Rediscovering Angels Part 2: The Librarians

Hey there everyone, Xaereth here from Delusions of Grandeur, continuing my discussion on Blood Angels, and what they can do for you.  Today I want to talk about the Librarians that Blood Angels have access to, as well as different combinations of powers, used to maximum effect.  Lots of ground to cover today...

40k Player Profile: Ted Nagel

Hey Folks, Jawaballs here!

I thought it would be interesting to do a recurring themed post about some of the various personalities I run into at all these gaming "events" I go to.  I try to hit up at least one a month, whether it is a major GT or a small tournament.  At all of these things there is always one thing that is the same. People!  If you go to enough of them, you start to see the same guys depending on where you go.  It has gotten to the point that I am happy to pack up and travel any where alone because no matter what I will have some one there to chill with.  A great example of this was my recent trip to Mechanicon.  It is just outside of Philadelphia and a good 3.5 hours from me.  The price tag excluded most of the guys in my club and Fritz was unable to cool the wife agro.  So away I went... Lobo-Jawa for the second year in a row.  But all was cool because I knew people would be there that I met the year before, or that I had met at other events.  I hung out with cool dudes the entire weekend and at no time did I feel alone.

The point of this is that the 40k tournament scene is a very small little family of guys who take time out of their separate lives to gather, play, drink and chill.  It is our privilege to be surrounded by great people and we should take advantage of it. One such dude is Ted Nagel.  I first met Ted at Mechanicon 2009.  He is a super friendly, personable and interesting dude.  But also, he is a great painter with no ego to speak of (unlike a certain Jawa :P ) and smacks face on the tables.

Ted working with the Bolter and Chainsword 

crew at Gamesday

He was there again this year and we got to speak more indepth.  Not a single negative word left his mouth the entire time.  It was refreshing to talk to him and inspiring in a way. I challenge you to try it some time. Have a conversation with some one for five minutes and not say something negative. Did you do it? Well try it for a day. Then a weekend.  Not so easy!

The guy joined the military right out of high school, married his high school girl friend to whom he is still married, left the military to take a related career which he served for quite a long time, retired from that one and has another where he is the boss and instructor.  (Intentionally vague to protect his privacy.)  He did all that and still looks like he is in his 30s.  Maybe he still is. The only reason why I think he is not is that he has teenage kids and has retired from two careers... Not the point!  The point is that in talking to him you get a sense of a truly happy guy. Granted, you could not catch him the entire weekend without a beverage in his hand... But isn't that part of why we go to these things to begin with? But better, if you do catch him without one, it is mere seconds before he is offering you one too and running up to the bar, or coming up to you and pushing one into your hands.  Social skills 101 guys.  He is the professor.

Ted is a Space Wolf player with a beautiful, and simply painted army.  He does not spend hours on blending, but instead has a method of painting that is so simple it is hard. And his stuff looks fantastic!

Ted's Space Wolves

Ted's Friday Night awards.

He knows his stuff looks good, but at the same time, claims to not be half the painter I am. Whatever man! First of all, I am just a hack myself who has figured out how to paint red.  I appreciate the compliment, but right back at you.  I learned a lot about painting by just looking at his wolves.  You need to see the army close up to know what I am talking about.  Great stuff.

Oh and did I mention that he plays wolves?  What is in his list you ask?  Certainly not the flavor of the month stuff you see most other wolf players fielding.  When asked why he has no rune priest he says and I quote "I know my army would be stronger with one, but psychic powers are for pussies."  With a joking smile on his face of course.  :)  He avoids playing the min/max list as a point of integrity and prefers to go to tournaments with a powerful, but personalized list made to his liking.  And he still beats face. He did not win Mechanicon, but he did well.  I think top 5? It certainly did not hurt him that he must have scored maximum sportsman and a very high painting score.  

That brings me to him as a player. Frankly, I think you could give him any list, without psykers of course, and he could do well. I played him in a pick up game last year and it was a knock down, drag out slug fest.  The guy knows how to beat face and how to punish you for your mistakes.  Quietly, but most definitely, one of the best players I have ever faced.  

Ted chews the fat with a couple other players 

late night on Friday at Mechanicon. 

Ok, time to end this manlove fest before Ted kicks my ass.  If he knew I was posting this up he would probably give me the "head or gutt" line from The Last Boyscout. It would depend on how many Yingling's he has had. But he is a shining example of the complete 40k player. 40k is a social game. Conventions and tournaments are social events. And Ted takes advantage of the opportunity to be social, shaking hands and buying beers.  He is a good player, painter and sportsman. He wins awards with a smile on his face and you are happy to see him do it. But more importantly than any of that, the guy has lived a charmed life, and simply talking to him is enough to feel a little charmed yourself.  He is a genuine and good natured guy. What more in life can you ask for?  I can't think of much myself.

Jawaballs

Let's Do This Thing . . .

Greetings and salutations all! This is Michael, self-proclaimed Captain of the 8th. Jawaballs, in his infinite wisdom, has invited me on as a new contributor for all things Blood Angels.

I began my GW habit back in '03 when my nerd-loving wife bought me some Lord of the Rings models for Christmas. And bless her soul, she even built me a gaming board to boot. If your significant other will go to "Roy's Train World" for you then it has to be true love right? Suffice it to say, I was immediately hooked. I loved the modeling, the painting, and the strategy involved in the game.

Grad school then took me away from home, and the brothers I played plastic toy soldiers with. No one played LotR at the game store so I jumped into 40k. It was the start of 5th ed, and a whole new world to me.


