit... one month to play test... I think I smell a recipe for disaster. But oh well. Lets see.

After consulting Fritz, Danny Internets and Goatboy, I have banged out some details for a list that I was banging around in my head. I won't bother posting up the minute details, but it involves Mephiston, 3 Baals, 3 Vindicators, some dreads and lots of RAZ with Asscannon love.

No shock, really, except for Mephiston! I have definitely focused on the strengths of the new dex with the 3x Baals, vindis and RAZ squads. But I am blowing 250 points on a character who cannot join any units...

Well, when it comes down to it, Mephiston is just rock solid. For the points, I think he is the best HQ in the book, IC or not. He is equipped to handle any thing, and with a little assault squad support, he will be the rock that my list needs.

I will be playing an 1850 version of this list tonight. So I look to see big things from Mephiston! Expect a batrep this week. My camera is dead, but I will write it up.

Now the question is fellow Sons of Sanguinius... What are you playing for Hard Boys? Who has had some time to playtest? JB is a little behind the curve here. :)

Jawaballs