I found an old Blood Angels standard bearer model for 6 bucks at the game store. (here he is painted, and per my usual, unbased)



Another $6 Tycho model soon followed. (this model went into a painting competition, and I got second place, for the record, I was jipped)




And my first army was chosen. The internet inevitably brought me here when I started looking for advice for 40k and Blood Angels specifically. I've been hanging out here ever since. But Blood Angels didn't stay my only army for long. The siren song of the Tau railgun was too much, and made me start a small army for them. It's only about 1500 points soaking wet, and only comes out to play on occasion. I blame Old Shatterhands and his blog for that detour from the Imperium.

I'd consider myself the average 40k player/hobbyist. I like to do it all, but don't do any of it spectacularly well. I love to paint and have won a few local painting competitions, the result of being a little fish in an even littler pond. As a pat on the back I did place fourth in the painting competition Jawaballs put on about a year ago, but I'm no Golden Daemon winner. I like to convert models, but all I do is simple swaps with maybe a little greenstuff. I love the mental exercise of list building and the thrill of competition, but I have only played in one tournament. I enjoy making tough lists and going toe to toe with a like minded person, but real life keeps seizing the initiative and preventing me from playing in tournaments.

I will give painting and modeling advice, for what it is worth. We'll discuss list building and army evolution, along with tactics or deployment strategies. We can take this journey together, improving our painting, modeling, and hopefully our game.

It's going to be a fun ride!

Michael, Captain of the 8th and newest game nerd on the block.

As you can see folks, I put a lot of thought into finding guys who could keep in line with my blog and offer up some great stuff. When I put out the call for contributers, I literally got dozens of guys who submitted stuff. Picking just a few was tough. But I think that Michael is a great example of the Average guy doing above average work.  I think more than any thing else, that is what my blog and videos are about and you all can relate. Can't wait to see more.


Jawaballs

Rediscovering Angels Part 1: What they do best

Hiya folks!  Xaereth here again from Delusions of Grandeur.  Today I'm going to talk about what Blood Angels as an army offer that other armies don't do as well.  It's basically a discussion on points efficiency in a really general sense.  Don't worry, later posts will be much more specific, as I move into analysis on different units.

Dark Eldar Overview

Ladies and gentlemen, I’ve been summoned by the Jawa master himself to ignore my mostly procrastinated term paper and focus solely on Warhammer 40k. I do not pretend to have many years of experience or a vast amount of wins under my belt. However, I do believe that I can concisely explain my impressions on how certain units work in 40k and how overall effective they will be.

Many of you will disagree which is one of the main reasons I’m doing this, to stimulate your mind with ideas as well as for your responses to stimulate mine. So where do I begin? There seems to be many conflicting opinions about the Dark Eldar codex. I guess I’ll begin with a brief rating system of what the Dark elder codex has to offer in certain aspects of the game. It will be a simple 1-10 rating system with 10 being the most proficient in an area and 1 being the least. Here it is:

Shooting (anti tank): 6

While not guard, or space marine levels, they are able to adequately get by. The number of dark lances that you can take is still impressive, although more reliable anti-tank choices are few in number and shorter ranged. As before, the smaller and more elite your opponent’s army is, the more effective your shooting will be.

Shooting (anti infantry): 10

In the whole codex, nowhere is it more apparent that the dark elder have impressive anti-infantry firepower than in the Kalibite Trueborn and the Venom transport entries. Trueborn if loaded up with max shardcarbines and splinter cannons will unleash 36 poisoned shots if not moving or 32 when moving. Venoms, loaded up with a splinter cannon upgrade and nightshields come out to have a minute cost of 75 points and are still able to move 12 inches and fire 12 poisoned shots at a 36 inch range. In combination with other units in this book, dark eldar will melt their way through infantry.

Assault: 9

Dark eldar are absolutely deadly in the assault. Wyches are not nearly as beastly in the assault as the last codex however they have been replaced by improved hellions, beast units, wracks, and cost reduced incubi. There are a great deal of special characters that are also deadly. The one thing that all of these units lack (with the exception of beasts) is durability. While this problem can be slightly reduced with the proper use of pain tokens, it still becomes a problem when facing assault oriented armies such as orks and blood angels. These units have a lot of synergy. The best example is that of wyches and incubi. Lets say you are playing marines and you have an incubi squad and a wyche squad. Those incubi want to be going after normal power armor units such as tactical marines, sternguard, and assault marines. Those wyches want to respond to any assault from terminators or assault terminators due to the wyches invulnerable save. This army will be deadly in close combat as long as you assault on your own terms.

Flexibility: 4

Each squad has a particular purpose. Use them the right way and you will win. Use them the wrong way and you won’t. While you can dilute the effectiveness of a unit by giving them mixed weapon choices (trueborn with shard carbines and blasters) these choices will be point inefficient due to the likelihood that these units may only fire once.

Durability: 5

There is no doubt about it, a mech dark eldar list is really fragile. Av 10 open-topped will not last long against anyone. This would be slightly nullified if dark eldar could control their reserves at all, then they’d be able to reserve everything and not have to risk coming in piece-meal. Their real durability lies in the fact that, with the right list, you can have feel no pain on all of your infantry units. Some units are very durable, such as beast units. These units can take a pounding and still demolish in the assault.

Overall:

I believe that Dark Eldar will be a very interesting army to play. In this day and age where crazy rocket-vomiting, counter-charging, tin-can hiding, power armored Space Yetis are the normal occurrence on the battlefield, Dark Eldar seem very refreshing. They also seem that they will be relatively competitive in most aspects of the game.

Well that’s it! Leave your comments and criticisms as normal. Especially give me feedback on how I could be better. Next time I will be moving onto unit reviews, so leave your opinion one which one I should cover first. I think it’s time to get started on my term paper. Good night and good luck.

-OldChiZOne

Woah, OldChiZOne opens up on my blog with guns blazing and offers up some nice gritty grizzle to be grized. Welcome him in as I invited him to help make you guys think a bit rather than just absorb blog info while you stare blankly at your monitor counting the minutes until quitting time.  Looking forward to seeing where this one goes!  Be looking for a couple more guest writers soon, including every one's favorite blogger whore Brent!  


Jawaballs

Space Hulk commissions?

Forgive the crappy picture. Methinks it is time to upgrade my pocket cam.  Here is a Space Hulk terminator that I am painting up for my own personal army. I hate my T-hammer termy and want to upgrade the model.  This guy has been sitting primed on my shelf for six months and I decided it was time to make it happen.  The shield needs more work, and I think I am going to push the recessed areas back further with more red gore and I will add some of my yellow lightning to the hammer.  

The other reason why I am showing this is that I have 3 factory sealed Space Hulk sets sitting in my closet waiting to be painted.  I know I missed the big wave of guys scrambling to scoop up Space Hulk sets, but if you are looking for a commissioned set, I'm open to negotiations.  Food for thought!

Jawaballs

And so it begins...

Hey there folks, what's up!  My (internets) name is Xaereth, and it appears that I'll be posting here from time to time.  Figured I'd introduce myself in this post, and leave the 'real' content for later.

BOLS article covering my Mechanicon reprinted here.

For those of you who do not read Bell of Lost Souls, I am copying the Mechanicon Review I posted up last week here. Enjoy!  You can find the original article with the comments HERE on BOLS.

Hey Folks, Jawaballs here!

Mechanicon was this past weekend. It is one of the biggest East coast tournaments, however tournament organizer Tony Spino and the boys take a slightly different approach to running it. Lets take a look.

Reader submitted pictures. Nice stuff!

I'm always happy to give back to the community and show off some great work from the readers. This time Steven Field submitted these pictures of some Blood Angels Sergeants he painted in part using my painting advice.  Nice job man!

If you would like to have your work featured on my blog feel free to send in some nice pictures!  

Jawaballs

As requested, my Mechanicon GT winning army list!

Hey folks. I did a writeup on BOLS about my recent win at The Mechanicon GT and I have gotten emails asking for a detailed army list, so here you go!

Librarian: Preferred Enemy and STR 10
Elite Chaplain: Melta Pistol
Elite Sang Priest: Terminator Armor

RAS 1:
Razor back
Las/Plas
PW

RAS 2:
Razor back
Las/plas
PW
Melta Gun

Ras 3:
Razorback
Las/Plas
PW

Ras 4:
Razorback
Heavy Flamer
PW
Meltagun

Terminator squad
4x lightning claws
1x hammer/ss

Land Raider Crusader dedicated transport
extra armor
multi melta
(chap, lib and priest hitch a ride)
3x auto cannon/las can sponson predators

There it is!  This is a shooty, defensive BA list.  What I mean is that I don't have the overpowering assault strength to cram my land raider down my opponent's throat.  I am better served keeping it back, using it to give cover or block LOS to my tanks, and shooting.  The idea is to use my las and auto cannons to get the jump on my opponent on Kill Points early, thus forcing him to come to me. Once he gets close I assault with my termies and rapid fire plasma with my razors.  This strategy worked well at Mechanicon.  When my termies do assault, they usually wipe out whatever they hit. So keeping them unexposed to the counter assault is key.

When this army does need to assault though, they can be overwhelming.  With some lucky rolls on the red thirst, or if I am able to use my RAS in tandem with my priest, they can be truly frightening.  But I am definitely not optimized for assault.  My RAS squads really cant survive against any but the weakest of squads.  Any truly dedicated assault squad will take them down.  So they stay in their razors. But having two melta guns is a boon. I run the flamer back up behind my raider if needed, then it can 12" move from behind, disembark and shoot the melta for an extra shot at cracking a transport giving the termies a squad to assault.  Ideally I disembark them within 6" of the priest so they have a chance to survive the following shooting turn.  The question, how do I adapt? What do I change? I was on the verge of scrapping this list completely, but then I up and win a GT.  What to do???

Jawaballs

Painting Dark Eldar: Jawaballs first attempt at a warrior!

Hey folks, so here is my first attempt at painting a Dark Eldar model.  I was playing around with color schemes and trying to decide on which I would go with first, and settled on a green.  I was going to try purple, but I imagine there will be a lot of failed attempts at it, so I went with something I have a little more experience with first.  I used the same technique of blending I have been using on my Blood Angels. 

I started by spraying him black.  Then I faded Catachan Green from the edges towards the recessed areas

Then I used a catachan green shaded with black, fading from the recesses towards the edges, meeting the first fade in the middle. This creates a blend, which I then carry out to the edge. I then reapply the catachan green from the edge, then back and forth.  

Then I do a fade from the edge using Snot Green, and another using Goblin green.  Then I used Valejo Livery green as an extreme highlight.  That covers the armor plates.

For the eyes I used Iyanden Darksun then Valejo Lemon Yellow.  I then highlighted them with white. I used the lemon yellow and a bit of white on the visor areas that edge around the eyes to create a glowing effect.  I repeated this same technique down the insides of the rifle.  I also added a bit of orange on the inside of the rifle too.  Thats about it!

I left the boots and pec armor black, highlighted with catachan and snot green.  

What do you think? Have I found my Dark Eldar recipe on the first try?  It certainly takes a while to paint these guys.  But unlike my Blood Angels, where I paint an entirely new army every few months, I don't plan on painting all that many Dark Eldar. I will do 40 warriors to create my base, along with 20 wichs and 10 incubi.  I will also do up 6 Raiders and 3 Ravagers.  I will finally do some Mandrakes and other support forces, as well as 10 Harlies.  Then Im done!  

EDIT: I forgot to say that I went back into the recessed areas with Badab Black wash to darken them up.

Feel free to leave constructive criticism.  By the way, that means that in addition to pointing out things that could be improved, you suggest how you would do it... :)  Lets get this rolling as a teaching post for every one!  Feel free to send in pics of your well done models, I will post them up.

Jawaballs

Let the Dark Eldar scheming begin!

Hey folks, Jawaballs here!

Ok, I've had the DE codex for a few days and yes I am making an army.  I love the new models and cant wait to get painting.  I think that the DE are going to be a painters army.  The models are simply way too detailed for guys to half heartedly have a stab at, and with the current evolution of the tournament scene, painting/army points are becoming much more important.

But being a DE noobie, I have no idea where to begin.  Most of the wargear names may as well be written in Italian. It is a journey of complete exploration for me, much like when I first opened up Codex: Space Marines.  Again, where to begin...

Well the starting point is easy for me. I will begin with what I love. And I love Harlequins.  In a painter's army, Harlequins are the top of the top.  I have a full squad of them sitting on my shelf that have been waiting 3 years for a reason to be painted.  I can't wait to finally get to paint all those different colors and play some true death dealing, dancing clowns.

What else?  At first glance I like the Warriors, Mandrakes and Incubi.  I dislike the Wychs.  Why and why?  I well there is a lot more that I like than dislike so I will get the dislike out of the way first. I hate top-knots.  I don't like 9 of the 10 heads in the Wych box set and won't use them.  That goes for all of the cornrows, and Latrell Spreewell braids too.  (hellions) If any one wants to trade, I am offering any DE top-knot or cornrow head for helmeted Dark Elf or Dark Eldar heads.

First of all, put on a damn helmet. You are at war!  The last thing you need is a stupid shard of ceremite splitting open your silly top-knot head you dopes.  If your hair gets in the way when you fight... shave it off. Don't pull it all up into a convenient pumpkin stem that your opponents can grasp onto to wield you like a cricket bat. Or braid it into rows that your opponent can palm like the ridges of a Basketball and dunk you through the hatch of a burned out tank.  Some of the other wychs have ridiculous anime looking cutsie pig tails and what not, all held in place by bones.  Blah.  I want all of my troops wearing malicious and evil looking visored helms.

Enough of that, you get the point.  My models will all be wearing helms.  Except the Mandrakes of course. I think those dudes look sorta cool like Emo Eddy Vedder from the Jeremy Video.  Every thing else about the Mandrakes is also cool. Their ink, their poses, their weapons... They look silent, brooding and deadly. Like the fart I surprised my wife with last night.

The Incubi look awesome. Enough said. I want a squad of 10 malignant goatboy looking eldar.  I love the visored masks.  Too cool.

The Warriors look exactlly how they should. Like evil, nasty guardians.

That gets me started!  Here is my first 2k list:

Archon
Lelith (hate her topknot but she is bad ass in combat)

Incubi x10 with Raider
Mandrake x10 with Raider
Harlies x10 with kiss', shadowseer and troupe master

 4 squads of Warriors x10 with upgrades in raiders
1 squadd of wychs x10 in raider

Competitive? Probably not. I have no idea what is.  But this is a great core for me to get started with, and paint.  7 raiders, 70 dark eldar, 10 harlies and a couple characters, all painted up to jawaquality is nothing to scoff at.  But it will give me everything I need to run just about any army I want as I figure things out.

Future lists will include a venom or two converted out of Vypers.  The fighter skimmers once they release models, an archon mutant squad just for the painting fun, and jetbikes and hellions cause they are pretty cool too.  The question here is, what is competitive?  If you are an experienced, competitive DE player and already drooling at the possibilities I am more than interested in having you write some articles for my blog.  Send me an email, jawaballs at hotmail, and lets get your point of view! Teach me!

More to come..

Jawaballs

Black Templars Commission.

I don't get very many commissions, mostly because I charge quite a bit of money. It's not that I'm all that great a painter, I can think of a dozen guys off the top of my head who are better than me and it is not that I am fast, because I am slow as molasses.  I charge a lot for two reasons. One, it takes me a lot of time to do them and time is one thing I have very little of.  My time is worth a lot of money to me. And two, every commission I do is done to a standard that I myself would be proud to put on the table.  Every model gets tender Jawalove and a piece of me, sometimes literally, goes into each unit I paint.  I only do one quality level, high. There are plenty of guys out there who do economy level work for the customer on a budget. Black Matt, Goatboy and Blue Table Painting to name three. They are all great and I have sent business to them all.  But every once in a while I get a guy who wants to splurge and asks me to do a job that I want to do. (I don't accept just any job.)

So here is my newest commission!  We will call him Frank. Frank wants a Black Templar army. He asked me to design him a competitive list, build it and paint it.  He asked me to make them stand out, be unique and look great.  I quoted him my standard high prices including some options and he didn't bat an eyelash! My kind of man.  :)

I will be painting:
3 speeders
10 termies
15 crusader marines
3 razorbacks
1 Land Raider Crusader
1 emps champ
1 marshal

He sent me some demon bits to add to the bases of some of the models, gave me some guidelines for what he wanted, then opened up the rest to my creative whim.

I decided to start with the terminators and painted up a test model to serve as the basis for the rest of the army.  This is still a work in progress but very close to finished.

I had forgotten how deceptively hard templars are to paint.  Im using the tried and true Codex-Fortress grey highlights. But man, they are unforgiving. The slightest lapse in concentration and boom a botched line. The black contrast makes every imperfection glaringly obvious.  I need to go back into this guy and clean up his edges.  I went with red helmets and shoulder pads, highlighted up to orange.  I am using the same dark base I use for my Blood Angels but am bringing the highlight up to a Fiery Orange, then toned down with Baal Red.  The bases of these models are my line of Jawabases called Industrial Ruin.  I'm not sold on how I painted it though, I'm open to suggestion here guys.  The claws are just blue for now. I had to balance out the bright orange highlights.

Here is a pic of 5 termies in progress.

Here are some more pics.

So there you go!  I will post more pics as I get more progress.  I will also see if he wants me to paint him a banner like this one.

More to come...

Jawaballs

The Mechanicon! This weekend.

The Death Company was represented.

My "Death From Above: Stomp Stomp" list got me 3rd at last years

Mechanicon. I came a 3+ armor save away from winning

the whole thing! I also got 2nd at The Conflict a couple months later

with those Venerable Furioso Dreads.  

Imagine all of these raiders and Dark Eldar troops in flame 

and you will have a more accurate picture of what is going on here.

Here is is! This weekend is the second year of The Mechanicon!  Last year Tony and the boys ran an outstanding tournament and this year promises to be more of the same and better. But the Mechanicon is not just a tournament. Of all the gaming events I have been to, this is the most complete.  Mechanicon has a little bit of everything. You can peruse the website for the details, but throughout the tournament there will be combat squad tournaments, blood bowl tournaments, special issue games, and a charity auction.  While the 40k GT is the big draw, you are paying for much much more.  Last year, I was there alone because Fritz caught the flu and had to bail, but I was able to hang with cool dudes the entire time. The Mechanicon boys made me feel right at home, and I met some guys in the open gaming rooms that I still speak to now where ever I go. Necron Brad and Ted, who took best army with his gorgeous space wolves top the list.  

They open up the huge gaming room for all night games on Friday, and there is a bar in there. How cool is that?  Last year Ted Nagle and I were buying each other drinks all night and the challenge is to be the last man to buy a drink. It was not long before I lost track resulting in a very rough morning for me. 

So what is my list? That is a closely guarded secret and if I told you I would have to kill Brother Captain James. Actually my list is just an 1850 version of my 2k Nova list. I didn't have time to do yet another complete army.  However, this will probably be the last time I play a tournament with the Blood Angels in my current form.  Big changes for my list are in the works and I hope to drop that hammer at the next tournament. Maybe The Conflict!   I have been bouncing around all of the feed back people have been  sending my way, and trying to put together a truly dreadful list. 

Any way, I hope to see some of you at The Mechanicon. There may be still time to register and make the trip. I assure you, you will enjoy the weekend.  

Jawaballs

Charge!

+++ Transmission Begins +++
Greetings, Battle Brothers. As you have read recently, JB is moving away from small Assault squads in lascannon Razorbacks in response to what he feels was a knee-jerk reaction to the cool new toys in the BA Codex. While I don't agree, I see his point. I also agree that it is probably time to go to infantry-based lists due to the massed Dark Lance-spam we are already seeing from DE players. I think people will get back into their rolling boxes eventually, but in the meantime, what sort of infantry-based lists seem useful from our Codex?
I was considering a few lists, and of course they're just theory at the moment. They'll be tested at some point (likely a 2K tournament in November), but in the meantime they are just Theoryhammering.

The core of what I wanted to run were full-sized Assault squads, with a melta and a power fist each. Each squad would also have a jump-packing Sanguinary Priest attached. Of course there's the option to add in a second melta, but I didn't want to jigger the list's points so much. In either 1850 or 2000 points I can run 4 or 5 of these units with plenty of points left over.

So, for 1850 points, I can run:
5 x Assault Squads
a Whirlwind with a storm bolter
2 x jump-packer Librarians
or take one Assault squad away and add:
2 x Baal Predators with heavy bolter sponsons and a storm bolter

In 2000 points, a list could be:
5 Assault squads
a Whirlwind with a storm bolter
Dante
a Librarian Dreadnought (or a jump-packer Librarian with 2 powers a turn)
This would be mostly against DE to have some vague chance to fight at the same time in close combat.

I could drop Dante for a las-las Predator and an autocannon-las Predator, both with extra armor. Again an Assault squad could go in favor of 2 dakka-Baals.

Why the Whirlwind? It will be good for killing massed DEs, and it can ignore cover saves. I realize most people don't like it, but I have always had good success with them pre-new Codex. They also force the enemy to kill them... while they're not the most effective weapon system, often players just have to kill them for some reason, much like they had to always kill my PDF-Codex Death Company even when there were only 2-3 of them in front of a Furioso. Of course, you may find a better use for 100 points. (2 attack bikes with multi-meltas?)

I appreciate the most recent list JB has put up on BoLS with the Vanguard squads' ability to assault after Deepstriking, but I am still unfortunately stuck on trying to put as many scoring units and models on the table. That is probably a big weakness, but I have no illusions about being a great general.

So, you all did a great job with the Wolves' list I was playing with (and I'll test a revised one very soon), so let's discuss these.

+++ Tranmission Ends +++

Ghost Hunters... Corporate sell outs!

A few years ago on Halloween, I think it was 2006, I was sitting at home and came across a show called Ghost Hunters. I had heard of the show before but never watched it. That Halloween they were doing a live ghost investigation though.  I got sucked in.  Not so much because I believe in ghosts but more because the show just appealed to me. I think it was the huge amounts of just quiet time. A couple of guys hanging out in a deathly quiet , dark building, asking ghosts questions, chasing shadows.  There was a little bit of comedy relief with the younger guys busting on each other.  I ended up watching this live broadcast for a good 4 or 5 hours, then began watching the series on a weekly basis.  Great stuff.  It was simple and mindless entertainment. But of course corporate greed had to set in.

Not long after Sci-Fi became Syfy.  Some CEO decided it was time to mix things up.  Enter the in-programing commercials. Sci-fi started airing WWE. (I suppose it is not a far stretch from science fiction.)  But the Ghost Hunters were still there doing their thing...  Two years ago I looked forward to being able to watch the Halloween live broadcast again.  But this time it was different. There was actually production being attempted.  It had become commercial.  I did not really mind though... until I noticed the "Guest host" some silly wrestler from WWE. This tool box ruined the show.  Making rude comments to the female staff... talking through the quiet moments... spoiling every thing that appealed to me about the show.  But I didn't tune out until one staged conversation between one of the regular cast members and the wrestler happened. The cast member was asking leading questions to get the wrestler to talk about some match coming up. It just annoyed me. I stopped watching.

Last night I turned it on again, now out of a sense of nostalgia more than any thing else.  Oh what a waste.  Instead of watching the opening sequence of Dawn of the Dead on AMC I got treated to a 10 minute in programing ad for a car company.  The cast members were driving towards the destination in a couple of SUVs, and pointing out all the great features... "now I will use the in dash GPS to find our destination." "Now I will use the built in phone feature to call Steve."  "Oh and look, while we are driving to the investigation, we can watch DVDs from last years show on the..." The logo for the car prominently adorning every possible surface. Channel changed.  Enough.  But wait, I wanted to give it another chance! During a commercial of Dawn of the Dead I switched back to Syfy... whats on screen? A huge splash animation of the WWE and some corn rowed wrestler talking about a match... For the love of god.

For the record, Sci-Fi spawned some of my favorite programing of all time.  Taken, Battlestar Galactica, and Eureka to name a few... but give me a break!  It's not like Ghost Hunters is a shining example of ground breaking programing, but the execs need to figure out where to draw a line... some where... For every hour long episode, we see 35-40 minutes of program and 20-25 minutes of commercials.  Now we have to suffer through commercials while we are actually watching the program? It's bad enough sports have sold out. Every team plays in a corporate stadium. Every half time show is brought to you by some credit card company. You can't watch a baseball game without a third of the screen being taken up by ads.  Now we have to suffer through it during our TV shows. Heroes, the new Hawaii Five-O, and Ghost Hunters to name a few are all guilty.

I don't know if there is a cure. Corporations will continue to plague our programs with ads and we will continue to watch. And please don't say that we get to watch free stuff.  I pay a lot of money for TV and feel that we have the right to demand better. Can't we? But will we still watch? I can say that if enough people change the channel, and let them know that you did, maybe we can make a change. So email them!  Here is the email address. feedback@syfy.com  


Give them a piece of your mind!  I will.


Jawaballs


EDIT:  I want to add to this that the Sci-fi needs to make money. They need to have ads during programing. It is the ad money that allows them to make the shows. I don't begrudge them from making profit. I make some money, a very small amount of money, off ads myself. I can even deal with product placement. But that does not mean that they have to gutt punch us with the cast advertising products during the show.  Know what I mean?

The Walking Dead

About a week ago I was chatting with a buddy and complaining about the status of zombie apocalypse movies.  I had just watched two stinkers, one was  remake called Survival of the Dead and another was well, who cares. They both sucked. I had high hopes for Survival because it was a Romero remake and like Dawn of the Dead there was a lot of promise.  Blah.

Fast forward to 10/31/10.  The Walking Dead.  My concerns were heard.

How hard could it be?  28 Days Later figured it out.  Put an every day person in the zombie apocalypse scenario and let him deal with it. We have all daydreamed about it. Some of us even have bags of gear stowed away just in case.  I do.  But I ask the question again.  How hard could it be to create a GOOD zombie movie?  Well if we had that answer we would have monthly releases of 28 days and Dawn of the Dead. But every once in a while, we get a blessing. We get The Walking Dead.

I found out about it a couple of days ago when I was searching for the original Halloween.  Call it ritual, but I have to watch it every year.  As I was searching I saw a trailer on AMC for a new series...  And shit, I had to believe!  \The Walking Dead was nothing short of a massive pleasure.  Sure, it draws from 28 Day Later, and all that came before it, but how could that be wrong.  They take every day people... a sheriff and a dad, and throw them into the middle of the zombie apocalypse. Drama ensues.  I won't say it's an amazing show yet. I won't even go as far as to say it is great. But I will say it is a whole damn lot better than what I watched the other day. And to go a step further, I would say it is following close behind 28 days and Dawn of the Dead. After just an hour, it is already above just about all zombie flicks/tv I have seen before.  I could have seen the twist with the protagonist's partner and wife coming... but screw it... it's not perfect.  I have three letters for you. DVR. Set it. Watch it. I have a feeling you will be reading a lot about it in the next few months.  

Jawaballs

Oh and for the record, Bear McCreary is doing the music. Some of you may remember him from the most awesome tv series of all time, Battlestar Galactica... (The New One for all you old school die hards.)

Bear wrote and created some of the most memorable tv/movie music in history. 

Battle For Salvation tournament report: Get him a body bag!

Hey Folks.  So the BFS tournament went down this last weekend.  I brought my 2k point Nova army prepared to throw down and compete for the top!  But it seems fate can be cruel.  And no, there is no video. I don't shoot video at tournaments any more for a number of reasons.

To cut to the chase, I went 1 and 3 on Saturday.  Thats right, the opposite record I scored at the Nova open.  What happened?  I dunno.  Things just went the other way!  All four games were tough fights. A lot of times wins or losses are determined by the smallest of details.  I could have very easily gone 0-4, and frankly, 4-0!

Game One:
I found myself up against James Dean and a salamander army.  The game was for Victory points and Dawn of War.  I came onto the table and had a fantastic round of shooting!  Almost all of my guns actually drew range through the darkness and I did some damage.  But quickly the game bogged down into a predictable slug match.  The crucial failure of the game for me was when he deepstriked a squad of hammer termies with libby close to my line. I assaulted the squad, with my termy death squad, and he wiped me out!  Well, not really, my priest survived the fight.  But it was not a good trade for me.  The combat lasted the whole game. He jumped in with a dread and I piled on 3 assault squads trying to save the priest. The priest actually failed leadership when I lost combat, fell back and rallied the next turn.  It was a messy affair with 14 assault marines trying to glance a dread to death with krak grenades.  Guh.

The highlight of the game for me was a tankshock against Vulkan. He and his squad faild their test and fell back. I chased them to the edge of the board with the Razor, but James managed to kill it with his last krak grenade on my assault turn after two and a half turns of trying.  Vulkan survived.

The game ended with me having a 60 point advantage in Victory Points. That was not enough for the win, so we went to tie breakers. Kill points and table quarters were the next margin.  I won by controlling more quarters.

Game Two:
Stelek.  I found myself 1-0 and matched up against Stelek's wolves.  It was an objective game.  I went first and deployed in the center, and he deployed his three squads of missile launchers as far from my guns as he could. He began to try to mix them all up so that they would give each other cover saves in the open, but stopped when I pointed out that all 15 of the models looked exactlly the same.  There was literally no way to tell one squad from the next, and once they started taking casualties, it would be impossible to keep the units straight. He mercifully kept them in an organized line. He reserved the rest. Then he seized the initiative, and my luck for the rest of the day was gone.

This was one of those games where every thing just goes poorly.  I made two major mistakes.  One was to divide my forces. I should have kept my guys massed and assaulted in force. Instead I tried to take on his wolf guard with single assault squads.  I charged a group with my termies, but lost them all to plasma fire and his counter assault.  Another mistake was when I beat a squad in combat and they fell back. As they were falling back I assaulted them.  They beat that assalter squad then went on to take out another. I should have just chased them off the table with a razor.

The tale of the game though was simply the dice. Stelek's tactics were sound. I could have been better. but it did not help that on his first round of shooting he exploded two of my predators with single missiles each. He fired a dev squad at a tank, penned it's front armor with one missile, I failed cover save, and he exploded it. This happened twice this turn.  The next turn he would fire a single las at my Land Raider from a razorback. Hit, failed cover save, penetration and destroyed result.  C'est la vie!

So he went on to nearly table me.  Thats ok though!  I took it on the chin and kept pluggin away.  The game ended with one of my speeders trying to stay away from him and one or two shell shocked assault marines drinking beers with the wolves.  It was  fun game none the less and I can say that things could have definitely gone better.  Not quite the showing I was hoping to have against Stelek.  Oh well, maybe Fritz and I will make a trip out there and encounter him again.  Thanks for coming out man!

Game Three:
Orks.

I found myself up against one of the dudes from Brother's Grim.  He had a very different Ork list then what I am used to. No battle wagons!  three large groups of lootas, three grot squads with heavy guns, 3 squads of buggies with missiles and 5 or 6 truks with two force field mechs.  I opened up with the guns and had a great first round.  His right flank took a beating as I blew up all of the truks and did some wounds from the explosions on his grots and lootas.  I am embarrassed to say that at this point I had the game bagged!  Then I went for the kill on his right flank.  I moved up the LRC and disembarked my death squad.  I had three squads of boys lined up for the kill.  I was going to perform a classic multiple assault furious charge.  My guns did their jobs by cracking open the transports, all I had to do was roll higher than 2 on two dice for difficult terrain on the charge.  They were just over two inches away... about 2 and a quarter.  Sadly, I failed.  My guys did not get into assault  because I rolled two 2s.  I did not get my charge bonus to attack. I did not get to reroll misses.  Instead of dealing 22+ wounds to his orks, killing over a dozen and watching them all run off the table...  my termies sat dead in their tracks.  Ouch. On his turn he made me pay.  He ate me up with his guns, then assaulted me with three squads including 5 or  6 claws.  I survived the initial charge, and even managed to get another assault squad in to try to save them, but it was over.  His flank held and my line crumbled.

This marked the trend of the day for me. Three games in a row and three assaults where my usually uber effective death squad got quagmired and killed after I tried to bail it out, losing not only the termies, but a troop squad not meant to go toe to toe with the enemies best.

The game was a kill point mission. He picked 5 of my units and had to kill them, vice versa.  I picked three of his truks and 2 boys squads. He picked three of my razors, my speeders and a troops squad.  On the last turn I had all five of his KP dead and he had 4 of mine. One las razor survived.  On my top of 7 I moved the razor behind two predator tanks so it was blocked completely from LoS. He had to shoot and explode my predators to get to the razor. Game Set Match? Not so fast!  Some truly inspired ork buggies moved up and opened up on the predators, penetrating, and exploding one of them.  Ugh.  It all came down to a single big shoota, now able to fire on the razor.  It hit, glanced and immobilized it to death.  Draw.  My win turned into a tie instead.

The tie breakers would be busted out and this one was tight.  It came down to overall victory points, which he won.  Great game!  You cant ask for a closer affair and he was a fun opponent to play.  Always a pleasure to play against our brothers from Grim!

Game Four:
At this point I have been beat down and the day has been long.  I am 1-2 and smarting from two tough losses.  What do I see before me? Mech Guard.  Oh boy.  Without getting too into it you can imagine how this one went for me.  I moved up and lined up my termies for a fantastic assault. All I had to do was pop a couple of transports with 4 or 5 melta shots, 9 Las cannon shots, 6 auto cannon shots and a couple of plasmas.  On my assault how many men did my termies get to grips with? Zero.  Instead they found themselves assaulting and destroying three heavily damaged chimeras.  In a risky tactical move I detached my libby and sent him after a squad of vets alone. He shined and wiped them out, but the rest of my squad failed. They died the next turn to a heavy volley of shots and concentrated assault from Strakken and vets.

At this point it was late in the day, about 8:30 pm. My opponent held or was about to hold 3 of the five objectives, and there was no way what I had left on the table was going to survive.  Plus, my buddy who was in town for the weekend just sent me a text picture of his frosty and enticing beer from the pub he was at.  So I threw in the towel on the last two turns and gave him the result he would have probably gotten any way.

Jawaballs goes down in a burning heap, 1-3.  Tactically I did nothing different from The Nova.  If any thing, the changes I made in my tactics were even stronger with some gambles that worked out.  The difference was in the things that usually are instant wins for me, like my terminator squad wiping out whatever it hits, failing in all four games.  My army is designed to make up for poor dice luck with consistent redundancy.  Failing redundancy coupled with poor luck, makes it hard to come back from major set backs.

So there you have it!  Like Danial Laruso, I limped off the floor.  I could almost hear the echoes of the snide combatants from the Kai Dojo laughing in my ears.  Only there would be no hot 80s blonde and cool 50s pickup waiting for me.  Just the sweet, sweet embrace of frosty IPA and a 12 year old scotch.

Time to put BFS behind me and get regrouped for The Warstore Weekend!

More to come.

Jawaballs

Roger Waters show... OH MY GOD!

I don't get to go to many concerts, so maybe that will have a little to do with the fact that I thought last nights Roger Water's performance of the wall was absolutely the best show I have ever seen.  Thats right, I went there. The best ever.  I have had two moments in my life where music gave me a mind altering experience, and Roger Waters was a part of both. Last night was the second, and the first time I listened to Dark Side of the Moon was the first.  Maybe it is that his messages strike home. Who knows, but last night I was both smiling and tearing at the same time.

The show was Roger and supporting band performing the entire The Wall album.  Pretty straight forward.  But it was so much more then that.  The set was a huge wall dividing Roger from the band behind him, that slowly was built up as he played up to the apex of the album, Pink's (Roger's fictional alter ego in the album and movie), descent into insanity and redemption.  The wall spanned the entire stage, and when it was finished being built stood an easy 30 feet tall.

During the entire show, images and phrases were projected onto the wall, including names of soldiers who fought and died... not only in WWII but just very recently soldiers dieing to IEDs in Iraq.  Not only were there soldiers, but also civilians who were also killed as a result of war right next to the soldiers names.  Nice touch.  But it was not just sad... mixed in with the images were movie shorts of kids being reunited with their soldier parents.  The one that reduced me to silent sobs was one little girl who was looking around with an expectant smile, who finally spots her father entering the room, and bursts out in tears as he runs and scoops her up.  I guess since I am a new parent, this was a particularly touching moment for me and really strikes home what it means to go to war... and to return.  And more importantly, what it means to those who don't.  This sobering experience is something that would have never occurred to me a year ago and that is part of the magic of Roger Waters.

Roger by the way sounded fantastic. You would barely tell that the man has been a rock star since the 60s.  His voice is as powerful and piercing now as it was when he first performed Another Brick in the Wall.  As the show built up to it's peak, I have to say that my breath momentarily rushed out when the wall predictably came crashing down.  I knew it was going to happen yet it still hit me like a punch in the gutt. That is theatre at it's best.  When the predictable still shocks. When we are left staring at the end like we just ran ten miles to find 400 naked blondes dancing at the finish line. Simply amazing.

I have heard the songs a thousand times, no more than that... but it did not matter. The music rang in my ears every second of the train ride home.  It is ringing now.  I am finding myself wishing I could go back tonight and do it all again. I missed Pink Floyd in the 80s, and I missed Gilmour taking them out in the 90s.  But I am happy to say that I managed to catch Waters doing it now.  It is rumored that he and Gilmour are on at least speaking terms again, and they teamed up for a show last year in England... so maybe we will get the chance to see them together one last time in the states. If so, I absolutely will be there.  If you were on the fence about seeing this show, and you have the chance to go, GO. This is one of those moments that we live life for and must be experienced.

Jawaballs

Up and coming blogger fun? Brent!

Hey folks!  As part of my ongoing efforts in community support, I wanted to give a shout out to a fellow blogger, friend, and professional stalker,  Brent!  Brent's blog Simply Average has really taken some strides in the last year for the better!  The question is... how?  I mean, really, Brent has made a cyber career out of rehashing blogospheredrama and stalking me. So why do I give him props?  By the way, I'm just busting his balls. I give him props because he has done it with style.  I met him at Bolscon last year and we played a fun game and had a great conversation. That is because he is likable! We ended up hanging out the whole weekend and I know I have a friend to chill with the next time we travel to the same destination. But also, he has a unique and funny sense of humor that does not deviate from it's purpose.  (not sure what that purpose is just yet...)  He has some how managed to weasel his way into writing on two of the heavy hitter blogs in the realm, and has become one of the more recognizable internet personalities. Not bad for a year's time! All of his articles are refreshing and fun to read, if not entirely full of sense.  Any way, it is to Brent that I offer the first Rising Star of Internet Fanboi Love award. Brent, I am your 151st follower. And readers, if you do not already follow him, I urge you to visit his blog and do the same. Go get some more strange in your life. There are much worse ways to waste your time than reading his stuff!

Jawaballs